TV vs. Film

I have to admit that the relatively recent development of issuing DVD box sets of TV shows has really changed my opinion of the medium. I've pretty much avoided watching TV since I started college, maybe catching some simpson's rerun or conan o'brien. There have been flirtations with South Park, Undeclared, and, currently, Scrubs, but for the most part there's been nothing that I really have to watch, and I've never had the luxury of HBO's commercial free shows. My problems with TV are obvious, especially when compared to film: the quality is poor, low budget, subpar acting, episodes are structural carbon copies of each other, having to wrap up in 22 or 44 minutes, with a commercial break every 12 minutes, there's no one auteur to guide the program, it always ends up being a more collective vision. Plus, especially when it comes to network TV, the lowest common denominator is the goal, always willing to sacrifice art for ratings.

So it wasn't really until two years ago that my opinion started to shift. It was then that I bought my first crop of DVD box sets: SportsNight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Six Feet Under. These are all shows that I had seen one or three episodes of when they were on the air (the pilot of SFU I watched on the web), and did enjoy, but despite the critical acclaim for the shows I never could find the time to watch them. When I finally got the DVDs, I was surprised to find how much I liked watching the shows. Without commercials, each episode seems to fly by, and can be better appreciated. Even better, I finally understood the rather obvious advantage TV has over film: that the stories can go on forever. Awful sequels aside, a movie has to introduce characters, give them problems, and solve them all in a space of 90 to 150 minutes, which is the longest an audience can sit in uncomfortable theatre seats without going crazy. A TV show, while it has to work with the clunky 'episode' format, can develop characters that can grow and change over a long period of time, and feature storylines that unfold over the course of an entire season or more. Thus, the best DVDs sets to buy are of shows that best take advantage of this opportunity. I now regret ever buying the first season of south park; episodes are funny, but there's no real need to see every episode, I'm now content watching random reruns on cable. But I've really gotten into the aforementioned shows, along with Freaks and Geeks and The West Wing. When I get home from work late and don't have much free time, watching a 42 minutes episode is a lot more manageable than watching a movie, and you get a lot more entertainment for the price. Granted, TV shows don't quite have the replayability of a movie, but still.

I was thinking about when they make movies out of TV shows, and how everything changes, despite the same characters, when the format shifts. Examples include, of course, the ubiquitous star trek, along with the X-files and South Park movies. I can't really think of any other examples. There was a show on fox a couple years ago, which of course was quickly cancelled and then found sucess on DVD, that is now being made into a feature film, to be released next spring. The show was called 'Firefly,' the movie 'Serenity,' and I did catch about a half dozen of the aired episodes, and thought it to be pretty good. The movie is being made with all of the same actors, along with the series creator as writer and director. I'm very curious to see how it turns out, just to see how it adapts to the big screen. The show itself is kind of a weird outer space/sci fi meets Western (literally) and is created by Joss Wheden, who is probably the best tv writer ever, but also wrote lots of films as well.