![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
May. 1st, 2006 08:15 am
Clip shows: A rant
I'm really getting annoyed with what has become, for ABC, a recurring tactic: The "catch up" show.
These are episodes of popular shows, such as Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, and Lost, which show the "highlights" of the season so far so that the drones who haven't been paying attention to the show already can feel less stupid at the water-cooler conversations.
You know, the time was that people could be trusted to keep track of the programming they liked. The networks assumed that people would make an effort to keep up with a show they actually enjoy. But ABC seems to have decided that either the viewers of their flagship programs are too stupid to know what's going on after 18 episodes, or they're so desperate to pull in viewers they feel they need to pander to them.
I started watching Desperate Housewives at the end of season 1. It took me very little time to get caught up with what had happened. (Incidentally, do not waste your webspace on attempts to shame me; not only do I react with disgust to such folks, I feel the need to point out that mileage varies. One man's trash is another man's funny satire of suburbanites). I've been following Lost since the beginning, and while I can see it suffers from Abrams' Syndrome*, but I still care about it. Mainly because the draw isn't as much "What is happening on this Island, and Why?" but "What makes these people tick?" The characters are interesting, so I stick with it.
But for crap's sake, ABC! Stop telling me there's a new episode when it's just a badly-framed clip show!
EDIT: I KNOW the reasons the networks do this. You don't need to tell me the realities of network television, kids. I'm ranting.
*Abrams' Syndrome: Suffered by many new shows that "borrowed" their format from J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost. Symptoms include trickling the story out so slowly that by the time something becomes known to the audience, they don't care anymore (or have forgotten why it's important), plodding story movement, and exciting-but-empty episodes where cool stuff happens on screen, but the story isn't advanced beyond a half-inch.
These are episodes of popular shows, such as Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, and Lost, which show the "highlights" of the season so far so that the drones who haven't been paying attention to the show already can feel less stupid at the water-cooler conversations.
You know, the time was that people could be trusted to keep track of the programming they liked. The networks assumed that people would make an effort to keep up with a show they actually enjoy. But ABC seems to have decided that either the viewers of their flagship programs are too stupid to know what's going on after 18 episodes, or they're so desperate to pull in viewers they feel they need to pander to them.
I started watching Desperate Housewives at the end of season 1. It took me very little time to get caught up with what had happened. (Incidentally, do not waste your webspace on attempts to shame me; not only do I react with disgust to such folks, I feel the need to point out that mileage varies. One man's trash is another man's funny satire of suburbanites). I've been following Lost since the beginning, and while I can see it suffers from Abrams' Syndrome*, but I still care about it. Mainly because the draw isn't as much "What is happening on this Island, and Why?" but "What makes these people tick?" The characters are interesting, so I stick with it.
But for crap's sake, ABC! Stop telling me there's a new episode when it's just a badly-framed clip show!
EDIT: I KNOW the reasons the networks do this. You don't need to tell me the realities of network television, kids. I'm ranting.
*Abrams' Syndrome: Suffered by many new shows that "borrowed" their format from J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost. Symptoms include trickling the story out so slowly that by the time something becomes known to the audience, they don't care anymore (or have forgotten why it's important), plodding story movement, and exciting-but-empty episodes where cool stuff happens on screen, but the story isn't advanced beyond a half-inch.