Give the networks some credit

The closing of multiple Borders Bookstores nationwide has left me with some mixed feelings. On the one hand, I grew up going to Borders at least once a month and walking away with some shining treasure. Not only was Borders where I discovered the wonderful novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but that is where I also picked up my one and only copy of Diehard GameFan magazine. That magazine is unparalleled to this day. It’s probably why I have such warped sensibilities about video games. I later went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which happens to feature the first Borders Bookstore right on its campus.

But on the other hand, sales speak loudly to my multimedia habits. It was difficult to hold back, but I refused to go until the minimum discounted price was 50%. My fiancee and I went and tried to find new treasures. By then the store was already picked apart by people who give in too easily. Scott Pilgrim books and DVDs were not to be found, nor were any of the more exciting graphic novels and manga. The science fiction was left bare once we realized that the only items present were derivative materials and new releases that had been pulled out of overstock. The only section that contained anything at all worthwhile was the DVD section, because their discounted material was still around the cost most stores charge for the items – which makes me wonder if one business failing of Borders was the fact that Borders is the only store anywhere that sells DVDs at MSRP.

Click for a Veridian Dynamics commercial from the show

I came across two of my favorite recently canceled shows: Dollhouse (Season 2) and Better Off Ted (Season 1). I think overall I saved approximately $8 on what they would cost me through Amazon, but I didn’t care. These were shows that belonged in my collection. It’s one of the few times in recent years that I ignored my $15 per DVD/set limit.

Interestingly, I had actually been thinking about canceled shows quite a bit. This was sparked by my reading too many comments on various blogs about enthusiast materials. There is an annoying aspect of fandom that seems to require everyone think the same way and regard all material in a similar fashion. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. New movies that get released require the same opinion, and only certain television shows require support. Then there’s the vilification of anything that gets in the way. The most common form of this is the canceled TV series, whose failure must be blamed on the television network.

No more Heroes…

I have written about Heroes in the past, so it is definitely appropriate to leave a note here about its announced cancelation. Heroes was not Dollhouse. It is not a show that was too smart for FOX Friday nights. It was a show that exemplified subtle execution in its first season and then exhibited attrition of its own potential the following three years. Last season showed potential. It took an amazing step forward with its finale. But that was too little and too late to save the series.

There are rumors of a TV movie sendoff for the series. I have my doubts that will actually take off. It should. One thing the show often did right was its handling of time travel and glimpses of the future. There are only a handful of different future possibilities, and some of them fit hand-in-hand together. Each season shows a step away from the dystopia coupled with a movement toward ruin. Season 4 ended with a leap toward all of the scenarios – the specials were outted. Fans who managed to keep with the show despite its many missteps deserve to see the fallout.

The Nielsen group wants more commercials on your internet

Anyone who reads this blog probably views some portion of his or her television load on the internet, likely streamed from an official source. I used to download a good portion of my missed television, but streaming sites like Hulu have definitely improved to the point where I don’t care so much about quality issues. In fact, I just watched “Pilot, Part 1” of Caprica on Hulu in HD with one minor hiccup. Watching streamed content almost seems preferable at this point, despite having to wait until the sunrise following the actual airing to see it.

One advantage people have mentioned to me about online viewing that never really clicked was the reduced or removed load of commercial content. Before I downloaded, streamed, or DVRed, commercials rarely meant anything to me because I used them as bathroom and snack breaks. I would simply tune out until the show came back on. Others have taken heavy issue with commercials, adapting other viewing methods to actively filter them out or avoid them. We are at war with the advertisers, and I never received my draft notice.

Some people are concerned about Nielsen’s latest announcement that streamed television shows will likely see the same commercial yield as their properly aired brothers. The exact same commercials. I guess this, in a way, makes the DVR the legal alternative for commercial-free viewing.

The only reason this bothers me is because I continue to think that the Nielsen’s are an outdated model for determining anything of worth in terms of a show’s commercial viability. Despite that, this is a good move toward modernization. In effect they are saying that the online viewer is important. It’s too bad that they’re important less for their viewership of a particular series and more for their inherent ability to view advertising. Nielsen cares about commercials over content.

So what’s the problem with seeing commercials anyway? I speculate that people attribute it to a base-level annoyance with interference during an otherwise pure viewing of something. Why should someone have to watch a car ad when they just want to watch Phil and Lem create another invention for Veridian that will somehow be used for war? It really does get in the way. Many of us just change the channel.

But that’s not the problem. The problem with commercials is not that they exist. The problem with commercials is that they suck. Watching Mad Men has helped to dishearten me to the current commercial environment. Don Draper creates elegant yet slick ads with a certain passion that sells the product and more. The commercials I see, even accompanying a broadcast of Mad Man (where AMC should charge a high premium for the best of the best ads), are essentially selling me shit that I don’t need just so I can say I have it. That’s the amount of care advertisers are putting into their commercials – especially when they make the same commercial they’ve already made or the same commercial their competition has made. Many of us have reduced our television viewing over the years, partially in avoidance of crap. Such commercials should be avoided as well. Seeing it online is hardly a welcome change.

There is a silver lining, however. Online viewing is a more active and interactive experience than television viewing. You point, you click, you shift to HD, and you might even have some other process going on. You’re engaged. Hulu further engages the viewer with options to send a link to friends, rate the particular content you’re viewing, and approve or disapprove of the scant ads provided. I love telling Hulu which ads I don’t like, since it then shows them to me less often. That will not happen with fixed ads, but I would love if I could still provide direct feedback for a bad commercial. That is what Nielsen should consider after this shift. Advertising is welcome so long as the user has control of content in some regard. In this way, we would be telling them what works and what does not work.

Control of commercial content is not important to them at this juncture. What Nielsen wants is to turn the internet into the same advertising agent that it turned television into so long ago. People are voicing disgust, but it will not affect online viewership. People turn to the internet for television not because of their being bothered by commercials but rather for the accessibility. I work until 9 p.m. on a good night. I don’t mind streaming Scrubs on Tuesday morning alongside breakfast.

There’s another silver lining with this. While there has been no mention of it so far, maybe the Nielsen Ratings will start reflecting the contributions of online content. Shows with large online viewerships may last longer due to proof that someone is watching them (or watching the commercials). Maybe this could have protected Dollhouse. If given another season, this might protect Chuck. I would be especially for this if they kept Hulu’s 5-star rating system and took it seriously. Producers could learn a thing or two from what viewers actually like versus the tired method of saying a viewer who left his TV on for an hour actually liked the show.

Dollhouse, science fiction, and television culture

Science fiction television, and the related subgenres, does not seem to last very long anymore. It’s kind of disappointing. When I was younger, every week had a new Star Trek episode. There were special science fiction miniseries on various channels. Heck, science fiction movies used to air on local networks on the weekends. Science fiction, for better or for worse, was something people wanted to see.

What happened? The various Star Trek series tapered off, and shows living in the outer layers of science fiction started taking off. Lost fits in with most science fiction, although many viewers refuse to admit it. Heroes may be wavering in its quality right now, but the first season’s mash-up of X-Men powers and storylines with prime time drama tropes made for must-see TV among the usually unenthused. Then there’s Fringe, which I think only gets watched because it has an X-Files vibe and is made by the same people who make Lost. And now we have FlashForward, a show that I enjoy quite a bit despite some pre-release crap about its not being science fiction. Explain to me how a show with the premise that there was a worldwide epidemic of people suffering blackouts and seeing their lives six months in the future is not part of the genre.

That’s a handful of shows on TV today, but none really push what science fiction is supposed to be. FOX, a channel reviled for its practices, actually supported the production of two great series that just weren’t meant to last. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles was basically about time travel, sentient robots, the creation of artificial intelligence, and the making of a hero. The show died just before its story could kick into high gear. Then there’s Dollhouse, for which I should not have to remind you about my love. The story deals with a place that can rent out the person of your dreams for the right price, the price paid by the participants, the price paid by the staff, and ultimately the price that will be paid by a world in which the technology to erase and rewrite the mind exists – especially in a world with such a great divide in class and power.

Great science fiction like the aforementioned shows gets overlooked because of not only the complexity of the themes but also the complexity of the story structure. The old series Hill Street Blues popularized the current serialized nature of television, but these shows that aren’t making it seem to take the serialization to another level. It’s not just about paying attention to multiple storylines from episode to episode. It’s about paying attention to the details. These are shows that work great on DVD, where the viewer can flip back and forth between episodes as if they were chapters in a book. That structure doesn’t work out so well for weekly television, especially to the casual viewer.

I’m bringing this up, with an unnecessarily long introduction, because FOX is going to cancel my favorite television series of the past year. Dollhouse’s ratings since the beginning of the season have been poor. They’ve been so poor that FOX is pulling the show during the November sweeps and replacing it with reruns of House and Bones. The show will come back on in December with back-to-back episode airings as FOX tries to rush through the remaining episodes. This is very, very bad news.

It was expected news, however. The only reason the series was renewed was because the Hulu and DVR numbers were promising in the first season. They thought that they could build upon that, and Joss Whedon promised to cut the price-per-episode. I doubt the numbers will be enough this time around to ensure an extension to the current season, let alone a renewal for another season.

And I can’t pretend I don’t know why people aren’t latching onto the show like they should be. Dollhouse is really good, but it’s complicated – Philip K. Dick complicated. The whole series is based on questions of morality and ethics, not to mention what it takes to be a human and what it means to be an individual. And power. Power is a huge theme being investigated this season, especially in the two most recent episodes. Episode 3, “Belle Chose”, explored the falsehoods of men in power suggesting that the victims are the ones in power and basically bring things upon themselves. The participants in this exercise were a serial killer with dangerous mommy issues and an English professor who enjoys the whore in Chaucer’s bathhouse just a little too much. Episode 4, “Belonging”, explored how Sierra ended up in the Dollhouse. As alluded to in season one, there was a very powerful man who wanted her but was rejected, so he did everything he could to turn her into a whore. Meanwhile, we have members of the Dollhouse staff who find him repulsive and wish to save her from him – but what kind of moral ground do staffers in what one could deem far more questionable than prostitution have in this kind of situation? And what is justice?

A few years ago a pop psychology book called Everything Bad is Good for You came to my attention. It was about the development of the complexity of multimedia and the subsequent mental development of the viewers. The more complicated television becomes, the more it pushes the viewers to process and work their brains closer to their limits. Hill Street Blues was cited as the example for complex television, running a couple of serialized storylines alongside the episodic elements. That was in the 80’s. An example of how complex shows have become was The Sopranos, with several serialized storylines running at once during any given episode.

I just wonder where a series like Dollhouse would fall into the author’s discussion of complexity. Due to the abbreviated nature of each season (13 episodes), there isn’t much time to develop subplots. As it stands, the subplots exist but are pretty understated. The real complexity comes in the form of the episodic elements and the questions the viewers face every week. This is not too different from the original intent of Star Trek, but the commentary often found itself obscured under the loud makeup and hammy acting. (That which we love, by the way.) However, Dollhouse treats the viewers like the dolls/actives themselves. Since you consented to watching the show, it’s going to treat you like its whore and ram you headlong into everything it has. The show doesn’t hesitate to tell you that the actives are often prostitutes. It doesn’t hold back in it story about rape and being enslaved in the Dollhouse. It doesn’t even lie to you and tell you that the people who work in the Dollhouse are pure and working for the greater good. These people are possibly wicked. What does it say about you when you want Adelle Dewitt, a rich slave driver with no link to the real world, and Topher Brink, a sociopathic genius, to succeed week after week?

People don’t like questions like these and tend to avoid them. The ratings for Dollhouse are reflective of that. I just wonder if viewing a series that is even remotely philosophical like this could be good for people in the long run, as would be suggested by Everything Bad is Good for You. Or maybe people aren’t watching because they just aren’t ready for that level of complexity. Yet.

Dollhouse renewed!

This was something I only managed to foresee due to stubborn optimism, but Joss Whedon’s latest creation, Dollhouse, has been renewed by Fox for another 13 episodes in the Fall.  Apparently the the executive higher-ups at Fox enjoyed the latter episodes, those Whedon created sans heavily corrupted input from Fox producers,  and thought that the DVR, Hulu, and iTunes numbers were enough to make up for the lackluster numbers on the traditionally ratings dry Friday night schedule.  Obviously, I can’t hide my excitement, as I am definitely looking forward to the return of a show that helped keep my optimism for genre television from waning after the disappointment that was the Battlestar Galactica finale.

Also, the Dollhouse DVD and Blu-ray have been announced for a late July release.  Again, something about which I’m excited, and something that the execs are expecting to sell well enough to keep the show relevant.

Dollhouse ep. 9 – “A Spy in the House of Love”

The most recent episode of the current most interesting show on television, Dollhouse, did not fail to keep up the pace as established by episode 6 of the series.  The performances are strong, the versatility of the dolls and their imprints is being further established, and the effects of the existence of the dollhouse are being shown for the people who actually make the place work.  I don’t want to talk too much about the episode without making sure we’re all on the same page, so let’s thank the gods of Hulu for the convenience they provide (for the handful of weeks they keep the episodes up, anyway).

The episode is definitely great, but it makes me ask a few additional questions – both about the world established in the series as well as about the show in general:

• The major mole in the dollhouse has been filtered out.  However, the imprint in November said “we”, meaning there are others involved.  Are they only involved remotely, selectively writing into imprints, or are there others in the dollhouse?
• Is the NSA interested in keeping Ballard alive and on the trail of the dollhouse for any particular reason, or is there an additional source at work here?
• What use would the NSA have for the dollhouse, and if the show is to continue, will the purpose change to protecting the dollhouse from an NSA takeover?
• How responsible are the writers when it seems they want us to believe that all Asians look alike?  Dichen Lachman is from Nepal, whereas Liza Lapira is Chinese and Filipino.  If you don’t know what that means, go to about 19:40 in the video and see that they don’t look anything alike.  And I’m sure that Sierra could simple steal an identity and encounter no one who would notice…
• How badass is DeWitt?  She’s a godly chessmaster when it comes to defending her little palace, she’s a monster of a fencer, and she shrugged off a gunshot.  I have half a mind to sign up with TVtropes and write a WMG (Wild Mass Guess) entry about her being a slayer working within Wolfram & Hart to help take down the organization once and for all.
• DeWitt suggests that Echo took on the task to protect herself from a threat, that being Dominic.  However, she didn’t have any reason to believe that Dominic was the mole, so it seems that she was protecting her existence in the dollhouse.  Does she subconsciously accept her chosen fate within the dollhouse’s confines for five years?
• Is this episode supposed to signify a shift in how we’re supposed to perceive the dollhouse?  At least this dollhouse in particular?  It’s really not all that vile and definitely worth protecting?
• Are we supposed to think that Eliza Dushku in S&M gear is hot?  It’s not.  She doesn’t have the body for it.
• While I absolutely love Prison Break, does FOX think that airing that next week in Dollhouse’s timeslot won’t potentially harm Dollhouse?

I can’t wait for the next episode, two weeks from now, and neither should you.  The numbers for the show haven’t been great.  The DVR numbers are great, but there aren’t enough views through its actual broadcast time and Hulu.  Surprisingly, the torrent download numbers aren’t that great either.  I want this show to succeed.  The first five episodes, save for the presence of Matt Keeslar, were pretty much a waste.  Everything since has been gold.  I want to see this show progress.  There’s much to get out of this show, not just for Whedon fans (who really need to choose better idols) and sci-fi fans.  It’s a really interesting show, and I refuse to accept that the only things allowed to live for long on television are reality shows and mindless, endless series.

Your Favorite Shows Might Be in Danger

A couple of my favorite shows are in danger. The ratings aren’t looking so hot, even though I think that the current method of determining a show’s being watched is far outdated. After all, we’re in the age of DVR and (legal) digital streams.

Check out the hit list.

There are only two shows on that list for which I care: Dollhouse and Reaper. The former I’ve discussed a couple of times previously. What I haven’t done is return to it and discuss how much better it’s gotten since episode six. Now that it’s following the path laid down by Whedon, Dollhouse kind of rocks. And I still have no idea where it’s going or how the season may potentially end. It’s been doing a great job of keeping me interested. Plus I’ve decided that Dichen Lachman is indeed very beautiful. You know what? Here’s a freebie link for episode 6: “Man on the Street”

It isn’t difficult to see how the show is failing. It airs on Friday nights at 9 p.m., and the plot is difficult to describe to people. You kind of end up asking questions as you describe it. “Is it human trafficking? We really don’t know. Are people there against their will? Well, maybe.” People prefer plots that are easily described in the form of a laconism. Scrubs? Medical comedy (optionally includes “with non sequitur dream sequences and guy love”). Heroes? Normal people get powers and angst over them. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Preppy teen is chosen to kill vampires.

The laconics are often used to deter someone from viewing a series, too. (See last example.)

The latter show I’ve been meaning to write about for some time but haven’t really found a reason to do so. Reaper is a funny show about a bounty hunter for the Devil who happens to be a college-age slacker with equally slacker friends. It is a buddy comedy featuring the paranormal. The fact that they even had one season is amazing to me. This second season is even better, but no one watches it. I’m actually proud of the show, too. The current cast features three very beautiful women, and they avoid over sexualizing them for the audience. While the audience has seen Kristen, played by Eriko Tamura, in some states of under dress, none have been put in scanty clothing. It might have been in the producers’ best interests to do so, I guess.

The other shows on the list can go. I have yet to watch an episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I guess I’m not going to start anytime soon. I hear good things about it, but I’m not interested in an alternate timeline for The Terminator. Not unless it involves Robocop.