Movies are limited to a 3 hour or so runtime. There is only so much story you can tell in that time.
There are a lot of advantages to telling stories in a serial medium. Unfortunately it has the disadvantage that you have to watch all the episodes and sometimes that is hard (though with hulu around, it really isn't that bad these days).
If TV was delivered on demand instead of broadcast then maybe some of these issues would go away. As it is, I often record many weeks of a show before I spend a night watching 2-3 episodes at a stretch. I prefer that to watching 2-3 different shows in an evening.
people might finally be getting sick of them, but they have dominated for quite some time now and they don't have to get awesome ratings because they are dirt cheep to produce.
Dramas are expensive to produce (sci fi ones doubly so) and generally the audience has to tune in every week. They dont make much money in syndication because people dont sit down and watch one random episode (this might be less true now with so many cable stations where people catch up on shows they missed the first time around).
Comedies are cheeper to produce. They are episodic so you can just catch an episode at random. They almost always make it to 100 episodes so they can be syndicated where they make good money because they make such great filler.
Reality shows are practically free to make. You get your "tallent" cheep, you dont pay writers (and editors are still paid rather poorly despite how much work they have to do on these) and they make good money. They don't go into syndication but the production costs are so low that it doesn't matter.
Reality shows can also be made to appeal to the lowest common denominator and in many cases can be made episodic (game show style, even elimination type shows, you don't need to see the previous week to care what happens this week).
That's the run down of TV these days. Comedies always trumped dramas because of low production cost and long term value, but Reality shows work even better. If you ran a studio, what would you produce?
you got it backwards. The episode was set up so you would think that the interrogation was all in her head and she was actually in a sleep hospital, but it was the other way around.
The interrogation was real and the hospital was in her head. That's how she ended up with the tracker in her breast that came into play in the last 3 episodes. Definitely not a throw away episode.
when you have time travel involved, you cant really step on toes. The show allowed for the fact that the future was always changing. In theory one could change it enough that the show never even happened (but that would leave us with Terminator 3 and nobody wants that).
This is so very true. There are few shows that manage that balance so well. Dollhouse manages hybrid episodes from time to time and Fringe usually manages to avoid having episodes that are entirely throw away but Terminator really gave nice packages of plot that still advanced the overall story.
That's why its such a shame it didn't make it. That's a model Id like to see others learn from.
Make sure the meat is at room temperature before you start cooking. dont go crazy on the cooking teperature and use indirect heat for part of the cooking process (not directly over coals / flames)
There is debate about searing over direct heat first or cooking under indirect heat first and then searing. Either way you go, you will do better than a dried up husk of a steak that you get using direct heat the whole time.
I'm a little disapointed that I didn't think the exact same thing during that scene (the jump to warp scene that is, I felt the same way about the Vulcan academy scene).
Exactly. Sulu is badass in a fight. Infact, isnt there another episode where Sulu uses a sword? The one where some alien force is pitting some klingons against the crew and it disables all the energy weapons. It was pretty true to the charachter.
I actually thought John Cho did a pretty good job. I will admit that I kept expecting him to start talking about getting high and going to White Castle but really... is that his fault?
Seems like there is a market opportunity for a band oriented networking site. Something that gives you what Myspace does but without all the crap that has nothing to do with the band plus some basic merchandising abilities.
If only networking sites inter-operated so you could see updates about your favorite band on your own myFace page.
sure, there was a lot of crap, but did you really have to dig deep to find Led Zeplin or U2?
If I need a map and a sextant to find good music that's being made in this decade, then it is reasonable to say that there is a problem.
Ive found a few good bands from digging or from friends who did the digging for me, but I don't think you had to do that in the past. Sure, there was good counter culture music, but there was also good mainstream, top 40s music.
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Id have to go back and watch the episode, but I thought the deal was that he survived the gunshot wound.
I mean, doesn't john gets killed by a terminator in the hospital? Clearly that wasn't real.
Movies are limited to a 3 hour or so runtime. There is only so much story you can tell in that time.
There are a lot of advantages to telling stories in a serial medium. Unfortunately it has the disadvantage that you have to watch all the episodes and sometimes that is hard (though with hulu around, it really isn't that bad these days).
If TV was delivered on demand instead of broadcast then maybe some of these issues would go away. As it is, I often record many weeks of a show before I spend a night watching 2-3 episodes at a stretch. I prefer that to watching 2-3 different shows in an evening.
people might finally be getting sick of them, but they have dominated for quite some time now and they don't have to get awesome ratings because they are dirt cheep to produce.
different shows.
Dramas are expensive to produce (sci fi ones doubly so) and generally the audience has to tune in every week. They dont make much money in syndication because people dont sit down and watch one random episode (this might be less true now with so many cable stations where people catch up on shows they missed the first time around).
Comedies are cheeper to produce. They are episodic so you can just catch an episode at random. They almost always make it to 100 episodes so they can be syndicated where they make good money because they make such great filler.
Reality shows are practically free to make. You get your "tallent" cheep, you dont pay writers (and editors are still paid rather poorly despite how much work they have to do on these) and they make good money. They don't go into syndication but the production costs are so low that it doesn't matter.
Reality shows can also be made to appeal to the lowest common denominator and in many cases can be made episodic (game show style, even elimination type shows, you don't need to see the previous week to care what happens this week).
That's the run down of TV these days. Comedies always trumped dramas because of low production cost and long term value, but Reality shows work even better. If you ran a studio, what would you produce?
you got it backwards. The episode was set up so you would think that the interrogation was all in her head and she was actually in a sleep hospital, but it was the other way around.
The interrogation was real and the hospital was in her head. That's how she ended up with the tracker in her breast that came into play in the last 3 episodes. Definitely not a throw away episode.
The library one kind of was.
yep the whole set of Dollhouse was put together with an allen wrench after being unloaded from flat pack boxes.
Of course, terminator didn't have sets at all.
It is odd. One would think the new movie would have a good chance of bumping up the viwership for the show.
Anyway, SciFi (or SYFY or whatever) should pick up the show. God knows they don't have anything else right now.
when you have time travel involved, you cant really step on toes. The show allowed for the fact that the future was always changing. In theory one could change it enough that the show never even happened (but that would leave us with Terminator 3 and nobody wants that).
Maybe this time, because of firefly, they actually thought to look at more than just the hard ratings?
Its actually a pretty impressive jump for TV executives.
This is so very true. There are few shows that manage that balance so well. Dollhouse manages hybrid episodes from time to time and Fringe usually manages to avoid having episodes that are entirely throw away but Terminator really gave nice packages of plot that still advanced the overall story.
That's why its such a shame it didn't make it. That's a model Id like to see others learn from.
after season 1 they expanded the plot due to the huge success. JMS had 5 years planned out before shooting a single scene.
Also, he get credit because he was really the first person to do something like that with a weekly TV series.
5 seasons actually. The fact that it was dropped and picked up by another network forced JMS to wrap some things up a little early.
Still, it was way cooler than anything that came before it in that respect. I just wish more shows could be like that.
It seems like it would be less costly to keep it warm rather than letting it cool down and heating it back up everyday.
How long before driving? If I go out and have a beer with my lunch at 1pm can I drive home at 5?
Make sure the meat is at room temperature before you start cooking. dont go crazy on the cooking teperature and use indirect heat for part of the cooking process (not directly over coals / flames)
There is debate about searing over direct heat first or cooking under indirect heat first and then searing. Either way you go, you will do better than a dried up husk of a steak that you get using direct heat the whole time.
You'd blacken the piss out if it before the center hit room temperature
Generally, steak should be at room temperature when you start to cook it. This is certainly true of a 2" thick steak.
DAMN.
I'm a little disapointed that I didn't think the exact same thing during that scene (the jump to warp scene that is, I felt the same way about the Vulcan academy scene).
Exactly. Sulu is badass in a fight. Infact, isnt there another episode where Sulu uses a sword? The one where some alien force is pitting some klingons against the crew and it disables all the energy weapons. It was pretty true to the charachter.
I actually thought John Cho did a pretty good job. I will admit that I kept expecting him to start talking about getting high and going to White Castle but really... is that his fault?
No reason to shun WOW players.
they never get out of the house anyway.
the one I hate most is: hir
Is that really English?
Didn't think so.
If growing is only illegal due to international treaties, why spend money to deploy drug sniffing drones to hunt down the people growing.
Seems a little backwards to me, unless its just a way of taxing the product by busting a few large ops
putting the towers on the front cover was a bit PR mistake though. If they hadnt done that they probably would have avoided this whole mess.
You cant judge a book from its cover, but most people do anyway.
Seems like there is a market opportunity for a band oriented networking site. Something that gives you what Myspace does but without all the crap that has nothing to do with the band plus some basic merchandising abilities.
If only networking sites inter-operated so you could see updates about your favorite band on your own myFace page.
sure, there was a lot of crap, but did you really have to dig deep to find Led Zeplin or U2?
If I need a map and a sextant to find good music that's being made in this decade, then it is reasonable to say that there is a problem.
Ive found a few good bands from digging or from friends who did the digging for me, but I don't think you had to do that in the past. Sure, there was good counter culture music, but there was also good mainstream, top 40s music.