Editor's note: Matt's still on his quest to watch every single episode of American Idol this season. Everyone has to have goals, we suppose.
As if it wasn't bad enough that American Idol had to pad it's schedule with a clip show last night, I had to watch it. Not that I really even got to it until about 2 p.m. this afternoon (thank you Tivo). I did watch Lost (and some other actually entertaining shows) upon arriving at home and was pleasantly surprised at an amazing return effort. I'm a giggling little schoolgirl when it comes to Lost, and I couldn't have been happier at a wonderfully action-packed episode. I was stoked to see guests from two of my favorite shows -- Always Sunny's Mac and Deadwood's Calamity Jane -- and even more excited that they dropped some fanboy bombs on us. I'll hold off on the spoilers until this weekend when I may have to get my geek on and watch the whole episode again.
Anyway, clip shows are the second lamest form of television (behind reality). I hate them so much I deleted even the Lost catch-up from the DVR without a second thought. There's no need to make the hardcore viewer sit through stuff like this -- or delete it from their DVR or bgrudgingly change the station -- especially if your motive is to attract new viewers to your waning shows or catch people up who missed a few episodes and may be hesitant to try to pick up the story mid-season. Either way, do it on the Web -- that's the perfect place because it offers an on-demand environment and doesn't make someone who loves the show angry that they're being cheated out of a new ep that week. USA has the right idea with their two-minute online recaps.
Now, I understand this was "extra" Idol content -- stuff we didn't see or stuff that was so good or bad that we, like, just HAVE to see it again. That's a more reasonable excuse, but I still call it editing-room leftovers. I paid more attention to the two-minute preview for the Shrek sequel than I did the entire episode of Idol. We're at a point in the life of our society's attention span that we need to get on with the show. Give me continually compelling TV every week without fail. If that means long hiatuses, so be it. Sopranos is doing just fine. Reruns and clip shows are not going to get you viewers -- they can see their reruns on DVD (through Netflix or their local overpriced electronics store) or the Web (legally and illegally); they can see their clips on YouTube.
You want season-filling specials? Give me side-stories, documentaries or something like that. Don't give me stuff I've seen and promise me 20 seconds of something I haven't seen because I'm not sitting through it. America is perfectly willing to give its attention to the networks on a nightly basis and they're insulting us 30 percent of the time.
As if it wasn't bad enough that American Idol had to pad it's schedule with a clip show last night, I had to watch it. Not that I really even got to it until about 2 p.m. this afternoon (thank you Tivo). I did watch Lost (and some other actually entertaining shows) upon arriving at home and was pleasantly surprised at an amazing return effort. I'm a giggling little schoolgirl when it comes to Lost, and I couldn't have been happier at a wonderfully action-packed episode. I was stoked to see guests from two of my favorite shows -- Always Sunny's Mac and Deadwood's Calamity Jane -- and even more excited that they dropped some fanboy bombs on us. I'll hold off on the spoilers until this weekend when I may have to get my geek on and watch the whole episode again.
Anyway, clip shows are the second lamest form of television (behind reality). I hate them so much I deleted even the Lost catch-up from the DVR without a second thought. There's no need to make the hardcore viewer sit through stuff like this -- or delete it from their DVR or bgrudgingly change the station -- especially if your motive is to attract new viewers to your waning shows or catch people up who missed a few episodes and may be hesitant to try to pick up the story mid-season. Either way, do it on the Web -- that's the perfect place because it offers an on-demand environment and doesn't make someone who loves the show angry that they're being cheated out of a new ep that week. USA has the right idea with their two-minute online recaps.
Now, I understand this was "extra" Idol content -- stuff we didn't see or stuff that was so good or bad that we, like, just HAVE to see it again. That's a more reasonable excuse, but I still call it editing-room leftovers. I paid more attention to the two-minute preview for the Shrek sequel than I did the entire episode of Idol. We're at a point in the life of our society's attention span that we need to get on with the show. Give me continually compelling TV every week without fail. If that means long hiatuses, so be it. Sopranos is doing just fine. Reruns and clip shows are not going to get you viewers -- they can see their reruns on DVD (through Netflix or their local overpriced electronics store) or the Web (legally and illegally); they can see their clips on YouTube.
You want season-filling specials? Give me side-stories, documentaries or something like that. Don't give me stuff I've seen and promise me 20 seconds of something I haven't seen because I'm not sitting through it. America is perfectly willing to give its attention to the networks on a nightly basis and they're insulting us 30 percent of the time.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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