The Writers' Strike
The writers' strike is looming near in Klaskyville.
We watch a lot of TV. A fair amount of it is sports - baseball, college basketball, some pro basketball, hockey, football.... But a lot of it is series TV - mostly dramas - Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty and House and Numbers and Shark and Heroes and Chuck and probably a couple of things that I'm forgetting. We Tivo almost everything and watch through without commercials later in the evening or week.
As the strike has gone on, we've watched our stock of shows get closer and closer to their end-points. Tivo lets you see what's coming up in its recording, and we've seen "two weeks left of ___" and "one week left of ___". We've now gotten to the end of all of our shows, except for Numbers, which will "end" this Friday.
I have very mixed emotions about this. I enjoy the shows that we watch. (Shows that I don't enjoy get relegated to the "watch 'em without me" pile - a few shows that we Tivo and that Mark watches while I travel.) I usually do something else while the TV is on - solve the Sunday paper's Samurai Sudoku, or quilt. I am usually tired when I get home, and it's nice to have a mindless evening activity.
And yet, I am almost *excited* that the shows are gone. We have Netflix movies to watch, and the PBS miniseries on The War that we recorded but have not watched. But I find that I'm looking forward to evenings that aren't blocked out around shows.
And then, I ask myself, why watch the shows, if I'm excited not to watch them. And I circle back to, "I enjoy the shows that we watch."
I know people who've thrown out their TVs entirely. I don't think that's a solution - there's a certain common currency in entertainment, and I enjoy being able to discuss shows with friends. But getting back some of my free time - that's not too bad either...
Mindy, working hard to define the word "ambivalent" :-)
We watch a lot of TV. A fair amount of it is sports - baseball, college basketball, some pro basketball, hockey, football.... But a lot of it is series TV - mostly dramas - Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty and House and Numbers and Shark and Heroes and Chuck and probably a couple of things that I'm forgetting. We Tivo almost everything and watch through without commercials later in the evening or week.
As the strike has gone on, we've watched our stock of shows get closer and closer to their end-points. Tivo lets you see what's coming up in its recording, and we've seen "two weeks left of ___" and "one week left of ___". We've now gotten to the end of all of our shows, except for Numbers, which will "end" this Friday.
I have very mixed emotions about this. I enjoy the shows that we watch. (Shows that I don't enjoy get relegated to the "watch 'em without me" pile - a few shows that we Tivo and that Mark watches while I travel.) I usually do something else while the TV is on - solve the Sunday paper's Samurai Sudoku, or quilt. I am usually tired when I get home, and it's nice to have a mindless evening activity.
And yet, I am almost *excited* that the shows are gone. We have Netflix movies to watch, and the PBS miniseries on The War that we recorded but have not watched. But I find that I'm looking forward to evenings that aren't blocked out around shows.
And then, I ask myself, why watch the shows, if I'm excited not to watch them. And I circle back to, "I enjoy the shows that we watch."
I know people who've thrown out their TVs entirely. I don't think that's a solution - there's a certain common currency in entertainment, and I enjoy being able to discuss shows with friends. But getting back some of my free time - that's not too bad either...
Mindy, working hard to define the word "ambivalent" :-)
Other than that, I will watch some TV series as they come out on DVD (Firefly and Battlestar Galactica for example) or watch the episodes online.
But mostly I watch movies at my liesure.
Interestingly enough, I tried watching a sitcom a couple weeks ago since I was killing time before Heroes. The loud, obnoxious fake-sounding laugh track ruined the show for me. It ruined every semi-amusing line and just made the show painful to watch. I don't need the producers telling me what is funny. Seriously.
Do I feel good about our choices? For the most part, yes. I like that I can control what we watch, and we're not slaves to a TV Schedule. Going home over Thanksgiving was a lesson in our inability to pull ourselves away from the shiny blinking box, and we watched things just because they were on, and not necessarily because we like it (Ghosthunters, anyone?). I didn't like it at all!
In this instance my sympathies are with the writers, but I have a horrible fear the strike will kill THE BIG BANG THEORY, my favorite new show.
As someone who's spent over 20 years working backstage in theatre, film, and television as well as writing, I can tell you that, especially in television and film, the writer is not only often paid inappropriately to the content, but the work is so diluted by the time it reaches the screen that it bears little resemblance to its true original quality.
The way to help the writers -- whom we should be supporting, since we, too are writers -- is to put pressure on the sponsors/advertisers of scripted shows and let them know we won't buy their products unless the writers get a fair deal.
As a union negotiator, this is something about which I feel quite passionately (even though I'm not directly involved in WGA negotiations -- I've served as a negotiator for my union).
(Anonymous)
Writers' strike
Here's my list of things to do during the strike: www.themerryperi.blogspot.com/
I'm definitely open to more ideas!
Beth