MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Why i hate Modern TV.

Why i hate Modern TV.


Modern TV expect me to watch a 60 hours (mostly boring ) movie that usually stars a cynical, nihilistic and often a morally corrupt character. Who spends most of the runtime being a horrible human being until the whole thing ends. Eventually the writers run out of steam. Even if it started out good. It eventually turns to shit and then it ends horribly like turning out that it was a child imagination, they turn into ferries or the screen goes black. And if the main character is not morally corrupt, hes there just fucking dull. Its no wonder people are watching more Youtube than this shit.

https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/nielsen-youtube-becomes-top-streaming-platform-beating-netflix-for-the-first-time

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60 hours? Most TV shows now are probably about half of that.

Your average TV show was a lot longer in the 00s and 90s.

I find basic "good guy hero protagonist" to be dull

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Assuming the OP meant 60 minutes, you are correct. At one time a 60-minute broadcast slot contained about 52 minutes of the actual program with the remainder filled with commercials and station identification. Today it's more like 44 minutes of the program with the rest of the hour filled with commercials and repeated promos for the same upcoming shows.

The cable/satellite channels are worse, with the actual program running closer to 42 minutes due to additional cuts made to make room for even more commercials and repeated promos for the same upcoming shows. When you watch old dramas from the 1960s or 1970s on these channels you are missing around ten minutes of content... that's close to 20%!

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That's why I usually gravitate toward British shows. 6 episode seasons that go on for 4 or 5 seasons. 24-30 episodes are what most shows should be. I wish more countries did this format because I'd be watching a lot more TV from different countries.

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But modern USA shows are shorter. There are a lot of 6 episode shows. Maybe more 8-10, but the old 22 episode formula per season is purely network now.

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'cynical, nihilistic and often morally corrupt character'

Okay, now where's the bad part? 😁

Seriously, I don't have the stamina to stick with lengthy multi-season TV shows, unless it's something I invested in from the start, but I much prefer to watch morally flawed protagonists than boring Mary Sues and Gary Stus. Fuck perfect people. They don't exist in real life, and I find it DEEPLY offensive when TV shows and films pretend such people exist, or that they're remotely compelling to watch. I want to watch people I can feel superior to. I don't need to be 'inspired', because I already live a much virtuous life than the vast majority of society, and all the constructive things I'm NOT doing with my life, are things I already attempted to do, and was denied any advancement.

But I am curious, what shows end up with people turning into 'furries' (I presume you meant that, rather than *ferries*), and other than St. Elsewhere, I'm not aware of any other major TV show that ends with it all turning out to be part of a child's imagination (unless one subscribes to the "everything is part of the Tommy Westphall Universe Theory").

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Battlestar Galactica Reboot ended with everyone turning into a ferry. I don't need a character to be prefect. I do need them to relatable some how. I find the Characters in the Grand Theft Auto games to be more Relatable and have more redeemable characteristic than most Modern TV show. And there nothing wrong with wanting characters that a little bit more normal. Especially since we had 20 years of this shit. Not every character needs to be "Hey im going sell drugs to 9 year old". Was Rocky Balbo perfect, no. But was he normal. Yes he was. I see more good films about normal people than modern tv.

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I enjoy morally corrupt characters with a long convoluted story arc…Walter White, Tony Soprano, ‘Jax’ Teller, Saul Goodman…

The bad guys and questionable bastards make for good stories. Heroes can sometimes be a bit of a boring lead.

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I like anti heroes and atypical heroes that isn’t the problem per se.

I roll my eyes at all the Wokeisms dull political virtue signalling.

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I've only watched a few modern TV shows (serial type, rather than episodic) in their entirety. None of them are among my favorite shows; all of them are highly forgettable since they mostly consist of filler, which is inevitable when trying to spread a story arc over however many episodes are in a season (to say nothing of the series-long arc); and I have no interest in rewatching any of them. Rewatching is too big of a rewind; it's a much bigger rewind than rewatching a movie, or even rewatching a movie plus several sequels, or even rereading a long novel.

All of my favorite TV shows (the ones I rewatch every couple/few years) are episodic and there is no significant rewind when watching them again, because there is no story arc that lasts longer than one episode (or two episodes in the case of the occasional two-part "to be continued" episodes). They range from the 1960s (e.g., Bewitched, Star Trek) to the 1990s (Seinfeld and... nothing else from the 1990s comes to mind), with most of them being from the 1980s when I was a kid (e.g, Magnum, P.I., The Dukes of Hazzard).

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And you wonder why I watch older stuff? Preferably anything made before 2015? TV and movies really dropped off a cliff after that year.

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Only if you like procedural formats

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Episode TV were like Mini Movies. It has a beginning, middle and end. Serialized TV has a beginning, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle,
middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle,
middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle middle, middle, middle, middle, middle,, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, and maybe a ending that dosn't suck. But it probably will.

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And I still prefer that to "monster of the week"

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Instead you could have watched 60 hours of Lucy (very boring stuff) back when. Sorry Larry David, I stole your joke.

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