Another "Virtual" Reality

Story or Spectacle? Why Television Is Better Than the Movies, David Charpentier

Charpentier opens up about the drastically decreasing trends in movies and the increasing trend for television shows. He argues that television shows open a deeper insight to characters than movies since television shows have a longer span. Personally, I agree and favor that fact. I have been watching a lot of tv shows lately, and I rather watch them again and again than a movie. For some reason, a 2-hour movie sounds like more commitment and focus than watching four thirty-minute episodes. Plus, seeing all the funky scenarios that the writers put characters in, seeing their life events, seeing a story unfold, you see a character evolve throughout each episode a little bit more as the series goes. In a movie, it might be too quick for an audience member to even process. I watch shows like the Office, How I Met Your Mother, That 70's Show. They're light hearted shows, for the most part, and the writers create a backstory and more in depth perspectives for all of the characters, including supporting ones. Movies, on the other hand, only create in depth perspectives of the main character, and sometimes the antagonist. There's not enough time to introduce everything about every character and the plot in 2 hours, but it is possible to do so in 30 minute intervals for years at a time. In doing so, television shows create a closer replica of a virtual world where we believe the characters are real and we get sucked in to their world.