Improvement in TV

Hate to say it…

But it was Buffy.
Studios quickly realised that investment in plot arcs, decent sets & good writing would “sell” to content providers internationally.

Funny since BBC were dumbing down Dr Who & Blakes 7 etc.around the same time !!

The early 80s was a great time to be a kid, telly-wise. Not sure there was all that much for the oldies. You had Edge of Darkness, which needs to be repeated, and then you had to wait for the 90s for the likes of GBH, Our Friends in the North etc.

Turning point in terms of bigger budget US ‘box sets’ has to be 24.

Hate to say it…

But it was Buffy

Nah. Buffy was naff lightweight cheesy soap with vampires in it. No different to Charmed really.

Jeremy Kyle

molgrips – Member
Hate to say it…
But it was Buffy

Nah. Buffy was naff lightweight cheesy soap with vampires in it. No different to Charmed really.

incorrect!

It had decent writing for a start, the characters developed throughout and accross the series, each with their own well defined story, it tackled some adult themes, had some great dark & comedy moments and it was hugely popular, showing networks that you could tell a long story to completion and people will buy it. (even if the network thought they were getting a teen soap vehicle for SMG when they started it)

Decent writing my arse.

First series or two maybe, but it was trite as hell after a while.

Might’ve been popular but that doesn’t mean it was quality 🙂

It wandered a bit in the middle (anti-monster army stuff) but later series where willow went gay and evil were very good
It also had a defined ending and relied on prior knowledge to get the best of individual episodes, unlike soaps

you need a refresher 😀

The 25 Best Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes

It doesn’t compare to X files in any way.

Oh – anyone remember Taken?

Boys from the Blackstuff from the 1980’s

Never got the appeal of Buffy. Popcorn teen sci fi. Russell Davies modelled New Who on it and that had a bit of that element at times and some ridiculous series finales. I was just relieved they didn’t Jump The Shark and do a musical episode! Moffat changed the style and improved it massively.

Anyway, there are all kinds of turning points in TV. Robin of Sherwood for example. Still holds up well today. BBC’s later effort went with the popcorn angle again.

Go back further, The Prisoner was ground breaking. Again it’s a fantastic watch today, and again far superior to the remake even if at first glance you think it’s dated.

Watched the musical episode again, recently it’s brilliant, characters reveal loads of things in song that they otherwise wouldn’t have done that have lasting repercussions.
Again long-term story arcs that you just didn’t see in other stuff at the time

It also had a female lead who was the most powerful person in the series and she didn’t have to wear a princess Leia bikini or wonder woman hotpants

I think you all need to go back and boxset the hell(mouth) out of buffy, there’s silly stuff but some amazingly well done bits too,
The Body is a brutal episode for

Popcorn teen sci fi

as good as some of the best episodes of any series
http://www.criticallytouched.com/buffy/5x16_the_body.php

There were plenty of other dark moments, GOT wasnt the first show to kill off major characters and buffy was great at showing the legacy of that
A proper gay relationship, good people doing bad things making mistakess and dealing with the fallout, Faith, Dawn, Anya, Willow, Xander, Christopher all had done very dark storylines

I contend that Buffy was the first ‘box set’, multi season show that allowed characters to evolve and even die coming to a definite conclusion after 7 great seasons.

Without it we might not have had GOT or even the wire

(Tho Twin Peaks just as important)

fear not chkaping !!

http://collider.com/deadwood-movie-update/

My wife mentioned this, good to hear it’s still on track.

Would have preferred another full series obvs.

TV peaked at M*A*S*H with Royale Family getting an honourable mention imo … hardly watch anything now, Great British Bake Off and Andrew Marr is about it. Nature stuff and even Panorama / Dispatches has been dumbed down, news available from different sources, sit-coms seem to be rehashes of what we’ve seen before.

Buffy
X-files -both long term story arcs as well as ‘monster of the week’

I’m pretty sure that the X-Files and BtVS are the origin of the terms “monster of the week” and “big bad” respectively. By the by.

They were the first shows I thought about (and two of my all-time favourite shows). They were – if not absolutely the first then certainly amongst the first – non-soapy shows to move away from what someone earlier called an A-B-A format and what I’ve always known as the Big Red Reset switch.

The problem with story arc shows is that if you miss the early shows you were broadly screwed. These days you’ve got catch-up TV and box sets and the like (and rampant piracy via torrent sites) which dodges that bullet. That and you’ve got the elephant in the room which is US syndication; in order to be syndicated you need at least a certain number of episodes and they have to stand up to being shown / viewed out of sequence; whether this is still the case I don’t know.

What they did with the X-Files was to make the overall story arc a secondary concern; so regular viewers were rewarded, but occasional viewers weren’t left bamboozled. It used to annoy me that there wasn’t more continuity; like, they’d have an episode around Scully’s mother being gravely ill, then the next episode there’d be nothing. A throw-away “how’s your mom?” in passing would’ve scratched that itch and not caused problems, so I’m not sure why they never did that.

BtVS employed a different trick. It started out as monster-of-the-week fluff with the story arc being a “blink and you’ll miss it” rumbling of a “big bad” culminating in a finale kind of like Doctor Who’s “bad wolf” story arc. Missing earlier shows wasn’t terribly important. However, what they did which was revolutionary was to gradually switch to an arc-driven show as the serieseses progressed. The final season was entirely story arc; they got away with it because after six seasons had past the “casual viewers” were few. By S7 you were either hooked or you were never going to be watching it.

Other shows have since done the same thing to great effect. Deep Space 9 leaps to mind. The first couple of series were classic reset-switch Trek (and arguably dreadful). By the end the last series – if not the last two, my memory is hazy – the show is one long sprawling story (and IMHO the best thing ever to come out of the Star Trek franchise).

Without The X-Files and BtVS pioneering the arc format, there’d be no Breaking Bad. And you can believe that as fact because I’ve written it on the Internet.

hardly watch anything now

It’s not often that you’re right, but you’re wrong this time.

Frasier?

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story? (Never actuall watched the box set I bought tho!)

Regarding Buffy – the episode that always sticks in my mind is Hush where the bad guys stole everyone’s voices. Hardly any dialogue for a whole episode – pretty brave TV

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story?

It is, yes.

the episode that always sticks in my mind is Hush

Hush is quite brilliant, and one of the creepiest episodes they made.

If you want brave, that’s Once More With Feeling.

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story?

It was great, right up until (I think?) about half way into the last series when it jumped the shark in a huge way by trying to wrap up all the loose ends. I’m not sure if it was intended to be this way or if it was compromised by not getting recommissiond and trying to do something meaningful with the time they had left but the last few episodes in particular were a mess which was a real shame as the rest of it was very good.

If you want brave, that’s Once More With Feeling.

Yup – it’s a shame most things these days are too dark, serious & po-faced to have fun like that.

HBO has an awful lot to do with this.
Lots of notable earlier programs mentioned, but it was HBO that invested in, and drove, quality programming especially in the ‘box set’ season arcs that we’re used to now..

Did you not even make it to episode 3, “A Proportional Response”? Not any sort of liberal fantasy. That’s one of the things that made it so good, Sorkin was obviously in love with his characters but that doesn’t stop him making them screw up, be arseholes, and generally fail to get the job done, often because they’re self-satisfied liberals. And a lot of that is prescience; Bartlett is basically foiled by stalemate in congress and much of it is about dealing with that, or not- the west wing had a fiscal cliff before fiscal cliffs were cool.

The characters were the liberal fantasy IMO, not the plots (which were fine).

Veep is a far more accurate depiction of US politics, I reckon. Or even Parks & Rec.

Didn’t Invaders do the whole large, arcing storyline thing, in the 60s? I only saw the re-runs, but loved that show.

+1 for Buffy: That show pretty much had everything, and was very well written.

I’m sticking with Twin Peaks, but would like to give an honourable mention to…

I know it’s a product of its time, but could they look any less threatening? John Thaw looks like someone’s swapped a gun with his cup of tea.

I know it’s a product of its time, but could they look any less threatening? John Thaw looks like someone’s swapped a gun with his cup of tea.

It was for the kids’ annual.

And considering the adult themes in the show, it’s a bit odd that they did one of them – when you think about it.

there are all kinds of turning points in TV. Robin of Sherwood for example.

I meant to say,

Did you know Big Finish have recently commissioned a full cast audio drama of RoS?

ROS The Hounds of Lucifer was on youtube, still stands up very well

just seen its no longer on there 🙁

And considering the adult themes in the show, it’s a bit odd that they did one of them – when you think about it.

I used to be allowed to stay up late just so that I could watch the Sweeney. I just checked the transmission dates and I would have been between 8 and 11 when it was on the telly. That’s some bad parenting right there.

Come to think of it, Bored to Death with Ted Danson and Jason Schwartzman was superb, and quite unlike anything else. Another good example of what I think of as ‘new tv’.

But it was Buffy.
Studios quickly realised that investment in plot arcs, decent sets & good writing would “sell” to content providers internationally.

As said, later on, yes. Earlier stuff – not so much (the first series is hilariously bad).

Shame Firefly and Dollhouse got canned, they both had great potential. As did Life.

Glad someone mentioned The Prisoner!

What I miss is the westerns.
Growing up in the 70’s it was none stop.
Alias Smith and Jones, Casey Jones, The High Chaparral, The Virginian just the ones I remember.
I’m sure not the best TV but still great fun.

kimbers – Member 
Watched the musical episode again, recently it’s brilliant, characters reveal loads of things in song that they otherwise wouldn’t have done that have lasting repercussions.

I’ve seen loads saying that it’s one of the best episodes and sure it may be a very well made musical episode, but it doesn’t belong in it. It takes you right out of the show and turns fiction into farce. Even if it’s good farce, it doesn’t belong.

I thought that when I first watched it years ago deadkenny
Redid the whole boxset last year and I’ve changed my mind

It’s basically the counterpoint to Hush, the premises are almost exactly the same, so you can’t say it doesn’t fit with the show.
In Hush demons prevent everyone from talking so they have to communicate in other ways to show how they feel and what they will do,
In Once More a demon makes them sing what they feel and they can’t hold back. I’m no fan of musicals which is why it took me q while to get it,

but it was a pivotal plot device that changed every relationship in the show, Tara realised Dawn was changing her menories and decides to dump her, Giles realises dying changed buffy and that she’s outgrown him, Xander and Anya realise they don’t want to get married, and Spike and Buffy air their feelings.

It actually sets up every story thread for the next season, the fall of willow, death of Tara, the death of Anya and the breaking of Xander.

Not to mention that it was technically very impressive, the songs brilliantly written and pretty much unparalleled in TV, (used effectively in family guy and south park, but it’s easier animated)

Wheddon had Danny hart sized balls to pull that off

It no better today than it was, just more international hype now. This Life was 20 years ago and class, and then Brideshead Revisted was 35 years ago.

So what this thread proves, is that there’s been no turning point where TV “improved”, there’s always been quality stuff amongst the dross, probably since the 60s/70s. Now there are more channels, there are more decent programmes, as you’d expect really. There’s also a million times more dross and it’s worse than it ever was.

I’m no fan of musicals which is why it took me q while to get it,

but it was a pivotal plot device that changed every relationship in the show,

+lots.

This is why it was so very very clever. When it was announced everyone went, “oh god, they’ve jumped the shark.” But it was done to a high standard as musicals go, is so far as the songs were as catchy and diverse as any mainstream musical (you can buy the soundtrack CD and everything), but moreover it was as you say a hugely pivotal episode where everything that had been building all season came to a head. Everyone’s plotline changes as it’s revelation after relentless revelation.

A standalone “monster of the week” musical episode would’ve been a throw-away puff piece, something we’d look back at and cringe. The story itself should’ve been massively dark high drama. Throw them together and you’ve got… it shouldn’t work. It couldn’t work. It’s can’t work. And yet, somehow, it ended up being one of the stand-out episodes of the show. Go to any sci-fi / fantasy convention to this day and there will probably be a session were they’ve organised a OMWF sing-along (and no lyrics needed because everyone knows the words).

To take an episode which is life-changing for pretty much every main character in the ensemble cast and bundle it up in what by any other name would be a trashy and forgettable novelty episode, that’s not just brave, it’s insane genius.

So what this thread proves, is that there’s been no turning point where TV “improved”, there’s always been quality stuff amongst the dross,

It’s improved because there is way more quality stuff on now. And with more variety with the quality.

You couldn’t watch a really deep high brow superhero show 30 years ago.

Early leaders for me; The (60s) Prisoner (hey, I watched it on video), Twin Peaks, B5, X Files, Buffy, 24, Sopranos. Where longer plots started to stand out as the thing that drove the show. That’s what started attracting the top talent in acting away from cinema. As Kiefer Sutherland said, for the last ten years, if you want to act in quality drama, you don’t do cinema any more. Cinema now is all more CGI action explosions. Sure, there’s drama and plot thrown in, but its not so much An Officer and a Gentleman type stuff getting regular big releases, is it Marvel?

BTW did I miss the post where someone mentioned The Simpsons? A prime time cartoon, with adult humour thrown in, and it was good and ran for ages is still running. And it had people queuing up to get cameos.