Don't Watch TV Online

If you live in Canada it is impossible to legally watch many TV shows online. The only major station that offers a decent broadband network is CTV.

If you watch TV shows online, but don't watch them on a network website or a site like Hulu, you are contributing to the demise of television. OK, so I may be exaggerating, but I do have a point to make.

TV shows air to sell ads. Ads pay for the networks. Networks pay the studios for the shows. Studios pay actors, writers, and producers to make TV shows. Advertisers pay the networks to air ads so that people will see those advertisements between shows and buy products. We watch shows for entertainment and subsequently watch ads. Nielsen measures which shows we watch the most and when we watch the most to determine how much a network can charge for ads.

Now, networks put ads online to draw more viewers. Advertisers pay for online ads just like on TV. Writers went on strike to demand a higher pay one time.

If we stop watching TV shows on TV or online then we also stop watching the ads that the advertisers want us to watch. The networks don't boast high ratings for the shows we like. The advertisers stop paying as much for the ads. The studios stop making our show.

So, if you like a show you should do the decency to watch it on TV or watch it on a network or studio website (legally) and avoid a possible cancelation. Decent TV shows need our support. Just look at what happened to Arrested Development.

LOST

It seems most people are in a frenzy about ABC's LOST, at least most people around me. As the frenzy continues and Season 5 unravels, more and more people are commenting and adding their post-episode thoughts. Tonight we saw the most recent episode and I've decided to make my thoughts public (without spoilers).

First, I will say that the entire Season 5 is moving at a slower pace than expected. I think the move to condensed seasons by the Bad Robot team was a good move. However, Season 4 saw a refreshed and re-paced approach to LOST. Now, I think the writers got ahead of themselves like a marathon runner who sprints to the front in the first third of the race. LOST has slowed down, lost pace, and moving back in the pack. The question now is, "Has LOST lost its steam?"

I don't think this is true, and I think this last episode is proof. Sure with the use of flashbacks focused on one particular character we all saw a lament to the format of seasons past. However, with consequential events and reactions to said events being intertwined in all persons concerned brings back the glory that has made the LOST series so popular. Like many of the great episodes in the past I am only left asking, "What happened!?" and, "Doesn't this change everything?"

Nostalgia in other places

It's weird how we can feel nostalgic about TV shows. Everyone remembers how it was such a big deal when Seinfeld went off the air. Sometimes even commercials thrust their way deep into our psyche and evoke the deepest of emotions. What makes us feel such personal feelings about something so impersonal.

Television broadcasts shows, amongst other things, designed to keep thousands of viewers watching to sell advertisements. And, while they do entertain and delight, they would not exist if it wasn't for the money networks receive for ad time. Yet we seem to personalize TV to extreme ends.

Last week I was tense at the thought of "Twitch" loosing "So You Think You Can Dance". But that was a reality show with real people and real outcomes. What about the last episode of Friends. Where in that shows 10 years of time on air did it go from being 6 actors doing their job to 6 people I had come to know. Rachel, Ross, Joey and the rest aren't even real. Sure, Seinfeld is based on co-creators Jerry and Larry David, but the people on screen aren't real (or at least what I'm seeing). So why do I care so much?

I wonder what it specifically is that shows like these have tapped into. But even more, I wonder what deep-rooted memories they latch themselves onto so tightly, that when these characters go off the air my emotions go southward ever so noticeably.