If you’re reading this post, it means one of two things:
1. You’re a huge television fan who uses the internet to augment your viewing pleasure.
2. You thought “CliqueClacking” was some sort of hardcore fetish you haven’t heard of yet.
If you’re the latter, sorry. I hope you find what you’re looking for and don’t worry, we don’t judge you.
If you’re the former, read on.
The other day, I was talking about The Office with my buddy Chris. We were discussing how the show is still pretty good, but that the patina of Awesome that used to hug the show tighter than the green on the Statue of Liberty seems to be gone now. That it’s no longer a new and exciting experience each and every week, but rather just a pleasant experience, quickly forgotten.
(Insert joke about being married here).
I don’t ever remember feeling this way about a show I enjoyed. Objectively speaking, I don’t think I should feel that way about The Office: it’s still a really solid show! Why am I over thinking it?
Like every school board in the Midwest, I blame the internet.
A conservative estimate puts the number of websites doing daily reviews of TV shows at approximately forty-one million. At 500 words a review, that’s easily a six hundred and eighty five quadrillion words a day devoted to the discussion of Desperate Housewives alone.
The point is that there is no lack of opinion; even reality dreck like American Idol gets broken down like it was In Search of Lost Time.
I’m both a producer and consumer of online TV reviews. On a lark, the other day I added up how many words I’ve devoted to reviewing shows like The Office, Studio 60, and Cavemen: 150,000. That’s three decent sized books (or one Steven King novel). Not since Billy Crystal in Throw Mama from the Train has there been a writer more depressed at his contribution to the arts.
The guy who wrote “100 Girls I’d Like to Pork” feels better about himself than I do.
It’s not just the wasted words, it’s the fact that I’m pretty sure that all that reviewing — reading and writing — actually hurts the TV experience for everyone.
Here’s what I mean:
TV used to be a passive experience. You watched the show, enjoyed it, then went to bed. Maybe you talked about it around the water cooler (or three martini lunch), but there wasn’t any more analysis after that. Why would there be? If Mad Men is accurate, people were too busy smoking during their pregnancy and having sex with unbelievably built redheads to worry much about TV.
Now, though, instead of wasting time at work trying to figure out which of the new secretaries we should harass, we spend the day reading reviews of the previous night’s shows. And since those reviewers are paid to generate opinions (whether they believe them or not), your natural inclination is to form an opinion in response.
All that thinking about a show robs it of its soul.
Don’t believe me? Consider The Simpsons for a moment. My guess is that you have an opinion about the current state of the show, especially as it compares to the glorious first eight seasons. It doesn’t matter what that opinion is, it just matters that you have one. The reason why you have one is that, over the last decade, you’ve been subjected to so many slathering fanboy rants about the state of the show that you can’t not have an opinion about it. And because that opinion has been formed, you can’t help but filter every single episode through the lens of that opinion.
It’s therefore impossible to watch The Simpsons as just a vehicle for entertainment. You’re analyzing the show every time you watch it, dissecting whether or not it lives up to the fabled first eight seasons. As a comedian, I can tell you with some authority that the second you start counting laughs, you might as well stop laughing altogether. Laughter is supposed to appeal to the lizard part of your brain, somewhere right next to the joy-of-pooping emotion. The moment you elevate it for further analysis, it looses its primal pleasure.
Multiply that by every show you watch and enjoy, and eventually the shows that you watch and enjoy become less watchable and enjoyable.
Of course, I could be alone in this. Do you feel like reading reviews of your favorite shows and discussing them with the like-minded has affected in any way your appreciation of that show? Do you find yourself defending or attacking a show in your head even as you’re watching it, knowing what your favorite reviewer might say about it on the blogs the next day?
Let me know in the comments.
Clacked by Jay Black 
on Feb 13, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
Every now and then during a show I’ll think, “I can’t wait to see what [so-and-so] says about this!” I know where to go to read incoherent fangirl squealing (*coughLivejournalcough*); I’m more interested in thoughtful and deliberate reviews. My main show is Supernatural and I really like coming here and getting Brett’s take on the show because he’s *not* an overinvested fangirl, he’s just a guy who likes the show for what it is. I read a couple of professional TV critics who are okay, but overall I tend to like the “civilian” bloggers better. Granted, there’s always going to be someone who thinks the episode you loved sucked like a Hoover, or the episode you think sucked like a Hoover is the most amazing one EVER!!!1!1. If that person is articulate and sensible, sometimes it’ll change what I thought about a particular episode, but usually not in a bad way. I love the experience of analyzing a favorite show to see what it did right or wrong that week. I read/occasionally post at TWoP and some of the forums seem to have a “check your sanity at the door” policy, but overall I enjoy being able to converse with other viewers who think about things like characterization, continuity, and mythology and who like to “take apart” the shows they like to see how they work.
Hey! Thanks Amanda.
Jack, I’m overthinking everything. The internet gives me the option to discuss TV with people who I don’t really know. It allows me to be a shut-in. That’s what’s depressing if you ask me.
Look on the bright side: you discuss TV not only on the Internet but also with your friends. I don’t have any friends who are able to understand english well enough to watch US Tv via the internet when it is originally aired. And re-watching the shows when they are coming out dubbed on TV here in germany is a pain for me for the german voices are off, the translation is shoddy and the commercials are a pain. And “forcing” my friends to watch the DVDs I buy with original sound and subtitles is a pain too.
What I like about CC is the exchange of thoughts on a sophisticated level with actual fans of the shows – instead of those “professional” reviewers working at magazines who tend to have the built-in need to dismiss shows to distance themselves from being a fan and who don’t even take part in the comment section of their reviews. Web 2.0 is a oneway street on those websites.
To me, CC and TVS are like special features. They give added value to each TV episode for almost every show out there. And on top of that I can comment round the clock whenever I want, not only when people I know are awake. I’m a night person :-)
And I like to talk a lot and since nobody _has_ to read what I write, commenting or blogging about TV is something that helps me satisfy my need to talk without actually annoying anybody :-)
Nope, the reviews play no part in my enjoyment or dislike of a show while I’m watching it. They do help me form opinions afterward, though. Usually they reinforce my own beliefs–reading a really positive review of a show I hated rarely changes my mind, for example.
Reviews and discussion of shows don’t really impact my opinion of those shows. The internet didn’t make me lose interest in The Simpsons, it happened naturally.
If anything the discussion serves mainly as a way for me to find out about shows I don’t watch.
Nope. I can’t say that I agree. When I saw the headline of this post, the first thing that came to my mind is that online reviews ruin TV by keeping people away from shows that they assume will fail, regardless of how well they are received on the net. For example, we all bitch a lot about how great a show looks, and how we think it will have a short shelf-life in spite of that. I have always assumed that the casual viewers of internet reviews see that, and decide against watching, thus making the bed that I didn’t want to be made.
But…discussing amongst everyone here, for example, actually enhances my viewing pleasure. I like to share my views on shows I love, and in my real life, not many people like the shows I do. Although a friend and I spent hours chatting about Lost yesterday, this is not the norm.
I’ve always had an opinion on TV. Now I just get to share it more, and read the thoughts of others. Not a bad deal, to me.
I don’t agree that the more you read reviews the less you appreciate. Television IS the prevelant artistic medium of generation x. If I can offer an analogy. The Mona Lisa is probably the most talked about painting in the world. This hasn’t detracted me from travelling around the world to see the painting in person and to assess it for my self in detail. I do not know how much I have read about the Mona Lisa and DaVinci however I would hazard a guess that it would be more than any single tv episode or show I have ever watched. I don’t see reviews as a detraction. Everything I knew about the Mona Lisa added to my experience. Everything I find out afterwards is a wonderful addition.
Similarly, I love cruising the tv sites which review tv episodes. I try to avoid the ‘fangirl’ sites – you know the type who spend their time blogging about how good A looked with their new haircut and that B and C should hook up because it would be so kewl!!!!!!
Once I have found a blogger who has consistently put some good reviews together I know that I have found someone whose opinion counts. And I mean reviews not recaps. Anyone can recap; reviewing takes skill and a deep knowledge of the show. When these people review new shows or say that their favourite show is X, I tend to take notice.
Also the great thing about the on-line tv community – at least the hardcore people – is that they will come from all over the world and can point you in the direction of shows you have never heard of. I’m from Oz so this is gold for me.
I also give extra points for people who can really delve deep into a episode. You don’t get that at Tv.com.