The Fanstastic Ms. Fox

True Blood - an amazing show were it not for these two really irritating characters... who happen to also be the protagonists.

I have mixed feelings about this show. I have these feelings very often because I keep watching it.

I am drawn to how thoroughly they can construct a convincing world and, within it, manhandle a metaphor for minority rights. We're talking X-Men levels of strange meaphors. Last time I checked Gay Marriage didn't come with the threat of being exsanguinated.... The My copy of the homosexual agenda doesn't call for that until stage 5.

And although her methods are somewhat at odds with say, Leslie Feinburg, Nan Flanigan is one of my organizing heroes.


(note this entry in the context of the last two)

I rented the first six episodes of Carnivale, a series that sprang out of a double-length movie script. I thought it was a beautiful magical-realist period piece, but a bit slow.

(I also thought I have limited interest in watching yet another duo of normative dudes serve as humanity's champions, but that's another article)

HBO cancelled Carnivale after two seasons; one-third of the way through its Big Plan.

Was this a tragedy for artistic television? Yes. But whose doing?

Consider: episodes ran an average of fifty-six minutes and four million dollars. Two seasons. Twelve epsiodes each. One third of a story

So, I ask: How can you spend ninety-six million dollars, and take twenty-one hours and thirty-six minutes and only be a third of the way through a story that was originally written at three hours?

Was it tragic? Yes. But in the Greek sense: the kind that you bring on yourself.

Northamerican Anglophone television has embraced the "story arc," once the domain of soap operas, but doesn't ask how long it takes to tell a good story. So we are left with episodes of 22 or 44 minutes, in seasons that shrink only grudgingly. From 26 episodes to 22, sometimes as low as 17 for high-concept shows on major networks. Artsy channels often have 13,12 or 10.

Consider even the teeniest case: a "short" season of ten epsiodes of a "half-hour" show (acutually 22 minutes apiece). A Sitcom, most likely. Even with a one-season run, that's three hours and forty minutes. How many movies are that long?

I see this trend towards elephantine epics reflected in novels and online articles. I'm sure they're getting longer, but I don't have proof. (All this despite fears of "shrinking attention spans.") Why? Cheaper computer-controlled editing and printing, and transfinite recording online space?

Do we assume that, the more words or minutes, the more media is worth? Or, without boudaries does quality expand to fill the available space?

Not all television is like this. Rome was concise. But Internet TV, or "Streamies" usually don't fall into this trap. Why?