What Makes A Television Show Good?

Consider the cognitive demands that televised narratives place on their viewers. With many shows that we associate with ''quality'' entertainment -- ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show,'' ''Murphy Brown,'' ''Frasier'' -- the intelligence arrives fully formed in the words and actions of the characters on-screen. They say witty things to one another and avoid lapsing into tired sitcom cliches, and we smile along in our living rooms, enjoying the company of these smart people. But assuming we're bright enough to understand the sentences they're saying, there's no intellectual labor involved in enjoying the show as a viewer. You no more challenge your mind by watching these intelligent shows than you challenge your body watching ''Monday Night Football.'' The intellectual work is

Television executive Lauren Zalaznick, gave a presentation called “The conscience of television” for TED Talk which she discussed past five decades of the highest standing shows on air. Zalaznick runs studies which go to great lengths on how the topics of television shows changed from decade to decade and how viewers changed the reason of watching based on what was happening in the world. Television’s conscious effects our emotions, challenges our values, and influences our views on the world by what we choice to watch.

Television has been keeping me entertained for as long as I can remember. I have always been a big fan of watching television such as shows, movies, and especially sports. For movies and shows, I love how it forces me to make me use my imagination even though in the back of my mind I know that everything that’s happening is completely fake. It’s caused me to think deeper about things I never thought I would think about, and given me a lot of great memories. Even though television has been a very positive part of my life, there has also been some downside to it as well. Television has affected me in a negative way because it paints a picture reality that sort of tricked me into thinking it was true. When I was younger I was extremely gullible and easily influenced and really wanted to be able to live like some of the characters that I saw on the screen. An example was in about 7th grade I started watching this hilarious show called How I Met Your Mother. My parents refused to let me watch it but I would always find a way to watch it on my laptop without them knowing. There was this character name Barney Stinson who I really admired and was determined to be like when I grew up. In the show he was rich, well dressed, ladies man who seemed to have everything going for him. He was a total hound dog in the show who expressed the joy of constantly going to bars, sleeping with random women, and then never calling

The aim of this assignment is to compare and contrast T.V. series vs Movies. The data was collected from the internet. T.V. series are becoming popular at a fast pace. What are the reasons leading to this change? Is the Golden Age of Television back? T.V. shows and movies may seem alike in some aspects but if taken a closer look are different. T.V. series invest time and go in depth, have thought-provoking work and provide a more satisfying emotional experience which are difficult to find in movies.

Television was not at its best a decade ago, producers were struggling trying to figure out how it can reach to a broad audience and have them stay. Thanks to reality T.V, the television industry has not been the same ever since. Reality TV always get its viewers on the edge of their chair, from shows like The Bachelor, to other shows like Intervention, “all of them make you sit up and pay attention” (Poniewozik 1). Reality TV shows will do whatever it takes to get people to watch them. From a simple show called The Bachelor talking about love stories, to a show where they show a life of drug addict. They all presents a stories within, and sending a message to its viewers. What makes the viewer watches the show is the messages that the reality tv show trying to reach to its viewers.

The Television is often the centerpiece of typical American house. TVs are now a representative the American dream. TVs are even used to measure finical wellbeing. Huge flat screen TVs symbolize success, while smaller TVs represent modesty. People crowd around the TV to watch the big game, to catch up on the news and keep up with pop culture. Is there something wrong with this so-called wonder device known as the Television? Marie Winn, author of book Unplugging the plug-in drug, argues this point in the chapter “The Trouble with Television” claiming that the television negatively affects families and specifically children. Marie Winn is an author and journalist who is known for her write ups on wildlife and television. The book was published in 1987 and describes eight ways in which the television is damaging. Winn makes it a point not to argue against the content of television, but rather how the television effects family relationships and is a detriment to children’s development. While I agree with some of Winn’s, overall, I disagree with her assessment of television. The points that Winn made that I disagree with include, TV allows kids to grow up less civilized, TV keeps family from doing other things, TV makes children less resourceful, TV has a negative effect on children’s school achievement and TV has a negative effect on children’s physical fitness.

John Jurgensen’s article asks us an interesting question: how many TV series can our brains take? As television series expand to grandiose levels, it gets harder to follow what is happening: who people are, and what their place in the overall story is hard to follow for a large number of viewers. Jurgensen attempts to address this within his article, and it has some interesting points.

Fictional television shows were created to entertain the public. For some television is an escape from reality were someone’s imagination can get the best of them. For others, it’s just a fictional program that has no effect in their lives, or so they think. Watching fictional television can manipulate the mind into believing that something is good. For example, the TV show Dexter tell the story of a man who is a killer but the audience wants to see him succeed. Dexter Morgan shows viewers that murder can sometimes be justified because he only killing those who truly deserved it which keeps killers off the streets in the society.

Television provides social values as well, with new television shows that create communities of fans that talk about the show.

It is the quality of the shows that are often criticized. However, this is missing the point. Television shows are not supposed to be thought provoking. You are not supposed to question the images you see on TV, only believe in their prima facie

to the viewer, that the characters might not know about yet. All of these elements are mentioned in Johnson’s “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, but I believe he is missing an element, which is subject matter. Subject matter is immensely important because for a show to be knowledgeable it needs to have topics that are important and have an impact on society.

Television is one of the newest, fastest growing forms of entertainment to come along in the last one-hundred years. While many argue that the rapid expansion of this genre has caused an increase in lower quality programs (or too much television), others believe that this event is part of the development to coincide with its new audience. Two such articles address different opinions on this issue. Linda Holmes, author of “Television 2015: Is There Really Too Much TV?”, published her article under the popular culture section on NPR’s website. Holmes’s opinion surrounds the premise that due to an immense growth in television programming, it has resulted in a multitude of lesser quality shows. While she agrees that this volume of shows is an undertaking for any individual to watch, Holmes argues it is impossible for a single genre to have too much content.

My favorite tv shows are all series and they are extremely different one from another. For example, Black Mirror has chapters that don’t follow a sequence and talk about the probable scenarios we would live in a future

There are a lot of good television shows to watch. My top three television shows are

Some people may argue a book is less entertaining and interesting than a television show in the 1960’s. However, the television shows broadcasted are solely focused to entertaining the general audience after work, chores, or school by employing monotonous programming. If a person who solely watches television for an entire day, they evidently become tedious. Also, the television shows lack diverse plots, themes, characters, originality, and other aspects unlike a book or a newspaper. Therefore, numerous television companies decided to display new content such as news shows, movies, drama series, horror shows, documentaries, music shows, and shows based on true stories. An example is HBO’s Band of Brothers, a miniseries about the story of a company of soldiers in WWII from their initial training to the end of the war. During the war, the soldiers experience D-Day, participate in numerous battles, liberate a Nazi concentration camp, and enter Hitler’s mountain retreat located in Berchtesgaden, Germany. This tale of comradeship displays how ordinary, American men accomplished the extraordinary and end a gruesome and unjustified war. As a result from Newton’s proposal for better television programming, numerous shows and series like Band of Brothers offer an entertaining, unique, and worthy alternative to other forms of communication.