Last evening I decided to watch the opening episode of a newly conceived show, "Person of Interest." I was enticed by ads featuring lead actor Jim Caviezel (or something like that), who is really good-looking, and he has a tremendous presence. No wonder he played Jesus Christ in a movie! But the show, as it rolls out, is making a mockery of the American brain.
The premise of the story isn't bad. A rich man creates watchdog software for American intelligence services, then realizes he must create a "back door" to the program. He preserves for himself the ability to view potential problems that don't come to government attention and resolve them; he finds Caviezel, a former intelligence agent, and gets him involved in the dirty work. The problem is that most of the story is not told in words, but in strange screen views of the cameras that watch all of America.
This show is a great example of how the "geeks" of TV creativity are moving away from stories that really explore human experience and interaction (both good and bad) and translate it to immediate, head-popping visuals. if you can't absorb and translate visuals as fast as kid watching cartoons, then you are out of luck. The speed with which the digital images pass is certainly a boon for advertisers; instead of 8 minutes of advertising, a 30-minute show can get nine or ten minutes crammed in.
When a show begins to gloss over its story in favor of visuals, and when it starts pushing me to follow screens that move ever faster, I am exasperated. I know that at some point I will give up, throw up my hands, and get rid of the monster in the room. I can watch hulu plus on my laptop, choose what I please, and ignore TV (ADVERTISERS: DO YOU READ ME LOUD AND CLEAR?)
Does anyone wonder why DVD sets of old sitcoms sell so well? Wonder no more.
Mrs. B
The premise of the story isn't bad. A rich man creates watchdog software for American intelligence services, then realizes he must create a "back door" to the program. He preserves for himself the ability to view potential problems that don't come to government attention and resolve them; he finds Caviezel, a former intelligence agent, and gets him involved in the dirty work. The problem is that most of the story is not told in words, but in strange screen views of the cameras that watch all of America.
This show is a great example of how the "geeks" of TV creativity are moving away from stories that really explore human experience and interaction (both good and bad) and translate it to immediate, head-popping visuals. if you can't absorb and translate visuals as fast as kid watching cartoons, then you are out of luck. The speed with which the digital images pass is certainly a boon for advertisers; instead of 8 minutes of advertising, a 30-minute show can get nine or ten minutes crammed in.
When a show begins to gloss over its story in favor of visuals, and when it starts pushing me to follow screens that move ever faster, I am exasperated. I know that at some point I will give up, throw up my hands, and get rid of the monster in the room. I can watch hulu plus on my laptop, choose what I please, and ignore TV (ADVERTISERS: DO YOU READ ME LOUD AND CLEAR?)
Does anyone wonder why DVD sets of old sitcoms sell so well? Wonder no more.
Mrs. B
Comments