Do today's TV watching audience lack attn span/patience?

Do today's TV watching audience lack attn span/patience?


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edkwon

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I was reading a review of Star Trek that quoted

My favorite series is ?The Next Generation? but, had it been launched in today?s television climate it would have been cancelled mid season. End of story. It was during the second season that TNG found it?s footing.

and it made me think, how many great series that aired years ago didn't start out so great, and in fact, borderline sucked, but TV back then allowed some shows a chance to find its legs and now a days many series w good potential fail or get cancelled because they fail to dazzle right out of the gate. Do people not understand that some of the best stories and series took time to properly develop and then peak into the great programmes they were remembered as. This rings esp true when <insert new show here> thread is peppered with 'this show sucks!' 'the last series was so much better!' 'how come they aren't showing <this> or <that>, its so boring!'

Am I the only one who thinks most of our current TV watching audience, esp of the younger generations have crap for attn span and if a show fails to impress right away, they write it off as garbage?
 
This is especially apparent when you compare classic movies and movies of today (not that today's movies are bad).
The classics have long scenes with intelligent conversation and a cut every once in a while, as opposed to a modern movie, which is more like: cut - 1.2.3. - cut - 1.2.3. - cut - 1.2.3. - cut, as if it's a waltz.
 
Yea it is bad. Though the BBC is better. They give shows much more of a chance.
 
Firefly.
 
Case in point: Dollhouse. The second season is far better than the first, but lazy TV viewers didn't give it a second chance and made Mr. Whedon fail again. Then again, it is not Whedon who failed America, it is America who failed Whedon... or something...

edit: ^ damn you. But Dollhouse is a better example because it actually made it to a second season and turned out to be another one of those shows that stumbled in the first season and then got its footing and went strong afterwards. Star Trek TNG sucked in its first season.
 
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Case in point: Dollhouse. The second season is far better than the first, but lazy TV viewers didn't give it a second chance and made Mr. Whedon fail again. Then again, it is not Whedon who failed America, it is Fox who failed Whedon... or something...

FTFY. Seriously, even though his shows are pretty good, what was he thinking when he put Dollhouse on the network that so messed up and killed his earlier series (Firefly)?
 
I don't know about the audience, but TV execs sure seem to think so.

Does the audience really need a 2 minute recap of what happened in the last episode, or even worse, before the ad break? Why do shows get cancelled before they even have a chance to find a fan base?

It is also the audience, from a lot of the tv series threads I read here and other forums, several Mr and Mrs 'common everymen' show a pretty sad lack of tolerance for shows that let stories develop at their own pace and want everything 'now now now!'.
 
I think, generally yes.

A lot of (mostly younger) people lately are over-stimulated.
If something isn't interesting right there, right at that moment, it's of no use to them.

Am I like that? 99% of the time no, but a lot of people (younger mostly, but not all) are.
 
Seinfeld is a prime example here, it took quite a while for that series to become the monster and really hit its prime. Think it was about Season 4 that the series really took off and had they been going by audiences i would have thought that the series would never have gotten past its first series.
On top of that cheers is a show that i only think got really funny after Series 5 (oddly enough) and when Kirstie Alley joined the series.
Firefly is another example of a show that was great straight from the off but wasn't given the support it needed to become the monster hit we all know it should have been.
 
FTFY. Seriously, even though his shows are pretty good, what was he thinking when he put Dollhouse on the network that so messed up and killed his earlier series (Firefly)?

He was writing a show for Eliza Dushku who is locked into a contract with Fox.
 
I don't know, every one I know who watches, "The F Word," on BBC America has begun to hate the pumped up Fox equivalents. There are plenty of shows that have a relaxed way of telling a story, I think the major networks just don't give them a chance.

Is there a growing segment of people who enjoy a fast-paced, un-complex, type of show? Possibly. But people also have overly-nostalgic views of the past as well. There was and has always been a spade full of shit TV.
 
I think viewing audiences at large could be intellectual and analytical, if they turned off Keeping Up With The Real Housewives Of Real World.
 
a) Attention span: It's a matter of what you're used to. If your viewing habits are shaped by rapid-fire Michael Bay editing and seizure-inducing anim?, of course you are put off by, let's say, the opening shot of "Touch of evil" (see vid below) or even mid-nineties TV like DS 9.
The other way 'round, people who are used to good-old TV (like my mother) proclaim: "I get a headache from watching!" even when it comes to moderately fast editing.

b) Network's patience with shows finding it's audience: Nothing new here. Great shows like My So-Called Life have been cancelled in the middle of their first season back in the nineties and i'm sure some of the older forum members will know examples from the 70s and 80s of shows that got kicked off air without ever getting a chance.
"Airwolf" is an 80's example at hand here. Eventhough it ran forever, the network forced Donald Bellisario to change the whole dark athmosphere of the show after the first season, resulting in a brillant first season, "meh" seasons 2 and 3 and shit afterwards.
NCIS (another Bellisario production) on the other hand, has been allowed to go through five seasons of mediocre ratings before suddenly becoming the network's biggest hit in season six and winning timeslots with reruns scheduled against brand-new series on the competing stations.
Depending on who's in charge (and most likely how he or she personally thinks about the show) some shows got lucky, others are Firefly.

[YOUTUBE]Yg8MqjoFvy4[/YOUTUBE]

EDIT: I think i read somewhere that TNG being renewed for a second season was a close call too, but i'm too tired to dig that out right now.
 
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