Showing posts with label DaTC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DaTC. Show all posts

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Diagnosing a Terrible Comment: Wanting to Watch "V" Online

What are they calling it?  Media 2.0?  Journalism: The Sequel?  Transmedia?  Social Media?

Today, I want to talk a bit about the following comment which I found online:

Better NBC than ABC. I have not watched ABC since they stopped offering full episodes of V on their website.
The comment was made following an article on NBC picking up a pilot for Wonder Woman.

Aside from the fact that the dude somehow equated his issues with "V" - which is not Wonder Woman, and ABC, which is NOT NBC...  I wanted to break this one down a bit.

1)  ABC is owned by Disney.  Which owns Marvel Comics.  Which is starting their own TV division with shows like AKA: Jessica Jones and The Incredible Hulk.  Wonder Woman is and always was a property of DC Comics, owned by rival corporation, Time Warner.  The likelihood of DC getting a show on ABC right now is fairly small once one ponders my favorite word from RTF 101: Synergy.

One day I will do a lengthy post about late 80's cartoon "Jem and the Holograms" and this picture will be hilarious

Basically, from a corporate standpoint, Wonder Woman was likely never going to appear on ABC unless things got very, very odd or profitable.

2)  This person is upset about a loss of access to "V".  Enough so that they have cursed an entire network.  "V" is, by any measure, a terrible TV show. It is a show so completely terrible that it features aliens, spaceships, gun play, an underground resistance movement and long, lingering shots of Elizabeth Mitchell, and, somehow, even with all that, I still cannot even summon the strength to set my DVR so that in my quiet hours I fast forward to the long, lingering shots of Ms. Mitchell.

Basically, regarding "V":

This is how we're doing criticism now.  Its going to save some time.
 I wasn't even disappointed that the show was different from the original premise in many respects.  I was disappointed that the show was boring and made no sense whatsoever, especially in today's paranoid political climate and treats the audience as if its as dumb as apparently the audience might be.

3)  The whole network?  Really?  Not just a terse letter to the company?  You're swearing off dozens of other shows, sporting events, news?

Heck, if we're swearing off ABC, what about ESPN, which is an ABC company?  The various other networks ABC has a stake in, like USA?  Or Disney owned movies (Disney owns ABC, as you'll recall)?  This is going to get complicated, because that's not just cartoons.  Disney also owns other studios that make the movies you watch, distribution channels that get movies to your local theater and home video, video game companies, cruise lines, amusement parks and a @#$%ing island.

4)  You believe that your 1 man V-inspired boycott is achieving...?

5)  The ABC network isn't your loving granny looking to bestow you with candy and $1 bills.  It also isn't your sort-of-friend-that-owes-you-something-for-spending-time-with-them.  Its a big corporation that doesn't owe you anything and doesn't know you exist.  It doesn't.  They broadcast this lousy show that costs them millions per episode at absolutely no cost to you.  They release the show in windows appropriate to maximizing their profits, not for your lazy ass convenience.  Get a TV and a DVR or wait until the Blu-Ray release and be @#$%ing thrilled you live in an age where things air more than once or that you don't have to wait for a traveling acting troupe to happen upon your village to perform for your @#$%ing amusement as people have done for the last 5000 years?

@#$%.

6)  And, I hate to come back to this, but... you told us this in relation to Wonder Woman getting picked up on NBC because...?  I guess NBC wouldn't get your 1 person viewership due to the ongoing V-related boycott?  Right.  That doesn't sound crazy at all.



Ah, me.  I feel better.