Category: Television

Here are the links, courtesy of Greg Mankiw.  I recall the highlight of the show being Milton’s bits on Hong Kong.  His most difficult point was when Peter Jay pressed him on whether he believes in the intrinsic value of liberty or is simply a utilitarian.

I doubt if this is a selection effect:

It seems that adults in households that have digital video recorders
watch less TV than adults in the general population, according to a
recent analysis by Mediamark Research, an audience-measurement firm.

Here is the story.  I, for one, usually read a library book sooner than a book I buy…

Safe for work, but deeply painful.  I laughed so hard I cried.  No matter what the text says, it is a Japanese comedy team; hat tip to Jason Kottke. 

If you are going to completely ignore one MR post this year, it should be this one.  Here is more of their stuff.

1:15, lots of Cylons.

In December 2005, Cooke’s family learned that his body had been surgically plundered and the pieces sold to different bidders. A body brokerage company had harvested his bones, falsified his medical records–claiming he had died at 85 of a heart attack–to make them more marketable, and then sold them to at least two tissue banks.

Cooke’s was one of more than 1,000 bodies allegedly stolen by the company, New Jersey–based Biomedical Tissue Services. Prosecutors say the company and the funeral home, Daniel George & Son, made millions of dollars harvesting pieces of the cadavers, instead stuffing bodies for burial with broomsticks and piping. An investigation is ongoing.

Here is the full story, and thanks to Bookman for the pointer.

Shortly you will be able to see Lost episodes for free on the web, albeit with commercials (btw, my theory is that they have entered a parallel universe and are being tested by a non-omnipotent God).  I’ve bought Battlestar Galactica episodes through iTunes. 

But how will this affect the content of TV programs?  I see a few possibilities:

1. Individual episodes are more complex and less likely to be self-contained.  To watch only one show of Lost or BSG leaves you baffled.  But who can make sure he catches every episode?  What if you want to leave the country for a while?  Now if you have missed a show, you can use the Web to keep in touch with the longer and more integrated story.  You will do this even if you, like I, find web viewing distasteful and inconvenient.  Not everyone can afford TiVo, and some of us still need Yana to operate the remote and indeed the service itself.

This mechanism will raise the intellectual quality of TV.

2. Perhaps the time lengths of programs will vary more.  Has The Sopranos gone on a nearly two-year hiatus?  How about a fifteen-minute web shortie to keep us interested?

3. (Some) webcasts will be reproducible on iPods.  You will show the highlights of episodes to your friends.  Perhaps many producers will make episodes to stress "the best two minute stretch or skit" rather than the show as a whole.  Just as the song is outliving the album, perhaps the skit will outlive the show.

4. Might it, as Mark Cuban suggests, support soap operas in real time?  What better to watch on your work computer, during work hours?  In the longer run, the more entertaining your computer becomes, the more people will be paid by commission; blame blogs for that too.

5. TV on the web, in essence, shortens the release window for ancillary products.  How big a deal is the DVD in six months’ time if a web version exists now?  And what does shortening the release window do?  It will be harder to figure out what is a hit.  It will lower movie budgets.  It will increase the relative advantage that low-cost drama has over special effects spectaculars.  Surely you can think of more effects on this count.

Comments are open…

Mark Cuban says make them live performances, for a new kind of reality TV:

…those are commercials that would keep peoples attention.  You would never know exactly what would
happen. 30 seconds of fun.  Bring back the 50s to TV.

Here is new evidence that the answer is no, thanks to wunderkind Jesse Shapiro, channeled by Austan Goolsbee.

These days I am up for another TV show, so I tried Lost.  The plane crashes between LA and Sydney, and before episode one is over they have encountered a polar bear (sound familiar?).  So far I like it.  Real rates of return appear to be negative, a virtual prerequisite for good tragedy.  Next on my list is 24, but it will take a few months for me to get there.

In the meantime, suggest another topic for blogging.  Three separate mentions are required for the topic, and again I rule out the libelous, the obscene, and the physically impossible.  Mulch I already have covered.  I will return to the topic of "advice" (thank you for the kind words), so no need to mention that either.  Comments, of course, are open.

Addendum: Here are more Cheney jokes, do follow the link to the WSJ page.

Second addendum: Ladies and gentleman, "exercise" is the winner but I will take ideas from further suggestions in the comments, so keep on adding topics if you wish.

The Hotelling rule tells us to consume a stock so the shadow value rises at a rate commensurable with the rate of interest…or something like that.  C’mon, let ‘s get real.  Here are a few options:

1. Set aside one day for a BSG fest.  I would lose the pleasures of anticipation, so no way.  (Would you want all non-currents-events-specific MR posts available all at once?)  The pleasures of memory would be weaker as well.

2. Have a strict rule, such as one a day.

3. Have a stranger impose a rationing pattern.  Sometimes we call this stranger the Science Fiction Channel.  But what about the accumulated stock of programs on DVD?

4. Watch it when your wife lets you (not an issue for those that have married well).

5. Refuse to watch the last episode, in an attempt to deny your mortality.

6. Watch them at an increasing rate.

#3 is appealing, but so far I am opting for #6.  Comments are open, if you wish to rationalize what you already have done.

Addendum: This question will become more important.

I’ve started watching this excellent show on DVD since my return from Buenos Aires.  Firefly fans should apply.  Chalk up another one for The Golden Age of TV.

Addendum: I am told the new episodes start tomorrow night at 10 p.m..