I was watching an episode of New Girl the other day and I realised something a little awkward. There have been 6 episodes and I have laughed once. A whole one joke has made me laugh and frankly for a show that's meant to be a comedy those odds really suck. I also don't really actually care about the characters on an emotional level. If they kill one of them off or, as perhaps is more likely, took one in a completely different direction I'm not sure how much I'd care. It doesn't challenge me on any intellectual level. Given all that and the fact that there are only so many hours in the day why, then, do I bother to keep watching?
The metaphor I used in my discussion of the pilot was that watching it was like eating milk and cookies. In retrospect that still seems like a damn fine description of it (Well done past-me, knocking it out of the park yet again!). It's not hilarious, not that clever, and not that emotionally challenging but it's warming and comforting. Thinking about it, what New Girl does give me is a strange sense of familiar calm. Yes, I don't fully care about the characters but I feel affection for them none the less. The reason for this is, perhaps in this case anyway, the lack of true involvement. I can't get angry at the characters because of my lack of emotional investment, which also means there is no stress in watching the show; I'm not worried about plot developments. It might seem strange to say not caring about characters helps a show be watchable but with New Girl it works.
This made me think about other, supposedly comedic, shows that I like but aren't necessarily that funny in a traditional sense, but attachment keeps me coming back. The best example I could think of is Parks and Recreation. This is a very different case because a) I really do care about the characters and b) It's just a better show (It doesn't send you into a twee-induced coma for a start). But while the show is funny, and I do think it's very funny, its not laugh out loud funny in the way shows like Archer is. It's also very hard to define bits in the show that work as stand alone jokes, for me the humour is derived from a basic affection for the characters. Sometimes watching the show is like sitting round with a group of friends watching them bicker between themselves. Again its the sense of familiarity that it provides me that matters and is integral to its appeal. I know these people, I feel at home in the world they are in, I just get it.
Television works very differently than film in terms of audience participation. With a film you have 90 minutes (well nowadays, its more like 120) to make an impact. That impact can be to scare you, educate you, charm you or have you rolling in the aisles. Sure, in an ideal world it wants you to like it enough to buy it when it comes out. But in that situation you are still buying what you already know. The purchasing act is an acceptance that you want to relive what was made as a one-off experience. This is a totally different action to tuning in every week to watch a TV show which requires a continued investment in the concept. This means that the needs a television has to fulfil for an audience are much more complicated. As may be apparent from the beginning of this post, what seems to me to be crucial in this more complicated relationship is the concept of affection. Why would anyone bother to repeatably spend half an hour out of their week watching something they haven't even the slightest sense of attachment to. I'm not saying television shows can't challenge its audience but it has to do it in a much more subtle way than film. People aren't going to want to keep watching a show if it's having a go at them. Films are much more able to preach to it's audience, whereas for a weekly serial to preach is risking alienating its core audience and as discussed in a earlier post, given the way American television works, it's really crucial that a show doesn't do this. The fact that shows are in production as they air the episodes they've just finished means that if they fail they can be cancelled mid-season. This means there is a significant impetus to keep the momentum going, week after week. Whereas a film just has to win you over once, a television show has to win you over again and again. This is where affection is important, if the audience has enough devotion towards the show, then at least some of the creator's work on that episode is done for them. Mistakes, or a less good episode, are forgiven where without affection they might cause someone to stop watching. For example, I didn't really like episode 3 of season 6 of Doctor Who, but because I have a deep love for the whole thing it didn't matter half as much as it would have if I'd just started watching or wasn't as involved in the show emotionally.
All this makes me think that making a successful well-received television show is a lot more difficult than making a successful well-received film. Which is interesting since I think it's pretty well established that we hold film actors and makers in higher esteem than those on or in TV. Actors are always thought to have made it once they have lead roles in films. I can name you a lot more film screen writers than I can television ones (especially If I take away ones that are also actors!). It seems unfair that for an arbitrary reason we judge people on the size of the screen they're working on not by the challenges they face.
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