Modern TV

[tvenuto]

There's another thread going on that is extolling the virtues of TV in the 60's, and I wanted to stick up for modern TV. Instead of derailing his thread, I figured I'd make my own.

One example of how modern TV wins: ultra high-speed cameras. Someone mentioned Hitchcock's "The Birds" in the other thread, and I submit that we would have been more scared of birds if we could have actually seen what they're capable of.

Meet the African Goshawk, who does pretty much everything like a boss.

https://youtu.be/HYGz32iv1vw

Also, slow motion cheetah...

https://youtu.be/V8vejjVgIHg

[bearfacedkiller]

I have always enjoyed nature shows and some of the new ones are just amazing. The Planet Earth and Blue Planet series are terrific!

[PayneTrain]

Let's not forget all the foul language, blood, and nudity that is now acceptable. Game of Thrones, anyone?

A lot of TV series are becoming more like days-long movies that you can marathon and completely lose all sense of reality in. My first "epic" series was Lost. I watched 4 seasons straight to catch up to my coworkers. It literally gets disorienting after a few hours. Doing that is an experience that I've never found possible with more traditional style TV series where each episode is a little more independent, but maybe there were some I don't know about. Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad are two others that I've binged heavily on, and I know there are many more but I just don't have the time right now to commit.

I love nature shows as well, but they drive my dog crazy. She can't understand where the animals keep going when the shot changes. She starts looking behind the TV, down the hall, outside, and she gets so sad. She really loves nature.

[Surfingringo]

There's another thread going on that is extolling the virtues of TV in the 60's, and I wanted to stick up for modern TV. Instead of derailing his thread, I figured I'd make my own.

One example of how modern TV wins: ultra high-speed cameras. Someone mentioned Hitchcock's "The Birds" in the other thread, and I submit that we would have been more scared of birds if we could have actually seen what they're capable of.

Tvenuto, is it possible to see the full episode of the African Gammet anywhere? I'd like to share that with my father.

edit: sorry, Gannet

[tvenuto]

Tvenuto, is it possible to see the full episode of the African Gammet anywhere? I'd like to share that with my father.

edit: sorry, Gannet

This the playlist I found, but it appears they have a few other clips scattered on Youtube, linked below. It's not the full thing, obviously, but it's got some cool shots of what look to be hundreds of birds dive-bombing the water. How they don't spear each other accidentally I have no idea.

https://youtu.be/D8vaFl6J87s

https://youtu.be/shIj2bdzGEo

[jabba359]

There are tons of fantastic shows that have aired on modern television (I'm just calling everything from 2000 on "modern"):

BBC's Planet Earth and Life
Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Firefly
House of Cards
Homeland
Chuck
The Office
Parks and Recreation
Six Feet Under
Pushing Daisies
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
LOST
Battlestar Galactica
Arrested Develoment
Band of Brothers

I think HD television is one of the best developments. I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray, where they went back and remastered the shows from the original film elements into HD and it's like night and day comparing the new transfers to the original broadcast tape quality.

[tvenuto]

I believe it was in college, my roommate came out and declared that he would no longer watch anything that wasn't HD. It took some discipline at first, but before long there wasn't much that wasn't HDified. I can't believe we used to have to watch sports in LD!

And the shows you've listed are restricted to dramas! There are also a ton of interesting "reality" series that exist as well. Iron chef (the Japanese version), Cutthroat Kitchen, Good Eats (I like cooking shows), and many others. There are also the aforementioned nature/science documentaries, which are all both visually stunning and mentally stimulating.

[bearfacedkiller]

There's another thread going on that is extolling the virtues of TV in the 60's, and I wanted to stick up for modern TV. Instead of derailing his thread, I figured I'd make my own.

One example of how modern TV wins: ultra high-speed cameras. Someone mentioned Hitchcock's "The Birds" in the other thread, and I submit that we would have been more scared of birds if we could have actually seen what they're capable of.

Tvenuto, is it possible to see the full episode of the African Gammet anywhere? I'd like to share that with my father.

edit: sorry, Gannet

Lance, if you have access to Netflix streaming it is part of a series available on there that is called Speed Kills.

[tvenuto]

^Yea sorry if that wasn't obvious. I was assuming you were asking so you could send the clip to someone without netflix.

[PayneTrain]

Oh don't forget Neil Degrasse Tyson! I loved the Cosmos series that was on last year. They couldn't produce that kind of imagery back in the day, that's for sure.

[paladin]

Those pics made my day...thanks! :)

[Ankerson]

HDTV is great
DVR's are great

Would like to see more quality TV though rather than the spew of reality TV shows, garbage TV IMO.

Also less of the political undertones that seem to get thrown in and don't really fit with the show, more like they just put them in there just to do it to feed whatever agenda they are currently trying to push.

Would like to see less split and shorter seasons that is the current BS.

Seems there is a flood of commercials, more all the time, thank GOD for DVR's and the FF button, interesting because Cable is supposed to be commercial free, that's why we pay for it.

Would like to see Movies that are properly formatted for the current TV's, if it's HD then it needs to actually fit the screen.

There are some good shows on, but it seems the better ones are getting cancelled because the advertisers say they don't fit that 20 something crowd. So I guess nobody over the age of 30 watches TV from what they are saying.

[SpyderNut]

Mmmmm, modern TV...
...is in a sad state of affairs if you ask me (and this includes movies too). I just made the comment to my wife last week that there's "seldom anything good on TV anymore." I mean, I'm not trying to sound like a stuck-up snob or goody-two-shoes, but everything nowadays just seems to focus on foul language, car chases, nudity, and violence. And, to boot, it seems like most of time the plot is so thin it's barely even existent. :rolleyes: Man, stuff just isn't as good as it used to be.

[tvenuto]

Did you see the slow motion cheetah?

[farnorthdan]

Main thing I hate about modern tv is all the commercials, its gotten so bad its not even worth watching anymore, seems like they actually time the commercials so you cant even switch between channels to avoid them. There are only a couple shows I even like anyways, but I must come clean, I am a walking dead addict.

[tvenuto]

Ok I've decided that we're not watching the same TV.



Here's what you do:

-You get a Roku, or a Playstation, or any number of other things that you can connect to your TV with an HDMI cable
-You subscribe to netflix or amazon prime, to stream movies and shows directly to your TV
-You get an HD antenna, to pick up local sports/news if you're into that (optional)
-Tell comcast, or whatever evil monopoly your fief is forced to supplicate to, to go suck it

Now you can sit back and enjoy the veritable buffet of intelligent and stimulating programming, commercial free. Seriously, I forget that "Two Broke Girls" even exists until I randomly find myself in a bar watching a football game.

The only thing I'll say, is that the movies on the aforementioned streaming services are a little disappointing. Like, Men in Black II disappointing. However, there are some good ones on there periodically, and with all the other stuff to watch (Cutthroat Kitchen! Planet Earth!) you won't notice too much.

[bearfacedkiller]

Cable and/or Satellite is for suckers. I have a roof antenna for local and sports, Slingtv (seriously look it up), Amazon Video and Netflix and I watch whatever I want for cheap. I also check a lot of DVDs out from the library.

I also enjoy Modern Family and Community for newer comedies.

What about Firefly? I can't be the only one who loved that short lived show.

I am also a fan of the new Doctor Who.

When comparing new and old tv keep this in mind. There are so many more shows nowadays and if you focus on the bad you will miss out. You just need to weed out the crap. For me it is like country music. I like almost all old country music but I hate newer pop country. That doesn't mean there is no good country today. It just means that I need to put in a little more effort to find what is worth listening to in the sea of music available today and I would be missing out if I dismissed it all. TV has gone down the same road for me.

[Ankerson]

Main thing I hate about modern tv is all the commercials, its gotten so bad its not even worth watching anymore, seems like they actually time the commercials so you cant even switch between channels to avoid them. There are only a couple shows I even like anyways, but I must come clean, I am a walking dead addict.

True, years ago there was like 3 commercial breaks in an hour show, and that was one short or at the most 2 very short commercials, one before the show started, one in the middle and one at the end.

Now it's watch the show for 8 mins, have 5 mins of commercials, 10 mins of show then another 6 mins of commercials and so on. :rolleyes:

Sometimes like a string of 10 commercials back to back, it's nuts.

The seasons used to be 26 weeks or longer, now we are lucky to have 18 weeks or less and that's split with large breaks in between. :rolleyes:

Then there are the sporting events that run over and they cut out the good shows and make sure to show the garbage (Reality TV or some show they want to air) in it's entirety, the Major networks are horrible at doing that. That or they will cut the good shows out completely and show them at 2 am and or just not show it at all or move it to another night that week without telling anyone.

A lot of the actors are so bad these days you can see them reading their lines..... :rolleyes:

There is a lot of idiotic stupid crap going on with the networks and it is getting worse as time goes on.

TV these days?

Well speaking in broad general terms it's garbage compared to what it used be like.

[jabba359]

What about Firefly? I can't be the only one who loved that short lived show.

Unfortunately, I didn't know about it while it was on TV, only discovering it after seeing Serenity, enjoying the movie, and then finding out that the movie was based on a TV show. When I discovered Firefly on DVD, I bought around ten copies and gave all my family and friends a copy for birthdays or Christmas. It's pretty much my favorite show.

[shunsui]

Never was a baseball fan until HDTV. (Helps to have good pitchers too.)