Maureen Dowd on the networks: "Serving Up Schlock"

[Diner]

"Rod Serling had more originality on a sick day than all the networks’ high-priced talent combined."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/dowd-serving-up-schlock.html

 

-Tim

[Tom Wolper]

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Diner <bway...@gmail.com> wrote:

"Rod Serling had more originality on a sick day than all the networks’ high-priced talent combined."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/dowd-serving-up-schlock.html

Now that Twilight Zone runs every day on MeTV we can put that to the test. And we find out, like any classic long-running series, there were a few classic episodes over the years and lots and lots of mediocre episodes. Serling liked to do little morality plays and they always related to the shallowest sort of morality. He doesn't get deep into characters and their desires and there is no complexity in the stories.

As for Dowd, comparing network and cable series without acknowledging the difference in their models makes her comments  irrelevant. There was a period when the networks would try to bring a successful cable concept to the network and they would fail. The series Kingpin, which was trying to emulate The Sopranos, comes to mind.

Her snark regarding upcoming series is also unnecessary. It's one thing to criticize a network after a series airs and doesn't find an audience, it's another to criticize them before their series air.

[Mark Jeffries]

It's the NY Times equivalent to those people who post YouTube comments on any and all clips or episodes of anything over 25 years old moaning about how much better things were in the good old days--even if it's frickin' "Mike Stokey's Pantomime Quiz."  (Not to mention the "Nickelodeon sucks today" or "MTV sucks today" posts--YOU HAVEN'T BEEN THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THOSE CHANNELS IN DECADES!  Excuse me.)

In fact, the difference now is that cult tastes do have other places to flower when they didn't in the old days (unless they had a sugar daddy sponsor and an expendable time slot for the network like in the single sponsor days).  Most of the critically acclaimed and successful cable series would've been pulled after three episodes on an OTA network, then or now.

And when did Maureen Dowd become a teabagger?

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

--
--
TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People!
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "TV or Not TV" group.
To post to this group, send email to tvor...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
tvornottv-...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[Jon Delfin]

Please stop paying attention to Maureen Dowd. 

[Mark Jeffries]

I normally don't unless somebody points me to her.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

[chi...@nc.rr.com]

---- Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And when did Maureen Dowd become a teabagger?

She didn't become a teabagger, she was a teabagger then. She just didn't have someone to be a teabagger with.

I play Chris Rock in attack mode and end my turn.

~D

[stannc]

Twilight Zone is only on Me-TV through the end of May. They're "giving it a rest" and replacing it with Night Gallery as of June 3rd.

-Stan