Contact
Subscribe


Television Is Like A Frog

Jan 28, 2010
By .
Geekery, Television

If there's anyone I can't stand, it's people who wander up to a conversational group talking about a TV show and intone "Oh, I don't even own a television," then recline upon their own insufferable smugness. Look, just go read Recherche du Temps Perdu as translated into Navajo or something, will you? We get it. You're our intellectual superiors. Let us go back to talking about the B-plot on Friday Night Lights.

I agree with the recent cliche that we're in another golden age of television — particularly with the addition of cable as a dominant player, the last decade has seen a flood of high-quality, sophisticated, literate, well-written, and gripping and/or hilarious shows.

But there's no denying that television, to swipe and modify E.B. White's famous comparison, is like humor or frogs — it does not benefit from being picked apart. In fact, nearly everything on television suffers badly from close analysis. A good show is a windswept romance, not a stable long-term relationship. I'm not saying that you can only enjoy TV if you are dumb — though it certainly helps in many cases. I'm simply saying that examining its premises too closely will spoil your enjoyment. That doesn't mean its a uniquely crass or stupidity-inducing form of entertainment. Have you closely analyzed the lyrics to your favorite song recently? No, it simply means that if you're going to watch TV with a skeptic's eye, you're going to wind up disappointed or, possibly, freaked out by the hidden premises.

One of the best places to observe this phenomenon is the blog Overthinking It. Today, they take on Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars, illuminating a level of dramatic irony that borders on the grotesque. My eight-year-old LOVES this show, but I don't think I can watch it again without shuddering now. Enjoy!

Last 5 posts by Ken

6 Comments
Tags

6 Comments

  1. Dwight Brown  •  Jan 28, 2010 @10:53 am

    "Look, just go read Recherche du Temps Perdu as translated into Navajo or something, will you?"

    I always thought Proust was better in the original Klingon.

  2. Mike  •  Jan 28, 2010 @12:32 pm

    That's a great article. I'd had some of those same thoughts when it first came on (not when it first-first came on – because the original Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars were before we knew exactly what was going to happen), but it's neat to see them laid out so elegantly. Every time I watch the show (and I like it more than my kids do), I can't look at Anakin without thinking, "You murdering SOB. Do you kill Asoka or does somebody else do it for you?"

  3. Ken  •  Jan 28, 2010 @2:38 pm

    BTW, the Robot Chicken parody of Anakin killing the kids is so, so wrong and so, so hilarious.

  4. PatrickKelley  •  Jan 29, 2010 @3:20 pm

    "If there’s anyone I can’t stand, it’s people who wander up to a conversational group talking about a TV show and intone “Oh, I don’t even own a television,” then recline upon their own insufferable smugness."

    And four hundred years ago they would have been acting just as smugly toward a discussion of the latest Shakespeare play, and maybe toward the Illiad when it first gained widespread circulation, which is precisely why they are asshats in any age.

  5. TomH  •  Jan 30, 2010 @7:02 am

    Mythbusters proved that the boiling a frog thing doesn't work. Without television, no one would have bothered to research this metaphor. TV is important.

  6. PLW  •  Feb 10, 2010 @6:52 am

    Thank you for linking to overthinking it. I'd never seen it before, and I now love it!