One of the new television series this year, Touch started here in Finland two weeks ago. The series is basically about two things. On the surface it tells a story about an autistic boy who doesn't talk but can see the future instead. The boy communicates the future to his father through numbers so that he can influence the surroundings so that good things happen. Under the hood it's more about telling stories about how we're all connected around the world.
So it's a fantasy mixed with international stories. It could be interesting, right? Well, I think it fails badly. Here are four reasons why:
The boy doesn't only predict the future. He also predicts the consequences of his foreseeing, which makes him omniscient to a point where nothing really matters.
The numeral sequences the boy is dropping are overused. If the primary purpose of the sequence of numbers is a simple thing like a phone number acting as the clue that actually leads the father on right track, why does that same sequence have to make pointless appearances in lottery tickets, coded doors, baseball bats etc.? Is it to try to hide the fact how simple and uncreative the clue actually was? After all, having the sequence all over the place doesn't really add to any "mysteriousness" you know. Instead it just makes you lose interest in trying to even think about it.
The foreign characters should bring depth to the series, but unfortunately they don't as they don't feel real. This is enforced by the fact that these characters seem to be making implausible admiring references to American entertainment (such as Sopranos and Chris Rock). Due to this the characters are not "touching" but rather just make the storytelling unnecessarily jumpy by introducing new characters all the time.
Last and least importantly, Kiefer Sutherland doesn't seem to know whether to be soft daddy or Jackbauerishly tough. Sometimes the latter seems to surface in a way that I don't really really suits the character of Martin Bohm or the situations in this series.
In general I think the series shares some of the same flaws that Flashforward did. Both series have too many uninteresting sentimental stories that are interconnected in a way that seems utterly artificial. Both series also have predictions that are not only glimpses of an unaffected future but of a dynamic future that has been affected by the prediction. Admittedly in Touch this makes more sense. The boy doesn't just see one possible future: he sees how everything is connected. Perhaps this is one of the reason why Touch has done a bit better than Flashforward: it has survived till a second season. Nevertheless I still wouldn't predict a long life for this series.
On the local television there was just a rerun of the miniseries The Lost Room. This time I only saw the last of the six one hour episodes, but the feeling was the same as on the first time around: it was an entertaining ride of imagination although the ending wasn't really that satisfying. Nevertheless, it made me once again think that it would be nice to have more short series like this on television, which entertainmentwise is mostly dominated by longer series and movies. Could it be possible to get more miniseries?
Miniseries are in many ways an intermediate form between regular continuous television series and movies, and as such they also have their own specific perks. Miniseries can tell longer stories than single movies. On the other hand the viewer knows that the series is set to have an ending, and the overall structure is likely to be more coherent than in a regular long-running series. It is true that a more regular series may also have a predefined ending and sometimes the final timespan of the series may be revealed quite early, like in the case of Lost. But even so, series like this are prone to either wither away and end up being much worse than they were in the beginning (like with Prison Break) or experience a relatively sudden and thus at least somewhat unsatisfying ending : for example 24 ended practically in just a couple of minutes, even though the whole series had lasted for 192 episodes or about 140 hours!
There have been really few miniseries lately. Even The Lost Room might have actually been a long pilot to a regular series, if it had been successful enough. And that might be the reason why the ending left the viewer hoping for more - and also the reason why the series is going continue its life in comic book format in 2011.
It is of course understandable why producers aren't that motivated by miniseries. Businesswise movies are better since they offer the money from the theatre distribution. Regular series are better since once the very basic setting has been constructed and a sufficient fan base has been reached, there is much less need to invest in the production or to market the series. If the series becomes a success, it doesn't matter that much even if the actors' salaries start skyrocketing.
So how to motivate producers to make miniseries? That's a difficult question. I believe there's more demand for them than there is supply, but the economically superior characteristics of movies and regular series are hard to overcome. There have been a few Finnish entirely fictional and quite good miniseries in the past few years - including one with a rather unique way of storytelling on this scale. However, apart from the (open-ended) Lost Room the only English miniseries I currently recall have been somehow related to history and/or actual events like the Tsunami, Angels in America, Band of Brothers. So I suppose there has to be an existing serious public interest in a specific theme that specifically fits in the miniseries format or otherwise there an idea will either turn into a movie or a television series or alternatively just be forgotten?
There are countless forms of entertainment in the world. As times change, some new ones emerge, some transform to something very different than what they used to be, some gain more popularity and some may wither away or even practically disappear.
Usually the older an entertainment form is, the more mature it is. Theatre hasn't changed much in a long time, and the same thing applies to books, even though it's a significantly younger form of entertainment. The stories of course usually represent the contemporary age, if not in terms of story, then in terms of ideas, style and other details. Nevertheless, the underlying structures in these remain pretty much the same.
The most major element of what people understand as entertainment has perhaps been television for many decades - especially during the latter half of the 20th century. Of course what we see on television can be divided into several categories, and accordingly separate forms of entertainment. There are movies and television series, which are obviously entertainment, but then there are also news and other kinds of educating programs, which often also have an entertainment aspect to them - which is why they are sometimes called infotainment.
From what we can see on TV, movies can in my opinion be considered a quite mature form of entertainment, as I don't think the latest boom in 3D movies much changes the essential experience. Developed technologies are certainly part of the evolution, but it seems like the path of making ever more impressive digital effects seems to be close to an end too. Remakes of old classics (such as the currently running new Nightmare on Elm Street) and of even not so well-known older movies can also be seen as an evidence of the maturity.
Television series differ from movies, but one could still argue that the same thing could be said about them too: technology and techniques have improved, but the underlying structures stay the same. For example, here is the classic introduction of the original Outer limits from the early 1960's:
And here is the newer Outer limits series introduction from the late 90's:
Both series tell short, mostly independent sci-fi stories, even though the themes changed as the world around changed. In the ca. 35 years between the two series there had been progress in not only the technology but also in terms of production techniques, so already based on this it can be stated that the form was not mature 50 years ago. And by the way, as the world still has changed in the last decade, I wouldn't mind a new installment to the series - perhaps motivated by the emergence of 3D televisions combined with the introductory line "we will control all that you see and hear".
But how about now? Television series are a younger form of entertainment than movies, so are television series accordingly also less mature than movies? I would say yes. One cause for bigger changes in television series might be that movies have had large budgets for a long time but I have the impression that television series' budgets have lately enlarged significantly. From the viewer point of view on the other hand there has been a shift to more complex long-term storylines that expand through episodes and even seasons - even if the show isn't a soap opera. One example of this is comparing MacGyver to its 21st century semi-equivalent, Michael Scofield from Prison Break. Another even more obvious change is of course the emergence of reality television. Reality is here to stay, the only question is which particular shows or what types of shows remain the biggest hits in the long run. I bet they don't try to fool the contestants though, like in There's something about Miriam.
Television however, although still a powerful media, has started losing its throne to entertainment related to computers. A lot can be done with computers from personal videos to games and various forms of social media, and this diversity further ambiguates what is understood as entertainment. In any case, in terms of computers, what is most clearly defined as entertainment, is of course computer and console games.
Since development in the gaming industry has been so intimately related to the progress in computational power - which itself has been extremely rapid - and to learning to take full advantage of these capabilities, games are still prone to huge changes. Another factor that will be causing changes in the near future is entirely human: as video games are a very young form of entertainment, so are its consumers mostly young. As the first generations of gamers are getting older, there will probably an increasing demand for different kinds of games.
What the future in gaming holds for us, is indeed an interesting question. We know how huge projects video games nowadays are and how impressive they can be at their best. When playing modern games, it's worthwhile to think how much progress has already happened. After all, this is how simple a very famous computer game looked like less than 40 years ago:
One of the new television series this year, Touch started here in Finland two weeks ago. The series is basically about two things. On the surface it tells a story about an autistic boy who doesn't talk but can see the future instead. The boy communicates the future to his father through numbers so that he can influence the surroundings so that good things happen. Under the hood it's more about telling stories about how we're all connected around the world.
