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The medium is the message and the medium is crap

9 comments on The medium is the message and the medium is crap

The medium is the message and the medium is crap
: I’m in the middle of watching the Jessica Lynch movie and let me state the obvious:

TV movies are crap. They weren’t always, but they are now. They are an utterly discredited form of media. As a form, they are scripted in neon and shot through the wrong end of a periscope. They are insultingly obvious and shallow. They are artistically inept. They are unwatchable and unwatched. My biggest regret as a former TV critic is that I reviewed so many TV movies — because, frankly, they were the tapes we could get — when so few people really cared about them. And the truth is, all TV viewers know how essentially worthless the TV movie and miniseries has become.

So it’s all the more amazing that such stinks can still be raised over a Lynch movie or a Reagan miniseries.

TV movies are crap. To act as if they matter is like acting as if we should care about the political pronouncements of, say, Robin Leach. If he came out tomorrow and said anything about Iraq, would we care or notice? No, because it’s just Robin Leach. If a TV movie claims to depict the story of Jessica Lynch or Ronald Reagan, should we care or notice? No, because it’s just a TV movie.

And that makes the stinks all the more fake news.

9 responses to “The medium is the message and the medium is crap”

  1. finnesota Avatar
    finnesota

    The crappy TV movie should have been made about Pvt. Patrick Miller, the real hero from that incident.

  2. A_Reader Avatar
    A_Reader

    Mr. Jarvis,
    With your experience in the industry, why do you this this is? Why can’t one of the big networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox make a decent TV movie/miniseries? It seems like they would have access to the money and talent needed, so why do they make such an awful product? Why does it seem a metaphysical certainty that these things must stink?
    One more question, what is your favorite TV Movie or miniseries, if you even have one… :)

  3. button Avatar
    button

    In the Days of Yore… they used to have some outstanding dramatic shows on TV on the different Playhouses. They had Marty, for example. I think they had Playhouse 90 and some other things like that but I don’t remember their names very well.
    What does it take? I’ve been in a pessamistic mood lately about the prospects for civilisation around here. It takes people who want it.
    After the Jews were gone from the Ukraine, it reverted back a couple of hundred years. It had always been a “breadbasket” of agriculture for wheat, etc. There is nothing wrong with that. But they used to also have culture there, poetry and arts. Today, you don’t hear about Ukrainian poets anymore. Belarus ended up Much worse.
    Look, there’s nothing wrong with being successful in agriculture or manufacturing but that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a civil society. You can produce people who are technically literate: they can read a stop sign and and address on an envelope, but they may not be capable of much abstract thinking and the ability to apply literacy skills to conceptualizing any thoughts.

  4. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    As to why they don’t make better made for TV movies, it’s basically why doesn’t McDonald’s make better food? They could, but it’s not cost effective for them.

  5. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    The networks used to make good ones, but I guess the audience went over to cable. And a lot of the best ones come from across the pond.

  6. andy Avatar
    andy

    Unfortunately (or not), I refused to watch it because NBC’s incessant self-promotion of it, complete with god-awful pop ballad coated-in-cheese soundtrack, nearly drove me to insanity. I was sure that the movie itself would complete the task with ease.

  7. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    Were TV movies ever good? I can think of some great mini-series — Roots, obviously, and The Winds of War — but the only notable TV movie that comes to mind is “The Day After.” Whatever your politics, you can agree the film moved slower than a glacier.
    And for every piece like that, there’s a “Secrets of the Red Bedroom” or “The Facts of Life Go to Australia.” The best comment came from Mike Nelson, who listed soon to be made film titles like “Ten Who Spank,” “Savage Panties: The Victoria’s Secret Murders,” and “Not Without My Swimsuit.”

  8. Lola Avatar
    Lola

    Watched some of the movie (didn’t see the end – ended up snoozing while my husband watched it) and I thought it was really stupid. That part about the officer futzing around with the GPS device is definitely realistic – that’s the same thing that happened to my husband – his officer managed to get them lost somewhere in Iraq back in ’91.

  9. Timothy L Avatar
    Timothy L

    I can picture Robin Leach now…
    EeYahuus, today we’re outside one of the blood-thirsy tyrant Sadaam’s palaces, and what a palace it is!