What is good What is good TV really? TV really? What is good TV really?
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Written BY: Lillian Nadrowski
Written BY: Lillian Nadrowski
Written BY: Lillian Nadrowski
Television has often been referred to as “junk”. As something fun to watch after a long day. As something to play in the background as you finish your homework. As a way to rot your brain while laying in bed. But is that all it is?
In our day and age the shift towards fastpaced digital media is stronger than ever. Consequently, many people have abandoned reading in favor of watching or scrolling. Parents and teachers alike have shaken their heads at this shift, writing off this form of media as pointless. However, I don’t think that TV is all bad. And if it isn’t, what is it that could possibly make TV good?
It could be said that the central dogma of all TV is to entertain. A piece of television that doesn’t work to capture your attention is essentially worthless. This is especially true for a number of beloved sitcoms. Classics like The Office or Friends were created specifically with these ideas in mind. There’s not much highbrow literary merit to be deciphered in Michael Scott’s antics, and there is not much exposition required to understand that Monica can be Type-A or that Phoebe can be kind of odd.
It could be argued that a good television show is one that teaches its audience something. So does TV really teach us anything?
Admittedly, it is much easier to prove that TV can be insightful when the intentions of the writers are very clearly meant to do more than
just tell a few jokes. For example, Abbott Elementary is a sitcom that follows a group of teachers in an elementary school. It is designed not only to entertain, but to educate the general public in the struggles that teachers face with a new generation of students. There are so many shows that function in a similar way; shows that entertain, yes, but also have another purpose. Shows like Black-ish are meant to portray the lives of black people in a modern America, and shows like The Good Place are thought experiments meant to challenge their audience’s ideas of morality. However, I think that there is more to “good” TV than an unusual concept.
We process television in a different way than reading or hearing about a story. What we get out of television is much more intuitive and unrefined, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Oftentimes this allows a story beat to hit harder when we watch it than if we were to read about it. There is nothing to imagine because the director has plainly laid out what he or she wants you to see. Every angle, every acting choice, and every sound is painstakingly chosen to evoke a feeling in the audience. These principles can also be observed in film as well. I think Everything Everywhere All at Once is a movie that really takes advantage of its medium to tell its story. As the characters fall into and between realities questioning what gives life meaning, the audience also contends with these questions. While the audience considers a nihilistic outlook alongside the characters in the movie’s climax, the final resolution doesn't necessarily depend on a long, thought-out philosophical rebuttal, but on a feeling. The climax is a clip of two rocks slowly falling off a cliff amid a
montage of other nonsensical situations. I truly don’t think there is any other medium in which this scene could possibly have an emotional impact. But laid out on a screen with editing, some music, and a voiceover, it has the ability to speak to people in a way that a paragraph never could.
I think that this illustrates the hallmark of not just good, but great TV. It is not something that tries too hard or too little, but something that takes advantage of its medium.
Like Arrested Development with the countless jokes hidden in the background or Community’s themed homage episodes, a great television show leans into the things that make it unique in order to tell its story. I think this is also why shows like Abbott, Black-ish, and The Good Place are all so great. Not only because of their distinct premises, but because of the way they explore those premises through television. Great television doesn’t shy away from entertaining; it isn’t afraid of seeming meaningless or vapid. It harnesses entertainment as the very mechanism that allows meaning to land.
…or maybe I just watch way too many sitcoms.
