I Don't Really Watch or Like TV or Movies Anymore

[TwiceHorn 31991]

I used to be a bit of a movie fanatic and looked forward to seeing new releases.  I used to rent videos on the reg in the past. I haven't been to a movie theater in years.

I find myself giving about zero fucks about any movie at all anymore.  I'll get vaguely interested in something and watch it when it comes to streaming, then forget about it, finally watch it, and am usually disappointed.  And, although they tend to be half-decent entertainment, fuck comic book movies and the endless reboots and remakes all to hell.

Sometime when The Walking Dead was on the air, I'd miss an episode, think I'd catch it on on demand, and then just lose the thread altogether.  Of course, TWD turned to shit as have most of the other series I have devoted time to (I'm looking at you GOT).  I didn't really get into Master of the Air at all. 

I haven't watched a "network" show in a decade or more.  I tend to like limited series as a general rule, but haven't gotten into one in a while.  I watched Disclaimer most recently and mostly ended up disappointed, despite the great cast.

And, of course, there's the overwhelming choice presented by streaming services.  And the fact that you can, in most cases, start, stop, rewind.  I don't focus on things very well, especially if they're less than captivating.  At least a cable tv schedule would force me to find a time and sit down for it.

The only show that's broken through my malaise recently is Slow Horses and it has yet to disappoint.

I peruse these forums with some frequency trying to rekindle the excitement and get some good recos, but, ultimately, I don't think I give a shit anymore.

Anyone else like this?  An age thing?  The deteriorating quality of tv and movies due to fragmentation of the broadcast/cable/streaming entities?  Some combination of all three?

I'd rather read a book or go down some subject-matter rabbit hole on the internet.

Edited Monday at 05:14 AM by TwiceHorn

[mdmost 43852]

[kingkoopa6 8594]

Slow Horses must be good then. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the rec 

[F250 29177]

2 minutes ago, kingkoopa6 said:

Slow Horses must be good then. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the rec 

It's excellent.

[atomheartbevo 90549]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Anyone else like this? 

Sometimes, but I can always find something interesting on Youtube. There’s a lot of good documentaries and history vloggers on there.  Lot of BBC documentaries.

[WholesomeChungusSocialist 25]

Anyone calling you an old man for this take is retarded. Contemporary Hollywood productions sometimes look good, but rarely mean anything. 
 

Regardless, the most potent cultural energy is within niche internet spaces. Has been for a while, though even many of these spaces are deteriorating due to burnout and lessened linguistic ability. 
 

We’re already immersed in an era of self-segregation in almost every aspect. This is what happens when Woke wins. 

[tx 3 putt 78470]

give West Wing a try ….

 

[locodos 5584]

I agree with the OP quite a bit.  While I think the quality has dropped, I feel like there is so much choice that there really isn't a show everyone is talking about...  so it's hard to share excitement for a series or a concept

For movies, the wife and I have started going to small niche cinemas showing art house or foreign films.  It's hit or miss, but like the OP,  I'm done with formulaic corporate hollywood shit.   

I know this isn't a recommendation thread but here are some that we enjoyed

Movies:

Robot t-0 (Un monde merveilleux) 

Latin for All

Hundreds of Beavers (I think this is on Netflix now)

TV:

Shrinking

Ted Lasso (if you haven't seen it)

The Expanse 

Edited Monday at 08:54 AM by locodos

[Underdog 29104]

TV is just background for the most part for us any more, even for ballgames I don’t pay complete attention anymore.  The Sopranos  is probably the last episodic show I watched and I’ve thought about others that are highly acclaimed but don’t think I have the attention span anymore to sit through them. 
 

As for movies I still enjoy and want the movie theater experience. The actors/story has to really interest me to draw me in though, Godzilla -1 was last movie I went to and I may hit up Nosferstu on Xmas day. 

[Herpa Derpa 6320]

4 hours ago, WholesomeChungusSocialist said:

Anyone calling you an old man for this take is retarded. Contemporary Hollywood productions sometimes look good, but rarely mean anything. 
 

Regardless, the most potent cultural energy is within niche internet spaces. Has been for a while, though even many of these spaces are deteriorating due to burnout and lessened linguistic ability. 
 

We’re already immersed in an era of self-segregation in almost every aspect. This is what happens when Woke wins. 

Are you smooth brained or a water head?

[randomhorn 2117]

51 minutes ago, Herpa Derpa said:

Are you smooth brained or a water head?

Someone’s AI chatbot no doubt

As to the thread, most of the shows and movies are just kinda ok at best. There’s a few absolute bangers but there’s also a shit load of garbage. Way too many of everything just dilutes it all. I’m happy waiting to hear what’s good and what isn’t but I’m also willing to just not watch something if I’m too far behind 

[Buzzrock 15116]

All valid complaints but don’t forget we are coming out of the writers strike wasteland. Hopefully some better stuff on the horizon. 

[Mother mopar 3379]

6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Sometimes, but I can always find something interesting on Youtube. There’s a lot of good documentaries and history vloggers on there.  Lot of BBC documentaries.

This is me, I just watch YT now and end up down a rabbit hole for 3 hours. 

[Parliament 14561]

Prestige TV died when Mad Men finished.  There have been a few great shows since then, but they're on some different rando streaming service.  Who wants to pay extra just to watch one show.

[WholesomeChungusSocialist 25]

1 hour ago, Herpa Derpa said:

Are you smooth brained or a water head?

Care to present an argument? Not holding my breath, but would still be nice.

[WholesomeChungusSocialist 25]

1 hour ago, randomhorn said:

Someone’s AI chatbot no doubt

As to the thread, most of the shows and movies are just kinda ok at best. There’s a few absolute bangers but there’s also a shit load of garbage. Way too many of everything just dilutes it all. I’m happy waiting to hear what’s good and what isn’t but I’m also willing to just not watch something if I’m too far behind 

You’re far behind in most regards, seemingly.

[mdmost 43852]

17 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Prestige TV died when Mad Men finished.  There have been a few great shows since then, but they're on some different rando streaming service.  Who wants to pay extra just to watch one show.

You say this yet Hulu has numerous great shows all in one service. Shogun, multiple seasons of Fargo, The Bear, Say Nothing, and Only Murders in the Building. Apple TV+ has Shrinking, Ted Lasso, Severance, Bad Monkey, and Disclaimer. I'll grant that you need multiple services to get enjoyable content but that was the case before with needing HBO, AMC, and FX to get good content in the "Prestige TV" age. It just used to be all bundled together for over $120 a month.

And OP doesn't really watch of like tv or movies anymore but he sure loves to capitalize every word in a sentence. 

Edited Monday at 01:23 PM by mdmost

[South Austin 53155]

6 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

give West Wing a try ….

I resisted West Wing for a long time.  When it aired on NBC, it seemed to me like it might be too preachy with too much of a liberal bent.  My wife convinced me to binge it with her a few years ago when we were dating, and it didn't take long to get me hooked.  Fantastic story lines, characters, acting, dialogue, and pace.  One of my favorite TV series of all time.  And yeah, it slants more to the left.  I mean, it's a Democratic administration, so you have to expect that going in.  But I didn't think it was too liberal dominant.  However, I'd be curious to hear what a politically conservative viewer might think. 

[TwiceHorn 31991]

57 minutes ago, mdmost said:

And OP doesn't really watch of like tv or movies anymore but he sure loves to capitalize every word in a sentence. 

Que?  It's a title, I'm not a savage.

And, I enjoyed West Wing quite a lot when it actually aired, but mostly just saw one-off episodes.  Although I remember Leo's alcoholic scenes vividly because that's personal.  Agree with SA that it was a bit more liberal than I was comfortable with back then, but that didn't bother me much at the time.

I enjoyed The Bear, first two seasons, but then I've been reading 3 and 4 are pretty meh.

One other aspect of this is that I don't seem to have the fortitude to binge/stream multiple seasons of something.  So, going back to something I missed is not an attractive proposition.

Also, although I know there's worthwhile content on YT, I avoid it except for instructional things and the odd mountain biking video (Friday Fails).  Clicking a news link to find a video annoys me, I'd rather read it.

Edited Monday at 02:18 PM by TwiceHorn

[mdmost 43852]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Que?

Your thread title

[atomheartbevo 90549]

7 hours ago, WholesomeChungusSocialist said:

We’re already immersed in an era of self-segregation in almost every aspect. This is what happens when Woke wins. 

That is the dumbest fucking thing that's been said in this sub in a long time.

Is this you?

[South Austin 53155]

9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I enjoyed The Bear, first two seasons, but then I've been reading 3 and 4 are pretty meh.

Season 4 hasn't come out yet.  The expected release is in June 2025. 

 

11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Although I remember Leo's alcoholic scenes vividly because that's personal.  

Leon was such an incredible character.  Really the glue for that whole cast.

[South Austin 53155]

I'll add that I watched two series over the past year that surprised me as much better than I expected:  Jack Ryan and Reacher.  

[Red Five 41596]

I'm sort of with you on movies. But there's a ton of good tv out there. 

[atomheartbevo 90549]

7 hours ago, WholesomeChungusSocialist said:

Regardless, the most potent cultural energy is within niche internet spaces. Has been for a while, though even many of these spaces are deteriorating due to burnout and lessened linguistic ability. 

This is definitely an AI chatbot, but for a brief moment, before it opened up the woke bag of bullshittery and flew too close to the sun, it was actually on to something.

We consumers of TV and movie media, and arguably books, radio, music, and video games, are absolutely inundated and burned out with choices.

This isn't the 1980s where I had to fake being sick to stay home a few days to catch a G. I. Joe cartoon series because the dumb motherfuckers at the TV station scheduled it for 2:30pm while I was still in school, and I had no VCR.  This isn't the 1990s where, once Disney released a movie in theaters and then put it out on VHS, they advertised that it would forever go into the SEKRUT H!DDEN DISNEY VAULTS! and we would never be able to buy it or watch it again unless a TV network blessed us with its presence.  This isn't the 2010s and 2020s where every single fucking TV series made since the 1950s has a DVD release just waiting to be bought through some cheesy little company that probably makes a killing selling DVD sets to boomers.

This is 2024. 

• I have well over 250 games on GOG, Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Humble, Itch.io, and a few other sites and the vast majority I will probably never play more than an hour or two (because they were free or they were insanely cheap and I had heard of them). I'll end up pissing away far more time on some cheap iPhone game anyways, of which there are a million just waiting to be downloaded.. And I don't even have to play the longer games because some game streamer has already put out a complete walk-through of any game I'm interested in, so that I can just watch that instead of spending a lot more time figuring out whatever game it is. I can see all of the high-points and low-points without doing anything more than bringing up YouTube, and without having to even buy the game.
• I have hundreds of free books on my Kindle, plus Kindle Unlimited which means tens or hundreds of thousands more books are at my fingertips (plus I can buy another million or two ebooks as well) not to mention my local library has a fuckton of ebooks I can check out.  And I don't even have to read the books because some booktuber has already put out a 5 minute summary YouTube video on any book I'm interested in.
• I have Netflix, Disney/Hulu, HBOMaxChipJoannaGainesDiscovery, Peacock, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, AppleTV+, plus a few free services (Tubi, etc., something like 20-30 free Google TV channels through my Android TV that all have singular topics) and a million other videos on YouTube, quite a few of which are decent if one looks around.
• Over-the-air broadcast, I have something like 40-50 TV channels, and dozens of them are channels that are focused on one thing - the Western channel, the Game Show channel, the Hollywood Squares channel, the Murder She Wrote channel, the Little House on the Prairie Channel, and they are running this content non-stop.
• I don't even have cable TV and haven't had it for 20 or so years, but everything I want to watch, I can stream the next day.
• If I wanted to get a radio service like Sirius, I could have access to hundreds or thousands of singularly-focused channels, like a Beatles channel, a "songs from the 1970s that were in the top 20, but not in the top 10" channel", a Joe Rogan channel, a surf music channel, a surf music channel that is nothing but European bands imagining what it's like to surf and write surf music channel, and thousands of fucking podcasts through Apple, YouTube, etc., if not tens of thousands.
• I have access to pretty much the entirety of the 20th and 21st century music outputs, through the aforementioned Sirius, etc. services, plus YouTube, YouTube music, Spotify, Amazon Prime music, Apple iTunes/Music/whatever.
• Pretty much every movie in a theater these days will be streaming within 6 months, and while I don't have a massive TV, it's bigger than what I had 10 years ago and is just fine.  There's only about 1-2 movies a year where I feel like I have to see them in the movie theater.

In short, I have at my fingertips, whether it be my phone, iPad, or TV remote, access to more content than I could ever consume in 20 lifetimes.

My streaming service and gaming queues are fucking legendary, and someday there will be some emo-hipster-balladeers who write epic ballads about the length of my queues.

And if I miss a show, such as The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones or whatever, I know I can easily stream it that night or the next day, or even better in some cases, watch some solid recaps on YouTube with all of the Easter eggs I would have missed. I missed entire seasons of the Walking Dead, but there are some people who put together some awesome YouTube videos covering the most important events in the Walking Dead as if they were historical events, and in some cases, those videos are far more entertaining than the actual shows/seasons themselves were because they can skip right over shitty writing.

In short there is no sense of urgency whatsoever about watching anything on TV or in the theaters.  NONE.  This is not 10 or 20 years ago where some event TV stuff like Lost or the Sopranos had to be consumed the moment it aired because everybody would be talking about it the next day - if I get behind, I don't have to worry about missing out overall because I can stream it over lunch or on the weekend, or better yet, I can binge it down the road, and in the meantime, I can spend a few minutes online or on YouTube and get a recap and pretend like I watched it when talking to my friends or co-workers.

In short, it has nothing to do with woke and everything to do with too much content from the last 100 years.

Sorry @TwiceHorn for the manifesto.

[Js1 86945]

31 minutes ago, Red Five said:

I'm sort of with you on movies. But there's a ton of good tv out there. 

TV is crushing movies.  Period. 

I like to go to the movies, but everything there is a sequel, a reboot or a remake (which could be due to the writer's strike). But TV, man...just so many bangers. And you're seeing studios like Apple pour a lot of big budgets into shows instead of movies. 

TV is also crushing the book adaptation market better than movies - Fallout and Silo in particular were so good.  Masters of the Air, Say Nothing, Shogun, 3 Body Problem, We Were the Lucky Ones, Bad Monkey are just a few that have been mentioned or came out this year. 

[Don Johnson 4802]

Definite old man rant, but damn if I didn't enjoy it so much more when movies came down the normal pipeline.  They'd all be released at the theatre, then there would be a break, then they'd come out at Blockbuster (or eventually OnDemand/stream).

As recently as 6-7 years ago, I feel like I could be at home on a Friday night and pull up the movies that had just been released for home viewership.  "Oh shit, that's out now?  Everyone said its good.  I missed it at the theatre.  Rent"

Now, with so many released straight to streaming, plus all the streamers having their own studios and releasing their own movies, its so saturated and hard to get excited about anything or even find what's good.

[Js1 86945]

5 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

As recently as 6-7 years ago, I feel like I could be at home on a Friday night and pull up the movies that had just been released for home viewership.  "Oh shit, that's out now?  Everyone said its good.  I missed it at the theatre.  Rent"

 

Also it's like $20 to watch at home via Amazon 6-8 weeks after it hits theaters, versus $12-15/ticket for each member of the family.

Hm, a family of 4 can spend $60 to watch it in the theater, before snacks and drinks, or $20 at home with all the snacks, drinks, bathroom breaks and no mouth breathers talking or on their phones. 

[TwiceHorn 31991]

43 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

In short there is no sense of urgency whatsoever about watching anything on TV or in the theaters.  NONE.

I think this, combined with the endless variety/availability of shows of various types, is what is driving this.  I feel like I have to be in the right mood or frame of mind to start something like a show or sit for a movie.  And, it seems that I rarely am.

[atomheartbevo 90549]

12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think this, combined with the endless variety/availability of shows of various types, is what is driving this.  I feel like I have to be in the right mood or frame of mind to start something like a show or sit for a movie.  And, it seems that I rarely am.

I didn't see Palm Springs until recently, and loved it, and for whatever reason, even though it would have been the perfect pandemic movie (which is when it came out) I missed it then. I was just not in the mood then, or it was always there and I had a long list of other stuff I wanted to watch. I'm working through Parks and Rec (I had caught some eps here and there) and I enjoy it, but I have no sense of urgency to binge it (everybody I know that liked it finished it long ago).

And I'm actually working through The Walking Dead, but only by a YouTube channel that I mentioned earlier, that presents only the important moments from select episodes, as if they were self-contained battles, or forced migrations, or in general important moments in the "history" of the Walking Dead's world. It's actually a bit entertaining and at times makes me want to watch the entire series, but I don't have that kind of time and it ignores the bad writing.

I occasionally come across shows that I have to stay current on, not because I'm going to discuss them with other people, but because I really enjoy them.

But for the most part, we got what we were told would happen as kids - that someday we'd be able to easily watch any show that ever existed.  Obviously, it didn't pan out as expected (everything is scattered between multiple services) and there are exceptions (can't believe Twister was not streaming ahead of Twisters), but it's pretty much all there, whenever we want it.

Because it's at our fingertips, it's easy to ignore it in favor of things we classify as being more important.

And I left out one thing - we don't have to choose between shows, like we did as kids (assuming you were an 80s or 90s kid). I hated certain times of the year in the 80s when I had shows I really liked, that were on opposite of each other, on different channels.  I would have to wait for stuff to hit syndication before I could watch some of it.

[4th&Five 41904]

44 minutes ago, Js1 said:

TV is crushing movies.  Period. 

I like to go to the movies, but everything there is a sequel, a reboot or a remake (which could be due to the writer's strike). But TV, man...just so many bangers. And you're seeing studios like Apple pour a lot of big budgets into shows instead of movies. 

TV is also crushing the book adaptation market better than movies - Fallout and Silo in particular were so good.  Masters of the Air, Say Nothing, Shogun, 3 Body Problem, We Were the Lucky Ones, Bad Monkey are just a few that have been mentioned or came out this year. 

I thought last year was a great year for movies. This year not so much. 

[Michael Knight 13187]

Movies cost too much to make to take risks and when the filmmaker does they are seldom rewarded by the audience, people simply do not want to think in the theatre anymore they want the spectacle. The stigma of working on TV vs Movies pretty much ended 20 years ago and the quantity of shows has grown exponentially. So all the writing talent is going there but just like everything its a finite amount so most of it will suck but there is alot of good stuff too. 

The strike had a definite impact on the number of quality products this year especially movies.

There is still good shit and bad shit being made just like every year

[Parliament 14561]

The 2003-2013 era of everything on cable and I had a DVR was the best.  

[atomheartbevo 90549]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

TV is crushing (it)

A lot of the shows I watched as a kid didn’t hold up well at all.  But when I look at what the top-rated shows adults were watching in the 70s/80s/early 90s, or earlier, there’s not much there that I would want to rewatch down the road. Mostly some of the prestige mini-series, and I know shows like Murder She Wrote or Magnum, P.I. and others have their fans today (but their production values were high), but a lot of it was just shallow as hell or poorly produced.  

[South Austin 53155]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

A lot of the shows I watched as a kid didn’t hold up well at all.  But when I look at what the top-rated shows adults were watching in the 70s/80s/early 90s, or earlier, there’s not much there that I would want to rewatch down the road. Mostly some of the prestige mini-series, and I know shows like Murder She Wrote or Magnum, P.I. and others have their fans today (but their production values were high), but a lot of it was just shallow as hell or poorly produced.  

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that steaming TV these days can show content (violence, foul language, nudity, dark and edgy content) that network TV of our childhood could never touch. 

But as you also note, production quality is better today (as it is for film).  And there are more "movie stars" who make the crossover to TV series., where as decades ago TV work might have been perceived as beneath film stars.

['stache 22117]

I was never a film or tv buff but for me I think it's more age than anything. I don't feel like committing time to these series or even movies unless I have a high degree of confidence that it'll be worthwhile. With so much available that's harder and harder for me to find. However, when I do find something, I really enjoy watching. Ted Lasso, The Bear, The Great, Reservation Dogs, Loki, these are a few things that have grabbed me in recent years. 

['stache 22117]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

That is the dumbest fucking thing that's been said in this sub in a long time.

Is this you?

Translation: "I miss the days when gays and minorities were stereotypes and women were just there for their looks."

Edited Monday at 06:41 PM by 'stache

[Tuco 5093]

There is a combination of a few things for me:

1. So many choices for entertainment means that I get distracted.  I don't have the attention span to pay attention to a lengthy setup.  I am rewired for the instant gratification of social media and 10 minute youtube vidoes.  I find this is true even for classic movies that I still kind of love.  I find myself watching Kubrick movies in sections, because no way am I sitting down for three hours straight.  

2. So many choices that I get spoiled.  When it was three channels, you pretty much took the best of three shitty options.  Now, if it's not great, I ain't watching.  Probably a good thing.  But I don't have the patience to sit through a rough first season, or rough pilot, of anything.  

3. I'm old, so it's gotta be weird and pretty.  I've watched every classic story line so many time, in so many forms, it just doesn't interest me, regardless of how well it's done.  The shows I get into now tend to have interesting cinematography and weird storylines.  Mr. Robot is a good example. Peacock has been surprisingly good with Poker Face, Miss Davis, and Hysteria.  I'm sure The Bear is "better" than any of those three, when it comes to writing and acting, but I have very little interest in watching brothers argue in the back of the house of a restaurant.  I couldn't get past the first two episodes.  

[Don Johnson 4802]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

A lot of the shows I watched as a kid didn’t hold up well at all.  But when I look at what the top-rated shows adults were watching in the 70s/80s/early 90s, or earlier, there’s not much there that I would want to rewatch down the road. Mostly some of the prestige mini-series, and I know shows like Murder She Wrote or Magnum, P.I. and others have their fans today (but their production values were high), but a lot of it was just shallow as hell or poorly produced.  

We watch a mindless 30 min sitcom in bed to wind down.  Parks and Rec, Office, Friends, Cheers.  Its amazing how distracting the laugh track is to me now.  Growing up, it was just normal.  Now, its so obvious.

[South Austin 53155]

4 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

We watch a mindless 30 min sitcom in bed to wind down.  Parks and Rec, Office, Friends, Cheers.  Its amazing how distracting the laugh track is to me now.  Growing up, it was just normal.  Now, its so obvious.

Do many current shows still use a laugh track (or a live studio audience)?  I don't recall Parks and Rec and The Office doing so.  Others I've recently seen like Ted Lasso and Shrinking do not.

[Don Johnson 4802]

4 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Do many current shows still use a laugh track (or a live studio audience)?  I don't recall Parks and Rec and The Office doing so.  Others I've recently seen like Ted Lasso and Shrinking do not.

Sorry for confusion, Parks and Rec and the Office do not.  Friends and Cheers do.  Just showing the spectrum.

Not sure on current shows.  I feel like CBS was still  holding on the laugh tracks for their shows last time I cared to check.  

[Buzzrock 15116]

The glut of content on demand on every possible device is certainly part of it. The other night I couldn’t find anything to watch so I watched No Country for Old Men for the dozenth time because it was free on YouTube. YT seems to have an increasing collection of free movies (might be part of premium, I’m not sure).

I feel like I liked it better when I had the HBO package and would flip around and sometimes even just watch parts of movies that happened to be on, or DVR the new releases. Preview weekends on other movie channels felt special.

[atomheartbevo 90549]

2 hours ago, South Austin said:

But as you also note, production quality is better today (as it is for film).  And there are more "movie stars" who make the crossover to TV series., where as decades ago TV work might have been perceived as beneath film stars.

If movie stars did TV work back then, it was usually some prestigious mini-series, like North and the South or Winds of War or Centennial.

Now there's plenty of movie stars who will "step down" to TV level because the pay checks and are good and steady and solid TV shows carry a lot of critical weight these days (Billy Bob Thornton, Kevin Kostner, plenty of HBO shows, etc.).

[shadow_operative2.0 16182]

6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

In short 

In short 

In short 

Three times in a post with over 1,000 words is fucking awesome. 

[MrBig 5603]

I find myself watching a lot of YouTube documentaries once I realized PBS, American Experience, and Frontline were all commercial free and had a large library of back titles. I recently saw one about the history of Monopoly with the story of how it was stolen from a woman who was tricked into selling her rights to the game. I try to avoid other crap on YouTube because it’s often filled with disinformation, but PBS does a good job of staying neutral and reporting facts. 

[Nivek 17330]

Part of the problem is that by this age I have seen quite a few movies and really see the recycling of stories and the formula.   TV shows are in the same category, anyone see the series about the rogue doctor with the prickly personality?  

[HornOnTheBayou 9056]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

Do many current shows still use a laugh track (or a live studio audience)?  I don't recall Parks and Rec and The Office doing so.  Others I've recently seen like Ted Lasso and Shrinking do not.

I feel like laugh tracks stopped around 2000, at least for the shows I watched. Seinfeld, Frasier, and Friends had it in the 90s, but by the time you got to the 2000s, Parks and Rec and The Office didn't.

Edited Monday at 09:19 PM by HornOnTheBayou

[Celery Man 21076]

Well for one, they stopped making theater comedies. That sucks.

 

i feel the same way, but i have little kids and only an exhausted 20 minutes a night for tv. It’s mostly just something easy and light and requiring little attention, which is often rehashing some old shit I’ve seen a million times before.

[Al_4_ISU 12612]

I think there's still a lot of good TV, but I just don't find the time for it anymore.  I'm in bed a half hour after my kid most nights, and up early to work out.  From August through April sports dominate my TV viewing, and in the summer I'd just rather be doing something outside, even if it's just watching my kid run around the yard while I have tunes on.

I think Top Gun Maverick is the last movie I saw in a theatre.

[Tuco 5093]

1 hour ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

I feel like laugh tracks stopped around 2000, at least for the shows I watched. Seinfeld, Frasier, and Friends had it in the 90s, but by the time you got to the 2000s, Parks and Rec and The Office didn't.

That seems about right.  It was really jarring in Sports Night (1998-2000), but wasn't in The West Wing (1999+).  Sports Night demonstrated how poorly the laugh track worked with more styles, like Sorkin.  With Friends, you have that pause/react for laughter.  But with Sorkin, the dialogue is quick and is meant to be somewhat realistic, with no one pausing to make a funny face in reaction to something clever.