week nine [rhian]

Wilcox and Lavery (2002) identify 9 defining characteristics of ‘quality TV’ – can you apply any of these to other television series that you have viewed recently? Are there any other characteristics that you could add to their list?


The nine defining characteristics of 'quality TV' (Wilcox and Lavery, 2002)
1. "Quality TV usually has a quality pedigree." - the creator is generally someone who has had a successful career and a good education.
2. "... quality shows must must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networks and non-appreciative audiences." - despite lack of support through audience and money-giving companies, the show still goes on [ha. ha.]
3. "Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast." - heaps of characters so that there are many to relate to, hopefully helping with getting more audience members.
4. "Quality TV has a memory." - the characters bring up past episodes now and again and the audience remembers it too.
5. "Quality TV creates a new genre by mixing old ones." - the combined influences of older, sometimes overdone, genres help to create a new and more fascinating one.
6. "Quality TV tends to be literary and writer-based." - it is less about the film and more about the continuous writing of new episodes with new experiences and characters.
7. "Quality TV is self-conscious." - the show is aware of its past as well as it's developing future, what it can do and where it can go.
8. "The subject matter of quality TV tends toward the controversial." - it challenges the social norms that people, though follow, also like to know and hear about, maybe even practice secretly.
9. "Quality TV aspires toward 'realism.'" - the show brings about themes that are more real than people like to admit, making it easier to relate due to it being an external medium.


There are quite a few TV shows that do this these days. For example:


How I Met Your Mother - although it is now very popular, in the beginning it wasn't. I remember seeing an episode of it on some channel in Australia and thinking it looked pretty funny, but when I came back to New Zealand, no one had heard of it and it definitely wasn't on TV.
1. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas (HIMYM writers) are both Wesleyan graduates and have written other TV shows beforehand.
2. At the beginning, HIMYM wasn't very popular and despite the odds, they made it through and are now one of the most popular CBS programs.
3. There are five main people: Ted, the show circles around trying to find his future wife; Marshall and Lily, the engaged/married couple who are Ted's good friends and deal with their relationship moving to marriage and kids; Robyn, Ted's first crush in the show who becomes his really good friend; and Barney, the single guy who loves nothing more than sleeping with multitudes of women.
4. There is constant referring to past episodes. One in particular is the goat on Ted's birthday which he brings up a season beforehand and then again on his 30th birthday, when he realises that it was actually his 31st.
5. HIMYM doesn't necessarily bring about a new genre but it does take the classic "comedy" and "romantic" genres and make them highly popular through the seasons.
6. There is a great focus on the development of episodes through the writing. Bays and Thomas are very skilled screenwriters.
7. In many episodes there is a forbearing of the future episodes to come, for example, in the goat one with the birthday the voice-over explain that it's Ted's 31st where the goat comes in when Robyn is living with him. This surprises the audience as Ted and Robyn have dated and broken up, they have remained friends but it is weird for exes to live together. Also, external publications such as "The Bro Code" and "The Playbook" have been released as books written by "Barney Stinson" for fans to buy that are very popular.
8. There are quite a few controversial things in HIMYM. Barney, for example, is promiscuous to the extreme degree. At one point he has a list of all of the people he has slept with that amounts to over 200. He also has "The Playbook" which details all of his pick up escapades.
9. Life in HIMYM may not be 100% legitimate but it has many realistic aspects to it such as the highs and lows of dating life and relationships as well as what it's like to have friends and how to live with them.


Another aspect of quality TV should be that it must have characters that are relatable. Yes, it says that they often have a large cast, but the actual characteristics of each member should be more or less realistic. With a large cast comes varying products such as sexuality, hobbies, opinions, and it should be added into the list that these need to be basic, not extremely outlandish as the audience needs to connect with these characters in order to enjoy what they are watching and bring them back to watch more.