Are TV critics too critical? No. – Monthly Musings

A couple weeks/months ago, fellow clacker Brittany and I had a mutual brain fart over how readers perceive online reviewers. Joel Keller mentioned it in his TV Squad post, and most of us at CliqueClack have addressed it in our individual posts, but do online TV critics seem too critical (or just critics in general)? Using Community as an analogy, do we come across as season one Jeff Winger, with his snarky ’80s referential humor, or do readers perceive us as season two’s Pierce, wholly evil and unrepentant, intent on destroying everyone’s TV pleasure?

Brittany and I discussed the pros and cons below, which eventually leaned towards no. However, let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments.

Brittany: You bring up the interesting question of “are we too critical when we review TV shows? Does that suck all the fun out of it?” Well … yes and no. The honest answer is that it depends on each critic and each individual show. To explain: most shows that I watch, I also cover. I have a principle that “If I’m interested enough to watch it, why not cover it?” If I’m invested enough to give a show an hour of my time each week, then it’s probably worth me giving it some attention in coverage (with rare exception).

I wouldn’t say that it necessarily ruins my viewing experience, but that’s because I never watch a TV show as just a fan. I have a, and I rely on my, very unique perspective. Not only am I a TV critic, but I’m a screenwriter, and I’ve been a producer, director, actress … the list goes on and on. On top of that, I have real world experience in the genre that I most watch (crime dramas). I’ve never been able to be “just a fan,” because even if I weren’t a critic, I couldn’t turn off the writer in me or the part of me that trained with law enforcement. My writing background gets me in more trouble viewing-wise than my critical background.

It becomes a Catch-22 in a sense. When I’m watching a show I can see it from a fan’s perspective and from a creative team perspective, sometimes also from a professional perspective. Sometimes, that makes me better off (as in how I perfectly understood the themes of this week’s Chicago Code). Other times, not so much (I can tell you now Danny will be fine on Hawaii Five-O because it would make no sense production-wise to kill off a leading actor, who’s probably also under a multi-year contract).

The biggest hurdle with my criticism is efficiency. I want to get my reviews or rants done by the time the credits roll, which means writing while a show is airing … and having only minutes after it ends to wrap up my thoughts. I have to make sure I include all the important scenes … even if, as they’re airing, I don’t know they’re important at the time! Thankfully, I’ve semi-solved this problem by limiting my writing to commercial breaks.

An: I agree that a critical perspective doesn’t ruin our experience, it’s an extra “spidey” sense that’s always active (only nerdier). When I taught Cultural Studies, I couldn’t overlook the gender/racial cast constructs or embedded marketing when watching TV. Yet my students, like my readers (all two of them), frequently complained that I made TV more “complicated” than it truly was.

So, I wonder if two things are going on. Because the blogosphere incorporates TV reviewing, people have confused TV websites with fan sites. Additionally, most of us watch TV for escapism. Realizing that hundreds of people-hours went into making one TV hour would make TV watching more active (and, potentially negate its passive experience). Although the actors/directors and the writing/production staff spend days/weeks scripting/interpreting/reading the episode, determining if it will appeal to a broad yet specific demographic, keeping in mind censors, and attempting to do something new yet unexpected, thinking about it makes watching TV harder (and, for some, less fun). All the same, I loved the Hawaii 5-0 blog written by one of its production assistants, which showed the episode process.

So, I have a couple more questions to add to the fire:

• Are we too critical of shows because we’re forced to watch them every week?
  I hated a couple Sanctuary episodes, but I felt I couldn’t skip them. Perhaps believing I don’t have the ability to skip a crappy episode means I’m twice as cranky.
• Does criticizing TV remove our enjoyment of TV?
  I remember back in my twenties watching TV 24-7. But now I refuse to watch poorly scripted drama. In a way, I see TV as more precious and don’t want to waste my time with anything less-than.
• Does watching with laptop in hand prevent us from enjoying the full vicarious experience?
  It used to take me three to four hours to write a review (what with watching, taking notes, forming a pseudo-outline, writing, re-writing, re-reading, and posting, not to mention trying to capture quotes). But once I started taking on a viewer experience, putting the notebook/laptop aside, turning off the lights and focusing on my 27″ screen, I found I enjoyed the show even more.

Brittany: To answer the questions that you posed:

• Are we too critical of shows because we’re forced to watch them every week?
  I don’t think so. But I am lucky in that, since I have full creative control, I can drop a show if it gets to the point where I feel forced. I threw in the towel on both Law & Order: Los Angeles and Chase before their seasons were over because I knew early on that I just loathed watching them. The only one I stuck with was Fairly Legal, and absolutely it became a chore … I was counting down the episodes until I could stop covering it. But if I get to a point where I’m thinking my hatred of a show/aspect of a show will interfere with my objectivity, I’m probably about to drop covering it anyway.
• Does criticizing TV remove our enjoyment of TV?
  The one thing that kills my enjoyment of TV is, like you said, that “spidey” sense. It doesn’t come from critiquing necessarily but from all of my experience. For example, it’s very hard for me to honestly get worried about lead characters in peril because I know that either A) they’re really not going anywhere since the actor is important and/or under contract, or B) if they are leaving it’s probably been spoiled by TV Guide or EW or someplace else for a few weeks already. I ticked off some White Collar fans this past season with my assertion that Mozzie would obviously survive the shooting because it wouldn’t make sense production-wise to kill him (and he did survive). 

  Having said that, I’ve made the conscious choice not to cover every single spoiler or news item that pops up for my shows. I keep it to major things like renewals, new main cast members, etc. For one, I cover so many shows for so many sites that if I did that, I’d be posting dozens of little blurb articles a week just to keep up … and I don’t want that! And two, it keeps me from being too spoiled about the shows I love.

• Does watching with laptop in hand prevent us from enjoying the full vicarious experience?
  I’m not sure it prevents me from enjoying it but it does prevent me from thoroughly analyzing it sometimes. I try not to be typing during a show so the show has most of my attention. But when I have to get a review (or recap AND review) up by five minutes after the hour in order to capitalize on the audience that’s already looking for it, I have to summarize my thoughts/ideas about it very quickly. By the final commercial break I’m already starting to write my overall opinion of the episode. It’s not uncommon for me to post the recap/review, have something else occur to me, and update it on the fly. I’d love to hold my articles for posting longer, but that impacts my readership, and in some cases I’ve already got to move on to the next show!

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Jun 01, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT