With the series finales of Lost and 24 airing Sunday and last night, a huge chunk of my cultural life over the past decade has come to an end in just two days.

I was thoroughly pleased with the Lost finale—primarily because it offered genuine emotional closure for me. But also because I’ve never been particularly concerned with making “sense” of the show’s Byzantine plot twists or its alternate-universe reality—so I didn’t have any giant questions I needed answered. That said, if you were a fan, Time.com’s James Poniewozick wrote an excellent review of the show—and the finale: http://bit.ly/bzScaB

On the other hand, I was fairly disappointed with the last few weeks of 24—particularly in watching Jack Bauer transformed from a crusading superhero to a vindictive, cold-blooded killer. Still, the show (and Jack) already had more than enough credit in my goodwill bank to make the season worthwhile.

All that said, I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to publicly disclose something I’ve admitted, without shame, for years: On the whole, I like television better than the movies. Here’s why:

First, I rarely have the time, or the patience, to watch an entire movie on a Friday or Saturday—much less on a weeknight. With my DVR, an hour show on basic cable is 50 minutes, tops. AND there’s always the possibility that I’ll catch a really good commercial among all the lame ones I fast-forward past.

Second, TV is a writer’s medium. TV producers don’t have budgets for the special effects that dominate most Hollywood films these days, so they’re actually forced to focus on the stories. And there are plenty of shows that tell stories I like. (Although I do think the vast majority of TV comedy these days is so bad it’s not even funny).

Third, a month of cable TV—most of which is available in HD—is less than the cost to take the family to a single movie (particularly if you buy Coke and popcorn). Because of that, I’m a lot more easily satisfied by TV than movies.

Not that my overall standards have dropped, but I just don’t bring the same (often unreasonable) expectations to TV that I do to movies. At the same time, on a strictly objective level, I can list any number of TV shows which have genuinely impressed me over the past couple years—but very few movies. And yeah, I know that’s partly my fault—because I’m not willing to invest the necessary effort to find movies I’ll really like; but even if I was, I still don’t have the time to watch them.

Fourth, a lot more people watch TV—so there are a lot more opportunities to make reasonably meaningful small talk, day in and out.

And finally, TV is in my house—and at my age, that’s pretty much where I want to be. Which (to be perfectly honest) is one of the reasons it’s best to call me at the office, if there’s something important you need to discuss with me. Like, for instance, what you watched on TV last night.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 6:27 pm and is filed under CULTURE, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.