Death of the One-Hour Anything

I'm ready to declare the one-hour T.V. show dead, or at least dead to me. It's a brand new era, maybe even a golden age, for media.

Those old standbys, the one-hour drama and the half-hour comedy, no longer interest me. Technology has let me be more selective about how I watch T.V. and other media, and I've developed a taste for plotlines that last not for an hour, but for entire seasons or more, what I call long-form television.

Technology
More than anything, the death of the one-hour anything is because of technology. Cable isn't the only place to find long-form T.V., but cable T.V., especially subscription services, let shows with adult themes and smaller audiences thrive. Cable has created shows that are among the best I've ever seen on, shows like The Wire and the new Battlestar Galactica.

It's not just that long-form shows like these have very long story lines and high production values. They also have more character development, bigger supporting casts, and a slower pace than older shows because they can take the time to do so.


Less restrictive decency standards on cable let these shows experiment with a darker tone. Cable networks also show more repeats, which gives viewers more chances to catch up on storylines, as do do digital video recorders like TiVo. Oh good Lord do I love my TiVo.

DVDs are the other big factor in longer storylines. Access to them is expanding because DVD players have steadily gotten cheaper, and because DVDs are more widely available.

Not only do DVDs let viewers catch up on things they've missed, they also encourages better production values and longer storylines: more dedicated viewers means more DVD purchases and rentals, which in turn means more money for the producers of the show.

Origins
The death of the one-hour anything started with two shows, The Sopranos and Survivor.

Beyond setting the bar for reality television, Survivor is great long-form T.V. I watch because I get to see characters grow and change, and because events that happen in the first episode, like somebody stealing a can of beans, can change how things play out seven shows later on.

Over time, I can also watch the tone of a particular season change or evolve. One particularly manipulative person can force everyone on the island to become deceitful and manipulative, or a particularly loyal group can make the game all about loyalty. Plus, you get to see people slowly starve to death. That's just great T.V.


The Sopranos demonstrated the power of subscription services to produce high-quality shows for adults with cussin' and killin'. Where Survivor was a mass movement, Sopranos was a media darling with a smaller but staunchly loyal audience. I myself do not watch Sopranos because I never saw the first episode and so never caught up.

Honorable mention goes to network long-form T.V. shows 24 and Lost.

Lost puts a strong emphasis on character development (which can get a little frustrating when I'm anxious for the story to go forward) and takes its time explaining its mysteries. This has led to what is arguably the most obsessive fan base since Twin Peaks

24 gets concept points for being a 24-hour story, but this usually works out to four six-hour stories (four and a half hours in real time). Still, there's nothing like an 18-hour 24 DVD bender.

Long Form in Other Mediums
Long form has also spread in my two favorite mediums, video games and comics. Video game technology are permitting games to be more sophisticated: better graphics, more voice acting, open worlds and, of course, longer and better storylines. Johnny wrote his thesis on Final Fantasy, but I'm a real American, so I'm talking about the Grand Theft Auto series. GTA III popularized the open world game, and each new release in the series has a bigger world and a better storyline. I believe GTA is the true American epic in a way that, say, Gone With the Wind really, really isn't.

Then there's the great forgotten medium, comics. When I talk about comics, I usually have to tell people that I am not talking about the comics you read (or used to read) in the newspaper every day and I'm not talking about traditional superhero comics. I'm talking about webcomics first and foremost, and independently published comics that are not superhero comics second.


Comics are a microcosm of the long-form evolution of T.V. Better technology, namely the internet, lets readers access comics more easily and it lets artists publish their comics for free. This means more artists, more readers, and a broader range of subject matters. Nothing I read regularly has superheroes in it except Powers, which is about cops in a world with superheroes.

The internet also let readers access the entire archive of a comic, often everything the artist has ever drawn. This allows very, very long storylines with big, interesting worlds, all created by a single person.

These artists are usually working a day job and making comics because they feel compelled to do so. Only a very few comic artists, like Pete Abrams at Sluggy Freelance, one of the longest-running webcomics of all time, actually make a living writing their comics.

Because they're not doing it for the money, and because the major cost to artists is time, webcomics can be more personal than their off-line contemporaries. This has spread diary comics like Drew Weing's classic Journal Comic beyond the self-published indie comics that emerged along with the photocopier.

Webcomics also give comic artists the option of interacting more with their audience or making an independent effort to popularize their work. Some artists do this, some don't. Some develop a real love/hate relationship with their readers. Immediate audience response, daily updating and personal ownership makes for some great work that often improves over time.


One of my all-time favorite things in any medium is Unicorn Jelly by Jennifer Diane Reitz. Reitz, who was used to making huge, complex worlds for role-playing games, starts with a very simple, Dungeon + Dragons-type fantasy comic. As her art style gets more complex, so do the characters and the world. We're talking entire systems of physics here. Eventually it turns out that these characters are much more important than they originally seemed, but I don't want to give the rest of this comic away because it is such a fascinating read. I think about Unicorn Jelly whenever I write a story.

I read about twenty comics every day (listed in my sidebar), about five every week, and a score of others whenever they come out. I've read the archives of all of these comics - I read webcomics more than books and about as much as I read newspapers and magazines. It's my medium of choice, and it's ruined newspaper comics for me.

I Can't Watch CSI
Just like losing patience with newspaper comics, watching a lot of long-form T.V. has made me lose interest in any other format. The one-hour drama, especially, has suffered. Shows where every episode has a beginning, a middle, and an end just don't cut it anymore. Take the one-hour crime investigation drama: I've tried Law & Order, I've tried CSI, I even took a spin at Bones, and I got nothin'. I'm started to feel a little alienated from America.

The Long-Form Anti-Massacree Movement
The best stuff on T.V., and maybe in any medium, is long form. This isn't the first time there's been a media revolution and it won't be the last. It's also not the only thing changing the face of media. But if you're not watching long-form shows, you're missing out.