24 Revolutionized TV
TV nowadays is very different from what it was like in the late 80’s or early 90’s. 15 years ago it was the age of the sitcom. You remember TGIF? Family Matters, Full House, Step-by-step, and even that crazy show called Dinosaurs. That was the TV of yester-year.
Today the “one-couch-sitcom� is all but dead. Serial dramas like Lost, 24, and The Sopranos rule the airways. So, what happened to create the television landscape we see today?
Back in 2001 the first season of 24 premiered. It was a modest hit. Then the DVD came out which started selling like mad. In an interview with IGN in 2002 Kiefer said that the DVD sales, for 24, in the UK actually knocked Lord of The Rings out of first place, something totally unheard of in the TV/DVD world.
People were beginning to catch onto the fact that they’d have to watch every week religiously to understand everything that was going on. Overall the viewing public was becoming smarter and keener to what was going on.
It seemed that FOX had finally found out that an audience in mass proportions, could stomach a show like 24. The second season of 24 was a huge hit sky rocketing from the 8.60 million viewers the first season was able to pull in, to an 11.73 million viewers.
24 was beginning to shape a phenomenon that we only really got a glimpse of this year. After 24’s success ABC premiered Lost in 2004 garnering huge praise from critics and audiences alike. Serial dramas were off and running.
According to the TV Guide dated Sept. 11-17, 2006, which was the Fall Preview of all the new shows, 92 shows premiered and over half of them were serialized soaps, dramas, or thrillers. Now with shows like Heroes and Studio 60, who have tremendous production values, TV shows are beginning to look a lot more like extended movies rather than small screen ways to pass your free time.
24 has become an icon in television viewing. The television world has become serialized due in large part to 24’s success. I really think that 24 changed the way we view TV. Networks are realizing that we as a viewing audience can follow a show from week to week, season to season without becoming lost. We don’t need everything spelled out for us in one episode. In consequence the networks have had to up the ante and give us higher quality more complex shows. 24’s success has truly been instrumental in altering the TV world.
24, Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland, Jon Cassar, FOX, Season 6 of 24
December 13th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
[...] When 24 premiered back in 2001 it was a modest hit. When the DVD came out and those who hadn’t been watched from the beginning caught on to the show they became addicted.   As people caught on to the fact that they needed to watch every week to understand the development of the show Fox realized the gem they had. As they soon discovered, an audience in mass proportions, could stomach a show like 24. The second season of 24 was a huge hit–sky rocketing from the 8.60 million viewers the first season was able to pull in, to an 11.73 million viewers. Here is a quote from watching24.com “24 was beginning to shape a phenomenon that we only really got a glimpse of this year. After 24’s success ABC premiered Lost in 2004 garnering huge praise from critics and audiences alike. Serial dramas were off and running. [...]
December 13th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Do these people have no life other than tv ?
Beam me up Scotty there is no intelligent life here !
December 13th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I’m glad you touched on 24 being more like an extended movie. I can’t watch the show on television for fear of missing an episode, so I buy the DVDs and watch a season in a marathon weekend or over three or four days. It can be done no other way.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
I think you’re leaving out the increadible influence of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. It was the first true story-arc-based TV series where every episode built from the ones before it.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Has this author never ever heard of Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, daytime soaps, etc?
This serial drama is nothing new, at all.
Welcome to yesterday.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:14 am
could the fact that “TV shows are beginning to look a lot more like extended movies rather than small screen ways to pass your free time” perhaps be the reason that the box office is terrible now a days?
December 14th, 2006 at 12:20 am
[...] This post talks about how serial dramas have taken over as the main kind of show broadcasted on the national networks. 24 has become an icon in television viewing. The television world has become serialized due in large part to 24’s success. I really think that 24 changed the way we view TV. Networks are realizing that we as a viewing audience can follow a show from week to week, season to season without becoming lost. We don’t need everything spelled out for us in one episode. In consequence the networks have had to up the ante and give us higher quality more complex shows. 24’s success has truly been instrumental in altering the TV world. [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 1:07 am
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December 14th, 2006 at 1:13 am
[...] This fellow believes that the popularity of 24 is responsible for the current boom of serialized television program and the seemingly all-out change in the television landscape. [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 1:27 am
thatoneguy’s observations are notable. It always seems when TV is hot, movies are shite-o, and visa-versa.
I have to agree with the Twin Peaks and Dallas observations. I was going to mention X-Files, Nikita, and so-on, but yes it goes back much further. In fact we might as well take it as far back as the Saturday afternoon kid’s serials and radio shows of yesteryear.
One significant difference is the way American TV will attempt to milk this stuff until it’s done to death, no one cares anymore, and all the good writers for the show have since moved on or been fired or are totally burned up and out so the wind-up ends up being really crappy (Nikita is a classic example — the wind-up was a sad joke but was slightly redeemed by a last-minute half-season add-on). UK TV seems to have a better handle on this and know when to bow out gracefully with a show.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:28 am
24 also introduced the idea that time in a television show did not need to follow our time. No Christmas episode, no spring break episode, just the pacing that the story required - in this case real time. Without 24 would the producers of Lost be able to say that a season lasts a few weeks or a month on the the island, not a year?
December 14th, 2006 at 2:03 am
An important point to consider is that tivo may have a part in this shift.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:00 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 3:45 am
Stephen Glauser, I also do the same, regarding the marathon. When I start to watch 24, I lose sense of time and 6/7 hours go by really fast.
I can’t just watch 1 hour and wait another week (=
December 14th, 2006 at 4:20 am
What about Twin Peaks? That was serialized drama way back when.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:26 am
spot on .
a couple of points that you missed and laos the counterexamplers.
first of all this is all relevant when you understand the key demographic of 20 -40 year old middle class males with disposable incomes are inot their Tivos and with the new sewrialised shows cannot wait to havet hads stripped out and timeshifted. its the morningafter watercooler discussion they dont want to miss out on. like knoits landing or who shot Jr but in a post Tivo world which 24 accidentally broke.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:41 am
i would also like to add that these shows have yet somthing else in ocmmon.
while the mega spiralling budgets and upper manager dominated studio system of hollwood grows more spineless and the art of the masses betrays them with wilful ignorance people wil always turn back to TV. golden american TV emerges in times of extreme social upheaval and is less afraid [not much but enough] than hollwood to take on these hot potato issues.
ER - evil HMOs a, social prpblems porvetry drugs
Star Trek - Race , war, technology and human advencement.
24 - torture, agancy interop, post-9/11 moderation
the prisoner - totalitarianism and the individual
lost - take your pick.
i could name many more but i am sure you guys have better examples.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:55 am
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December 14th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Part of what changed was Digital filmaking. It is now less expensive to film digitally than ever before. Couple that with film-friendly non-Hollywood (read: Non-Union) filming locations like Atlanta, Baltimore, and Toronto and you find that you can make a movie-quality show for a TV budget.
I have to agree with the TiVO comment as well. But FOX isn’t the geniuses that it seems– they got lucky with 24. Mostly it is writers who are willing to push the envelope of drama - pitching stories that are smart, emotional, gripping and above all GOOD. The Dross of TV is fading fast with the actual anticipation of new seasons of good shows and even (gasp) the possbility that we might get one or two good new shows each season.
Now if we can only get the networks to get out of the “eyballs at airing”=”cash” model then we will finally see some creative and truely innovative television. I think it is important for them to realize that an aired program that generates ONE rabid fan will generate 5-10 new viewers the following week. It really does take more than six episdoes to build a following. And lastly, poor ratings + critical success is not a failure. Ratings aren’t the only measure.
But that - obviously is another article
December 14th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
[...] MÃg másfél évtizede szituációs vÃgjátékok töltötték meg a képernyÅ‘t, napjainkban a vezetÅ‘ sorozatok a 24-hez, a Losthoz és a Sopranoshoz hasonló drámák. Vajon mi áll a változás hátterében? – kérdi a Watching 24 cikke. [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
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