I'm NOT Mentioning Dallas or Dynasty

Gah. My keyboard's on the fritz (actually my spacebar's sticky), my Palm won't Sync (even after working beautifully earlier today) and in a related incident, I suspect my USB ports are broken. Murphy's Law? Probably. What this means is I won't be able to sync the PDA, my mobile or my digital camera OR type properly. This sucks.

Anyway. I just finished watching the latest instalment of Law And Order: SVU on Star World (I wish they had multiple episodes of Law and Order back to back like they have overseas) and realised just how complex television series like it and others have become in the past decade or two. Gone are the days when you just plonk yourselves mid episode and be reasonably sure of the plot points (and in the case of Airwolf and its ilk) and possible outcome. Nowadays TV series have story arcs spanning several months (or maybe seasons) and woe betide anyone who decides he/she wants some quick chop socky spy action and tunes in to Alias on the telly. Get Smart or the Man From UNCLE this ain't.

Growing up in the 80s really spoilt me I guess. I had a humongous selection of TV shows to tune into. Let's name some off the top of my head:

BJ and the Bear, Chips, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, The Fall Guy, Get Smart, The Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man, Shazam!, Knight Rider and its copycat Streethawk, Airwolf and Blue Thunder, The A Team and McGyver..I could go on for ages. These were shows where you knew what would happen everytime:

A family trust/missionary school/(insert do gooder name here) gets attacked/threatened/beat up by a gang of drug dealers/mob henchmen/school jocks. A teary eyed female/or blue eyed blond representative contacts our heroes and they proceed to deal out some vehicular thematic butt kicking.

Ahh the good old days. Nowadays, the hero/heroine turns out more often than not to have a Dark Past (or a family member with one)/close ties to the Criminal Element, fighting the good fight while at the same time embarking on a journey of self discovery to find out who he/she really is: Fox Mulder, Jared from the Pretender, Dark Angel, Alias, The Agency. We learn through cryptic clues dished out during specific cliffhanger points that the hero has special powers/the bad guy as his/her dad/was a victim of abuse (you get the drift). Try sitting in on an episode of The Shield sometime. Although not all of these series have succumbed to the curse of the indomitable story arc (notably CSI, which still manages to offer us tantalising glimpses into the characters' lives) most have, and as a result we require religious viewing (or at least a DVD box set) to figure out.

The price of progress? As viewers get more intelligent and demanding, writers and producers have to ensure that a series is profitable enough to maintain on air AND be viable for rerunning through syndication. Get a show that thrives on syndication, and you're laughing all the way to the bank. The X Files was one of the earliest examples of this type of TV show, with an overarching storyline that provided the backdrop for all the weirdness Mulder and Scully had to endure.

I won't even get started on Star Trek and its many spawn, er offshoots. Maybe it's a good thing. No longer are we content to watch the Bad Guy of The Week get trashed just because he's bad. We need a reason, a motive, a twist. And as long as the viewers demand this, things can only get better.

Ultimately, couch potatoes have it good (except for the fat count).

Have a good midweek folks!