This past semester, my second-to-last in my undergraduate career, I took several classes on writing for television. I examined writing for sketch and late night shows, sitcoms, and hour-long dramas, which is practically the whole gambit if you exclude reality shows, which I do for numerous reasons.
Anyways, I was immersed in television writing, and I found that I really liked it. It's not just the steady paycheck, the camaraderie, the almost reasonable hours that my
teachers described. It's the idea that your characters live for months or years. We all know about Oedipus or Hamlet, but they have confined stories. We watch them for two hours, but that's the extent of their existence. And sure, Luke Skywalker or Marty McFly have maybe eight hours of existence, but that's as much as any feature character gets! But how long has Michael Scott been around? I've personally watched him for five and a half years.
So if I am blessed with the opportunity to write for television, I could really get to know these people, watch them deal with the hard times and celebrate the good times.
TV is often scoffed at. I've heard rocks stars, teachers, even my friends talk about how we shouldn't watch TV. "It rots your brain," I've heard. Yet movies are two hours well spent? I used to be one of those people who felt good about themselves because they
didn't watch any TV, but after the past four months I've realized it's the most current,
applicable, personal medium out there. TV can address current issues. Have you ever watched the West Wing episode that came out after 9/11? It discussed all the things I was trying mull over in my head at the time, and acknowledged the presence of some difficult questions in our world. People can turn on a TV and laugh as a sitcom family struggles through the same tough times. It's relevant to them.
I'm not advocating that everyone should have a TV set and watch three hours a day. Far from it. I acknowledge that there's a lot of inferior quality programming on TV, and kids should still play outside and everyone should still eat dinner at the table as a family. But for myself, I have come to appreciate a medium that I had previously not considered artistic or important, and I think I would be damn lucky to have a hand in making it.
