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I haven’t watched much TV in the last decade. Around age 20 I became a habitual moviegoer, and after that I started losing interest in images designed for a small screen. (I continued to watch movies at home, however inferior the experience.) I understand that I’ve missed out on a golden age of U.S. television—and, thanks to DVD box sets, Netflix, and Hulu, I can catch up with the best programs whenever I want. I long resisted the temptation, though. In the 50 hours it takes to watch an entire TV series, I figure, I could explore the bodies of work of several different filmmakers, read a couple epic novels, or attend a few dozen plays. There’s only so much time in one’s life, and I know where my interests lie.
What the show gains in accessibility it loses in sensuousness. Nothing can wash over you when you see it on a laptop (though if you have a good set of headphones, you can still appreciate a well-designed soundtrack). A show like Breaking Bad averts that problem by aspiring to novelistic storytelling, which operates on a more cerebral level than filmmaking. And since people now carry around their laptops like books, the novelistic TV show, viewed online, seems like a natural storytelling medium for our culture. As a bibliophile, I can understand the medium’s appeal. But as a cinephile, I still prefer the self-contained, transportive experiences offered by feature films.
