COMICS ON TV

I recently read that Agents of SHIELD is steadily losing viewers which brings to mind something I've always thought, extremes with comic book stories are not very good in television. When Batman came out in 1966 it was a lot of camp and not too much substance. That series worked because back in those days television was not a charged medium. The Superman series starring George Reeves was geared toward kids and it had been on air in the 1950's.

Superman was highly predictable and did not have much depth since it only had a 30 minute timespan in which to tell a full story. If you fast forward to the 70's you have shows like Shazam, Wonder Woman, and the ill fated Justice League, series.

All of these shows failed to get long runs out of the gate because by the 70's there were more shows chose from and comic books were not really as marketable as before. With films such as Star Wars it seemed like comic books would be doomed. Yes Superman was released in 1978 and it was a huge box office hit but beyond that it seemed like the genre did not really have a life in the small screen.

Fast forward to the early 90's and it was more of the same with failed attempts in shows such as the Flash, and Justice League. It wasn't until Smallville that there was a real success with heroes. Now we look at SHIELD and see what's wrong.

People expect all out action and special effects sometimes and SHIELD has not gone that route. SHIELD has taken to slowly telling a story that relies on depth mixed with action. A show like Smallville began to step away from the soap opera in order to bring in more comic book aspects and while that worked, it took a little bit of wind from the shows sails. As far as SHIELD goes there's a possibility that it can nail the right balance if given a chance. People should not view it as just another comic book show. Perhaps the show is lagging because it only has one so far compelling character in terms of Agent Coulson.

I hope the show stays on the air because I think it's a great show.

IF IT ISN'T IN PERSPECTIVE YET, LET'S TAKE IT THERE

I once heard a mind blowing stat that by the end of my high school years I would have watched close to 17,000 hours of television. To me that stat was a clear example that life was somewhat trivial. I thought " What the fuck man?" I was 17 when I heard this and honestly I had no clue.

What I have realizing  is that TV has an incredible amount of power, the power to change life as we know it and society as we see it. Let's put it into a serious perspective here. When FDR died it was a couple of days before the country was completely aware of that fact. When JFK was assassinated it was around in the same day.

Television the medium that gave us Watergate and the eventual fall of a president. Yes, today television gives us a lot of shit that's come around as the result of praise lavished upon the mediocre. Television began the quest of making the world a smaller place, social media has made it an art, but television started it. To put it in perspective, what was once an invention that served as a form of entertainment is today the tool that brought the world together.

It's television that gives us a little to talk about in the water cooler, something to argue about with politics, and the things that bring us together.