We don't have cable at our house, and we don't watch broadcast television at all. The only reason we own a television is to watch DVDs -- either those we own, or those we get from the library and/or Netflix. As an early Christmas present, dad offered to purchase for us a new HDTV.
While at the store discussing options, the sales clerk asked if we had an HDTV cable box. I revealed that we didn't have cable. I'm not sure, but I think I heard the young fellow snort derisively to himself. I settled upon the on-sale model (a Panasonic 32") that dad had suggested, and soon I was home and hooking it up in our entertainment center. For a family that only watches DVDs, we sure have a lot of cables behind our entertainment center. We have a receiver, into which all of our various devices connect, a sub-woofer, our MVix MX-760HD (which is connected to one of our Linksys WRT54G wireless routers, which is also connected to the Linksys NSLU2 that holds all our digital media), our Nintendo Wii, our DVD + VCR combo, and a portable karaoke machine.
The new television is beautiful, and we've really enjoyed watching movies on it since I connected it. In fact, we spent most of the day yesterday on the couch watching the first season of Heroes. As folks who don't watch a lot of television programming, I find that we are simultaneously more discerning and more complacent viewers. We don't watch whatever happens to be on, and we don't coordinate our schedules in order to watch a specific show as it airs. Instead, we select what shows to watch based solely on our own interests (usually science fiction). Conversely, we're total suckers for the serial cliff-hanger nature of what we do watch, and we more than willingly suspend disbelief of glaring problems with the stories.
For the first dozen or so episodes of Heroes, for example, I was intrigued by the concept, and eager to see how things developed. By episode 15 or 16, I was quickly becoming suspicious, and finding it harder and harder to accept the powers of the Heroes. For example, I find it highly implausible that one's genetic code could allow them to defy the laws of gravity with human flight. Likewise, there's no way that one's genetic code could permit the direct manipulation of computers and other electronic devices (let alone time travel and teleportation!). And yet, still I'm hooked and eager to see how the season ends. I'm not sure if I'll have the patience for four more seasons of the show, as things get more and more ludicrous. I had the same problem with the show 24: it started out a fun, high-tension show that devolved into absurdity and soap opera faux drama. I'm seeing some of this with Heroes, already, as plot twists are introduced with increasing regularity.
I wonder, though, if part of my complaint stems from the frequency with which I watch episodes. Instead of waiting a whole week for the next installment, and having ample time to mull over on my own the story rather than its weaknesses, I simply press a button on the remote control. Certainly this convenience is a real benefit for watching a show after it has aired; but such a compressed viewing schedule might highlight the show's weaknesses without allowing me to properly digest the plot.
Another program that both Carina and I still enjoy is Battlestar Galactica. We're catching up on the third season, and enjoy watching one or two episodes after the kids have gone to sleep. Here again, I wonder if watching the installments in such quick succession is contributing to my waning interest in the story: the immediate gratification of finding out what happens next dulls the tension that the show's writers worked to establish in the pacing of the episodes.
I'm not particularly interested in other raved-about programs like Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and the like. I'm sure they're good shows, but for various reasons they don't catch my fancy. We'll probably finish watching Battlestar, and we've discussed catching up on Heroes enough to actually watch a broadcast version in order to see what that's like (since it's on NBC, not cable). After that, we'll most likely content ourselves with DVD movies, again.
I had never really considered the limits of genetic mutation. Maybe my threshold for disbelief is higher.
I've noticed a similar experience to what you've described when re-watching any old show that I originally watched live. For example, I'm re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer right now. I really liked this show when it aired. Now, it seems dated and maybe even a bit contrived, though I still like it.
The other experience you could try is streaming Heroes from NBC's website, which, based on what happened when I tried to catch an episode or two of Chuck and 30 Rock, sucks. The commercials are mandatory, although there's only one at each break, but almost always it is the same one. I don't know if hearing the same commercial three times is supposed to make me want to buy something more, but all it does is annoy me.
Moreover, they don't buffer. At all. For a company that's so behind on the technology, they sure expect people to be up-to-date (at least with their connection). More than once I've given up waiting on the "official site" and found the parts of the episode that wouldn't load on YouTube, Veoh, Stage6 or the like. It's not a surprise the pirates do a better job of connecting me with the shows that interest me, just sad commentary on the state of the studios' business model and capabilities.
I've not yet watched Heroes (or Lost - that's another one). I'm waiting for it to appear on the library shelves, which, unsurprisingly, hasn't happened yet. I'm in no hurry - I much prefer being able to watch the entire story arc once it has been concluded (or cancelled, as is more frequently the case).
I'm quite enjoying the lack of cable television upstairs in our new house, despite the inconvenience. We get one on-demand channel, and other than that, and CBS (because it's the only broadcast channel which comes in well enough upstairs) we haven't had time to watch anything since we moved. (even then, CBS is only on because we haven't had time to change the auto-on settings on the tv which somehow got set during the move.)
All that said, we did look at new TVs this weekend. I still cant get past the pixelation any of the larger lcd televisions seem to show, yet I haven't found a salesman yet who admits to seeing it.
I'm not terribly keen on streaming, because so few sites actually support my preferred platform (GNU/Linux). If we were to stream anything, we'd likely use Carina's laptop to view content from Netflix, without having to receive a physical DVD.
With sites like TV RSS, and however many other Torrent distribution sites, I wonder what the major media companies will do. Advertising subsidized programming is no doubt here to stay, and rather than simply pay for the initial broadcast, I suspect we'll soon see more and more (potentially insidious) in-show advertising. Why should advertisers limit their exposure simply to those poor suckers who lack a DVR to timeshift a show or skip past commercials, when you can embed an advertisement into the very programming people are downloading to watch?
We use our Tivo similarly. We choose what to watch, when we want to watch, which is quite nice. It does make us less watch a lot less of "what's on". I'm curious, are you using an upconvert DVD player, or is it merely a quality difference that you're enjoying with the HDTV?
Oh. My. God. I want one of those MVix thingies. SO BAD. I seriously would fork out $3000 or more to update our media center, if only I didn't need a new kitchen. I've got a TiVo and DVD recorder, but I need a new sound system, new TV, and that MVix would just make things much much nicer.
Dang it, Skippy! The temptation to upgrade is almost too much!
Giga: the MVix is neat, but not a very good all-purpose media center. It's list of supported codecs isn't stellar, though I find it sufficient. Initially I placed a hard drive into the unit, opting for performance over convenience. I've since started keeping all the media on the NSLU2 and accessing it over the network from the MVix. This makes it a lot easier to make new content available: with the internal drive I'd need to connect a USB cable to the MVix, transfer the files, then disconnect.
If you'd like a demo of the unit, feel free to stop over any time!
No demoing of new tech for a while -- I just got the TiVo hooked up last night, and that's a huge step in the wrong direction, television-watching-wise. I realized computing and TV watching sucks at least 33% of valuable renovation time, on average.
I think the pacing is _very_ important a lot of times.
In the late '80s to mid '90s there was a comic book called Sandman, published by DC Comics. It was a "Mature Audiences" series, and better written than probably any other comic ever published. (Issue #16 won the World Fantasy Award for best short story of the year). The author was Neil Gaiman, who has since written some well-received novels. His book "Stardust" was recently a major movie.
Gaiman did long stories (7 or 8 issues), and was _great_ at setting up a cliffhanger, and as the comics came out once a month, the wait was greater than for a weekly TV show. In one story he set up a major confrontation, and we're left at the end of an issue with the main character having to go off to do battle (of sorts).
The entire next issue consists of him making preparations and talking to various other characters. (He doesn't necessarily expect to come back.) The entire issue. The author forestalled the confrontation by an entire month -- ***yet the issue was a gripping read***. When the issue after that finally came out, the confrontation was nothing like what you expected it to be, and yet again, it was ***great***.
Here's the problem: When I try to reread it in the collected books, I can't resist reading from issue to issue to issue... and that spoils the read. The individual issues are very densely written -- there's a lot going on -- and if you read three or four issues running it's sort of an overload. It's exhausting. But when you reach these cliffhangers, and the next bit is *just a page turn away*... you have to!
Heh. I should cut the collections apart and tell my wife to only let me have one every week. :p