If a friend says "This book is really good, you should read it" I'm very likely to file that rec away in my mind, and follow it up.
If a friend says "This TV series is really good, you should watch it" I'm very likely to go "Sure, whatever" and not follow it up. Especially if the friend says "It's really tightly plotted, great storyline, you have to watch it from the beginning!" even though I agree this is generally an excellent sign of a good TV series.
And the reason for this is dead simple, even though it seems to cause confusion. (At least one friend, when I accepted a book rec with enthusiasm and reacted to a TV rec with apathy, looked extremely confused - perhaps because this happened virtually in the same 15 minutes...)
Following up a book rec - or an author rec - is relatively cheap, and easy. If the book's in print, I can find it in a bookshop, take a check at the writer's style before buying, and if the first chapter looks readable, buy it. Cost (if paperback) probably around £7, maybe less, maybe more. If the book's only available in hardback, or is out of print, I can get it via the library system. Cost: 50p. (More if it's really rare and unobtainable and the library has to go to some trouble, but still less than the price of a new paperback.) Investment o my time, in either case: minimal. If the book strikes me as unreadable, I've wasted only the time it took me to find that out (and it's rare that a friend will recommend me a book that's really unreadable). If the book is readable, even if I end up not liking it as much as the friend thought I would, I've still only wasted the time it took to read the book - and if it's really unenjoyable, well, I may just not finish it. (Especially if it's a library book...)
Following up a TV rec can be cheap, if the show's still on TV at a watchable hour, though not if it's "really tightly plotted", etc: if I know when the show's on, what channel it's on, and if it doesn't matter that it's halfway through the seccond season, if I have a free evening at the right time I can just switch on the TV and try it out for an hour. (If it's not on at a watchable hour, this entails doing VCR stuff and then making time some other evening, and oh lord how the tapes used to pile up when I did that...) If it does matter that it's "really tightly plotted" etc, and the reccer is saying "You should watch this from the beginning!" that's pretty much a surefire way to make sure I never will watch a single episode of the show, because unless I happen to catch the show being repeated, and can get the first episode at a watchable time, etc - well, then, I never will watch it. Following up a TV rec like that expensively entails buying DVDs, which are never cheap for a brand new show (or paying for pirated videos, in the old days, which weren't cheap either), and by the time they're affordable usually the old rec is buried under all the other recs. (I never watched a single episode of Hill Street Blues because the fan who rec'd it to me did so in exactly those terms - that I really needed to watch it from the very beginning.) It's expensive. It's troublesome. It just doesn't work. Because a lot of the time, the series a friend is recommending so urgently is not going to be worth the trouble - at least, it never feels as if it will be when I'm looking at the effort of trying to get into it.
Yet I have got into shows: how?
1. The fan who wants me to get into it sits me down in front of the TV and gets me to watch episodes from it. This worked for West Wing, MacGyver, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (well, in that instance it was the movie Shoshanna got me to watch, but the principle was the same), Now and Again, Forever Knight, The Professionals, Due South. (This did not work for Tenth Kingdom, Three Brothers movies, Wiseguy...)
2. I fall in love with the Queen song in the episode opener, and end up watching more and more of each episode. (Highlander. It took quite a while before I just stopped switching the TV off at the first flashback, though.)
3. I just happen to be in the house and the TV's on and I find myself watching it and I fall in love: Blake's 7.
4. I read the spinoffs or the fanfic and I want to watch the thing itself: Star Trek, Doctor Who, M*A*S*H. (Shows which I tried and failed to get into because I liked the fanfic: X-Files, Angel, Smallville....)
5. A show is rec'd. I find out Hugh Laurie is playing the disgruntled doctor. Some time later, my cat dies. That evening, I decide I need to not think. I switch on and watch House.
That's pretty much it. (There is also Big Love, which I got into by reading the recaps on TWOP, but watching a few episodes convinced me that I might just as well go back to reading the recaps. Besides, I don't think it's on TV over here.)
How do you get into shows?
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I am spurred to watch a show by the fandom for it (most recently SPN) or whatever I've heard about it in nonfannish contexts (Secret Diary of a Call Girl), or by being sat down in front of it and shown it (S:AAB, I Spy). I normally want to watch shows from the beginning, so a recommendation telling me I should isn't saying anything I don't already know; in those cases, if I can't find it easily myself (Deadwood, rented from the local video place) I hope that kind friends will supply me (Buffy, Charlie Jade). Now that I can download TV, that's going to be much easier, too.
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I normally want to watch shows from the beginning, so a recommendation telling me I should isn't saying anything I don't already know;
Yes, assuming that the show doesn't start off dreadful: I got put off ST:tng for years because the first season is so awful, and it wasn't until Atropos sat me down with Chain of Command that... well, I got Inspired. And ended up watching all seven seasons. Though with Trek it really doesn't matter all that much that I initially started in the middle and was spoiled for several cliffhangers.
Yes, assuming that the show doesn't start off dreadful: I got put off ST:tng for years because the first season is so awful, and it wasn't until Atropos sat me down with Chain of Command that... well, I got Inspired. And ended up watching all seven seasons. Though with Trek it really doesn't matter all that much that I initially started in the middle and was spoiled for several cliffhangers.
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These days when I don't have a TV, the bar to watching a new show is much as you outline, though I find that fan-copied tapes (in the old days) and DVDs are often available from enthusiastic fans at cost, or even free. I have to be interested enough to ask for the copies, however, which worked for Torchwood, which has an aliens-gadgets-investigations hook (not borne out enough in the show, but there are a *lot* of empty holes to play with) and didn't for Supernatural, where the supposedly-gorgeous guys were the usual shade of Hollywood ugly (I do *not* get what's supposed to be attractive about the Hollywood model of young male protagonist) and I wasn't caught by the premise or the tenor of the fanfic.
When there was a working TV in my home, a casual recommendation could get me to watch episodes, sometimes early enough in the show to be able to pick up the storyline or find re-runs of the first season. This worked for Buffy and West Wing, and with a bit more fannish encouragement, for Babylon 5. And more or less for Stargate SG-1. This worked especially well if I liked the look and verbal style of a random episode, even if I didn't know the plot arc. And again, it was often possible to fill in the beginning episodes by borrowing tapes or at nominal cost.
Quite a few shows I've watched enough of to be able to read the fanfic (Stargate Atlantis), or only after reading and being well hooked by the fanfic (X-Files, and Stargate, really). I was sat down and made to watch Due South, which worked spectacularly well for Due South and Wiseguy, but isn't always possible with a really long show, or if an enthusiasitc fan isn't available within driving distance.
When there was a working TV in my home, a casual recommendation could get me to watch episodes, sometimes early enough in the show to be able to pick up the storyline or find re-runs of the first season. This worked for Buffy and West Wing, and with a bit more fannish encouragement, for Babylon 5. And more or less for Stargate SG-1. This worked especially well if I liked the look and verbal style of a random episode, even if I didn't know the plot arc. And again, it was often possible to fill in the beginning episodes by borrowing tapes or at nominal cost.
Quite a few shows I've watched enough of to be able to read the fanfic (Stargate Atlantis), or only after reading and being well hooked by the fanfic (X-Files, and Stargate, really). I was sat down and made to watch Due South, which worked spectacularly well for Due South and Wiseguy, but isn't always possible with a really long show, or if an enthusiasitc fan isn't available within driving distance.
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I used to read about television shows in the newspaper. That was how I knew about and started watching My So-Called Life, the nineties teenager one. It's out on DVD now.
Way back then, I missed a lot of them because I had only a limited number of television channels. (No cable = missing many popular shows).
Just sitting in front of the television and watching the shows. That was what happened with Buffy.
Now, there is cable, and a recording box: so I can often find the show and ask the recording-box to record it for me. This is good as long as everything works, and the recording box is a computer, so once in a while it just stops working.
When I just moved to live with the beloved, I was going to spend all day on the internets, and the computer screen died. So I watched television, and the SciFi channel had a marathon of ' FireFly', so I got a load of that all at once.
Nowadays I usually download television. When I read people enthusing about it, I go and download a whole season, If I can.
I downloaded 'Bleach' episode by episode, as it was getting fan-subtitled. Then the beloved and I bopught the books as they became available in translation.
I downloaded the whole first season of Supernatural and watched a few episodes, then deleted it again. I didn't like it enough to keep watching.
Way back then, I missed a lot of them because I had only a limited number of television channels. (No cable = missing many popular shows).
Just sitting in front of the television and watching the shows. That was what happened with Buffy.
Now, there is cable, and a recording box: so I can often find the show and ask the recording-box to record it for me. This is good as long as everything works, and the recording box is a computer, so once in a while it just stops working.
When I just moved to live with the beloved, I was going to spend all day on the internets, and the computer screen died. So I watched television, and the SciFi channel had a marathon of ' FireFly', so I got a load of that all at once.
Nowadays I usually download television. When I read people enthusing about it, I go and download a whole season, If I can.
I downloaded 'Bleach' episode by episode, as it was getting fan-subtitled. Then the beloved and I bopught the books as they became available in translation.
I downloaded the whole first season of Supernatural and watched a few episodes, then deleted it again. I didn't like it enough to keep watching.
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The commitment issue is reversed, in my case, for TV and books, except for the amount of time given to each, which has to be divided between both. There are *lots* of TV shows playing on TV, reruns or more obscure series on cable, and some shows I can get on the net. But books are expensive. The local library doesn't stock much in the way of recent SF publications from anglophone markets, since it's a francophone library. Any translations may only be available years down the line, if at all, or originals via complicated inter-library loans. In fact, it's becoming easier to get TV shows from the library, since they've started stocking DVDs. I rewatched a lot of Buffy that way recently.
So, for TV shows, I can just have a look at what's on, tune in once or twice to gauge my interest, and decide whether or not to watch again. In other cases, I'll hear about something that's not immediately available, and perhaps try to get it based on the appeal of the concept, familiarity with the show's makers and their previous works, or word-of-mouth, interesting meta, and so on.
Books are much, much harder to get a hold of, since even getting to an anglophone library in order to find some of my favourite authors involves a commute, or paying extra for shipping costs and waiting for postal orders. And then I'm stuck with a book even if I don't like it as much as I'd hoped.
I try to read some stuff in French, but that's either translations, or a very limited circle of local genre authors, and either involves getting slapped in the face with the sexism in French grammar more often than I'd like, pretending it doesn't matter, or looking for elaborate ways around it.
So, for TV shows, I can just have a look at what's on, tune in once or twice to gauge my interest, and decide whether or not to watch again. In other cases, I'll hear about something that's not immediately available, and perhaps try to get it based on the appeal of the concept, familiarity with the show's makers and their previous works, or word-of-mouth, interesting meta, and so on.
Books are much, much harder to get a hold of, since even getting to an anglophone library in order to find some of my favourite authors involves a commute, or paying extra for shipping costs and waiting for postal orders. And then I'm stuck with a book even if I don't like it as much as I'd hoped.
I try to read some stuff in French, but that's either translations, or a very limited circle of local genre authors, and either involves getting slapped in the face with the sexism in French grammar more often than I'd like, pretending it doesn't matter, or looking for elaborate ways around it.
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(...DVDs often have multiple language tracks, meaning that the French dub gets it in to the francophone library, but I can still listen to the original English version.)
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What did you think of Big Love? Somebody on my flist uploaded a couple of episodes ages ago; I watched it, made a bit of a face (it was partly an intrigued face, but partly not), and didn't bother looking for any more.
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Oh, and your question! It is generally frightfully hard to get me into any TV show, firstly because TV is just difficult to watch -- living away from home most of the time, so can't check out shows on a sort of casual basis, and I have a very, um, fluid grasp of time anyway, so often I miss things because I have forgotten what time they are showing or whatever. And secondly because it is never as good as I am told it is. Often TV goes on too long, or it has too many episodes featuring people I am not interested in and too few featuring people I am interested in. Compare books, which have words! And go just as fast as I want them to! Yay books.
and I have a very, um, fluid grasp of time anyway, so often I miss things because I have forgotten what time they are showing or whatever.
Are we clones? Yes, me too.
And secondly because it is never as good as I am told it is. Often TV goes on too long, or it has too many episodes featuring people I am not interested in and too few featuring people I am interested in.
Er, yes, that is the other thing...
Compare books, which have words! And go just as fast as I want them to! Yay books.
Yay books! *loves books*
Are we clones? Yes, me too.
And secondly because it is never as good as I am told it is. Often TV goes on too long, or it has too many episodes featuring people I am not interested in and too few featuring people I am interested in.
Er, yes, that is the other thing...
Compare books, which have words! And go just as fast as I want them to! Yay books.
Yay books! *loves books*
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I think I was strongly influenced by having read it first as recaps on TWoP - which is still my favourite method of encountering the show. Because you have a terribly Christian terribly Moral terribly right-wing terribly Family Values man... and his three wives. And they're in the closet about their relationship - not only the relationship the man has to his second and third wives, but also the relationship the three wives have to each other. I guess I'm just the kind of person who sees Metaphors for Homosexuality everywhere. Anyway, I saw it lots in Big Love. OTOH, I greatly prefer reading the recaps to watching the show.
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Lately, I don't. Much. I'll read in a newspaper or magazine what it's about and if it sounds weird or stupid (but like it knows it's weird or stupid... or both), I'll try it, but what with the writer's strike, all that's likely to be on for a while is reality TV, and I've never understood the appeal.
(I've been away from the internet lately. *waves*)
(I've been away from the internet lately. *waves*)