by Chelcie

Created on: January 30, 2008   Last Updated: January 16, 2010

Same Bat Time

What is it that makes people so addicted to television? Addicted enough to rush home for a television event that will most likely repeat itself in the not too distant future anyway. The answer may just come down to one reason - commitment.

After seeing an inspiring film you're left stranded to go back to your own reality. Perhaps after some brief chats reviewing the film among friends the event is soon a distant memory. You only have little over an hour to bond with characters, settle into the location and marvel at the production values. But just as quickly as you got comfortable you're untimely ripped from the experience and asked to leave that world behind as the closing credits roll. There's no souvenir shop here "please move along ma'm, the next session is about to start"

With faithful television however, they're back next week! The same people, the same setting, the same bat time without fail. Television these days seems to be more than ever a great reflection of society. Society in the last half decade is being lead by one overriding instinct - the need to survive. Whether we like it or not, for the X and Y generation this is our first experience of war between countries on a large scale and our television reflects our insecurities. Shows such as Survivor, Lost, Prison Break, 24 and Big Brother all show people, just like us, put in tight situations that they need to survive. If they can survive, then it comforts us to know that we too might survive if ever in that situation where the world is coming to an end. Taking survival one step further - we now have shows about people with superpowers. To have powers may be a subconscious desire for all of us. If we all had super powers nothing could touch us. That childlike side of society is now open to suspending reality to the point where watching a super hero perform magic is a digestible concept.

Another current trend in television is portraying contradictory characters. Wayne and Dahlia Malloy (played by Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver) are poor people who take on the identity of a wealthy family in 'The Riches'. 'Dexter' is a show about a forensic crime investigator who also happens to be a serial killer. Another one is 'House' - a Doctor who doesn't like patients.

A not so clever recent addition is 'Cashmere Mafia' which has been likened to 'Sex and the City'. There are surface similarities here such as the four female characters are all friends who talk over coffee about intimate details

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