Waxing Eloquent on Long-Form TV in the Age of the Sound Bite

Linda Holmes, the pop culture blogger for NPR, found an interesting moment in the television critics press tour that aligns with the discussions we are having in class.

"During the panel for Showtime's Masters Of Sex, an upcoming series about the human sexuality research partnership of Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson, the entire cast was asked, 'Tell me in your own words how you interpret your characters.' Star Michael Sheen, who plays Masters opposite Lizzy Caplan as Johnson, was invited to go first.

"He went on to suggest that the question struck him as perhaps simplistic. He gave the following explanation of the golden age of television, the importance of character depth, and the blessings of nuance:

One of the great things about why I think TV is going through a golden age at the moment is because, in a sort of multi-episodic format now, with also cable channels like Showtime being at the absolute forefront today and saying, 'Off you go. Any subject matter is open to you,' you can take risks. You've got amazing people working on it, and you've got 12 hours, roughly, per season, to be able to tell a story. You can get to the complexity of a novel almost, you know. It's very, very multilayered and complex, and so you can start to treat people and characters with the complexity that they deserve, that we all deserve.

The problem is that, in this modern age and the way we talk about this kind of stuff and the situations like this, everyone wants to reduce people to, kind of, bite size, easily understood chunks. And why I think people are responding so much to television at the moment is that it refuses to do that. It totally flips that over so that people are revealed the being the complex, interesting people that they are and that we can have more and more compassion and understanding and feel more connected to people. So it becomes, then, very difficult to say, "Well, my character is," and then I trot out three lines about it.

"Bravo, right? Impressive!

"'But ... can you do three lines about it?' the reporter persisted.

"What I cannot do justice to is the tone of Sheen's voice as he went on to say, 'William Masters was an OB/GYN surgeon who was a fertility expert and a man who liked a lot of control in his life, and in our show, we see him struggle with trying to hold onto that sense of control when confronted by a woman who awakens something authentic within him.'"

What occurs to me after reading this testy exchange is that we may be experiencing a renaissance in television, but our coverage of this medium still resorts too frequently to the give-me-a-snippet-for TV-Guide treatment this reporter was awaiting.  Maybe Ron Moore's podcasts on each BSG episode and blogs like this one help to elevate the conversation beyond the sound bite.