Things you miss from old tv shows that you don’t see anymore?

Unfortunately. a "season" now appears to be defined as 10 episodes. A short season could be 8 episodes, and a long season might stretch things to 14 or 15 episodes. And it all has to do with the almighty dollar. The public seems unwilling to accept a simply-told and executed story. They lose interest. They want flash and glitz and sheen - and that stuff costs money. So, since the fractured network structure is gone, we're left with the upstart "networks" producing shows of the limited seasons. Amazon and Netflix and Hulu and HBO and Starz and the rest all seem to want to only do seasons of 10. That way they can "drop" a season out to the public - see where it goes, and whether or not they want to spend more and commission a further season. And 10 episodes isn't too hard to "binge", the new way of watching television.

I like to use this little model to explain the difference between the old and the new:

THE TIME TUNNEL - a 1966-1967 ABC time travel series. It only lasted one season and had 30 hour episodes.
TIMELESS - a 2016 NBC time travel series. It ran for two seasons plus a wrap-up movie and had 28 episodes.

Both shows ended up being cancelled because essentially they were too expensive to produce.

 

Musicians who play their songs live without lip-syncing

 

That's a very good question. Before, it seemed that you only got a few reruns here and there, so that when a show was a rerun, you watched it again, not a big deal.

But when in less than a half a year, they stopped all new shows and went with repeats, I stopped watching reruns.

I finally made the break from commercial TV back in the early 90's and never missed it. For the last two years, I haven't even had a TV anywhere I was living.

 

I think it goes deeper than that. Studio execs never had a fondness for science fiction in the first place. And they deemed it too expensive.

They wanted every thing where it could be shot on simple sound stages, the streets in and around L.A. or studio back lots, using only what is already available.

I think their viewpoint was, if the viewers don't have a access to science fiction, they will watch something else. That something else being whatever we give them.

At the same time as Time Tunnel, after the 3rd season of Lost In Space, they went to Irwin Allen and told him they were cutting his budget and he said no.

Looking back at LIS, it is harder to imagine any series shooting on a lower budget. They already had the Jupiter II, the B9 robot and a prop dept. full of space suits and foam rubber rocks. Irwin Allen was famous for recycling props between his various TV shows.

By the time Star Trek (TOS) hit their 3rd season, their budget was severely slashed.

 

I believe (but I know there are other SHF posters who could tell us more definitely) the networks would take the best-rated episodes of the season and use them for the reruns. What amazes me is a show like Peyton Place, the first primetime soap opera. It ran two nights a week and in the summer, like other soap operas but unlike other primetime shows, ABC kept airing new shows, so that by the end of the first season there were 114 episodes aired and during its five-year run over 500.

 

I miss TV characters parking their cars with the windows left open or the convertible top left down and never worrying about the car being stolen. Of course, if we were shown someone locking their car you knew some misfit of society would be there in a moment to break in and hotwire it, or at least look at the car registration mounted on the steering column which we'd see in close-up.

 

And (semi-OT) I heard an interview a time back that actress (or actor, as she prefers to be called) Joey King did w/the HFPA, and, if I heard her right, she prefers to do whatever she does for television in just that way (also known as "limited series")-- she does not want to tie herself to something that might last several seasons; she wants to get in and out and get it done, in something that tells the story in 7 or 8 shows (like her Hulu limited series The Act did).

For this, I do not blame her, because back in the old days that we remember, they had 30-40 episodes in a season, at 25 min. for comedies, and 50 min.+ for dramas, crime shows, some Westerns, etc., and if today's people like Joey King had to do that, they'd be exhausted before the season ever ended.

 

That reminds me of a moment that showed things are changing for Disney: In A Goofy Movie they actually had the character lock their car (it later caused problems when they had to get into the car quickly).

 

Umm... MOST 1960s TV appearances were lip-synced! Due to the difficulty of reproducing acceptable sound quality in the TV studio. There were limited total live performances, some live vocals only, but a LOT of lip-syncing!

 

Yeah, they used to have new episodes the week between Christmas and New Year's. But I'm sure they eventually got statistics that either those episodes were low rated, or the advertising didn't work because people were done with Christmas shopping.

So it was a better use of their resources to spread out the new episodes until summer, through May, instead of being all done in March. So reruns were sprinkled in here and there.

 

One thing those older series did was give the actors a steady gig. I'm sure that quite a few of those shows weren't literally week long shoots (meaning that they might shoot an episode in a few days, so possibly shooting two episodes in a week-IIRC, "The Lone Ranger" shot like that). But even if they weren't shooting every week for 39 weeks, they'd have a job that would last for a season.

And back to my earlier post where I said I preferred a TV season running from September/early October to roughly May-Even if these modern day shows have seasons of let's say 13 episodes, I myself would prefer that they'd refer to these half seasons as half seasons rather than acting like it's a complete season. Whatever airs between the traditional beginning and end of a TV season should be referred to as a season, even if broken up into two halves. "South Park" is a good example of this-They'll have a partial season, then come back a few months later and do another short run, but those two runs add up to one complete season.

 

No forced diversity.

 

How do you know when it's forced?

And why would "diversity" bother anyone anyway? It's a positive thing.

 

Hate to say it, but look at the name of the poster.

They're on my ignore list now.

 

You know it’s forced when the show gets awards and they brag about how diverse it was in the acceptance speeches — but the show isn’t funny or interesting. Or when the content of the show is preachy or heavy handed. Diversity doesn’t bother me, but Hollywood piety sure does.

 

Would less diversity make it more funny or interesting. And why shouldn't they be proud of it, it's commendable.

And sometimes people need to be preached to to see the light.

The thing that made wonderful shows like The Defenders, Lou Grant, The West Wing and The Good Wife WAS the preachiness. They would have been blah without it.

 

That’s kind of missing the point. The primary goal should be a funny or interesting entertainment product. If the focus is only on artificially engineering diversity, well that’s an entirely different animal but may not be interesting to watch. It may be commendable but when they pat themselves on the back for it, it’s more demeaning than anything else.

If people need to be preached to, they should bring back the after school specials and “very special” episodes. And we’re full circle... maybe someone in this thread already said they miss those.

 

Diversity should be authentic and natural. That’s the whole point of it. If a show had to hold up a sign saying “Look at us, we’ve diverse!” Then they’re doing it wrong.

That’s real mature.

Depends on the type of show. I expect more “preachiness” from a drama than a comedy. Diversity should have no bearing on the quality of the show. People shouldn’t give themselves a pat on the back for making a show more diverse. That’s something that should have been happening naturally all along in shows. If they’re patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for it, then they did it more for the kudos.

 

Actually, yes. Life is too short to read everything on the Internet. I don't like to waste my time with low quality posters.

 

Just an opinion, but Lou Grant was blah WITH it! (Now, if he'd just had a little spunk.....)

 

If they are proud of it, why shouldn't they pat themselves on the back? It is a commendable thing after all.

 

Billie Newman radiated spunk, but apparently Lou left his hatred for it back at WJM-TV.

 

It's getting harder to distinguish between reality and reality TV.

 

True, but by the 70s, you had shows like Midnight Special, In Concert, Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and others that did feature real, live performances. Even Saturday Night Live had real, live performances and I guess they still do sometimes, but not always.

 

All they said was “No forced diversity” I would imagine that no one would want it “forced”.

It is a commendable thing but it shouldn’t be about self gratification.