Mentalechoes

I’ve just finished watching the last episode of Jericho, which in actuality turned out to be only a measly eight shows for season two. If you’re a fan of 24, then this is definitely your style. However I am totally bamboozled why this show had production stopped. Supposedly it was because of poor ratings, but I just don’t get that. I couldn’t watch anything less than 4 episodes in one go, because it was truly nail biting stuff. I’m not kidding about that either, I actually have almost no fingernails left after chewing them all down with nervous tension. I feel exhausted too, like it had been me out there in post-apocalyptic Kansas fighting for survival. If you haven’t seen this show, you should, so either download it (not that I would encourage anyone to do anything illegal). Or better yet, buy it, and help convince producers to make more episodes. For me I find, for any truly great film or TV series, the end is like saying goodbye to close friends you’ve bonded with. It’s hard to let them go out of your life after all the adventures you shared. That’s my benchmark for the distinction between the average, and the outstanding; how much I cared! And for the people of Jericho, I cared a hell of a lot!

The thing is, with a series truly that good, that had all the magic - outstanding actors; outstanding performances; outstanding production crew; outstanding production style - why, oh why, did they prematurely end it? Obviously some schmuck in an ivory tower somewhere, who decides for us, what we can and cannot watch. This is this same shit we’ve lived with since the dawn of 20th century broadcasting (and mass consumerism); a handful of people deciding for us what we consume, and how we consume it! We’ve been forced to watch the selection that others feel we should select from. Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like an old style dictatorship? In fact, that’s because it is!

The control of the big entertainment conglomerates, and legal entities like RIAA however is nearing a time of critical change. The internet has changed the very nature of consumerism, by the very nature of the internet taking distributive control away from the few and putting it back into the hands of the many. Right or wrong, whatever you may feel about it, there is a sea change happening because of a few enabling technologies that put the masses in control of what they consume, and when they consume it.

Here’s a funny story for you, but only if you’re a TV fan, and not a TV exec. On the day that the new Bionic Woman pilot premiered in the US, hardly an hour after the closing credits had scrolled across everyones HDTV screen, high definition downloads of it were available on bittorrent. This was some time around September 2007. In the UK they advertised for months the premiere date on cable TV in February of 2008. Yet, anyone who was a fan in Europe (or the rest of the world for that matter), had not only seen it the day after it came out, they were in possession of new episodes as they came out weekly. I remember reading a lot of angry ranting by corporate types about how this had to be stopped, and how this evil will destroy capitilism!

With each download an individual makes, it is a hammer swing into the wall built up around content, put there by a few powerful people sitting in white towers far away from the world. With the advent of bittorrent, and IPTV, the powerful current of distribution is ebbing away from these people, and they will be forced to either accept it and progress, or fade away.

It’s a movement that is still young, because the few are still deciding what the many will watch (consume), but the many are more and more deciding when they will watch it. Many years from now, shows like Jericho won’t be taken off the air because the consumer won’t be limited like we are today. They will have full voting power to decide what stays and what goes.

A day, I hope comes sooner rather than later!

Andy.

Tags: IPTV, Jericho, consumerism