Tag: lost

TV Mountains

CategoriesFeature, TVPosted on

I was impressed a few years back when a friend of mine watched an entire season of 24 in a single weekend. Without commercials that’s about 18 hours of TV in two days, which is a whole lot of “butt in the couch” time. Which got me thinking — in this day and age where people binge TV series all the time, if Mount Everest is the hardest mountain to climb, then what are the hardest TV series to binge?

These are the TV Mountains.

Difficulty: Easy

The Walking Dead

These TV mountains can be climbed in around a week of TV binging.

The Walking Dead: This series originally debuted back in 2010 but doesn’t have seasons that are too long so there’s only been around 100 episodes produced so far, or around 75 hours of TV to date.

Lost: Lost ended its run a few years ago at 121 episodes or around 90 hours of TV.

Difficulty: Moderate

These TV mountains can be climbed via few weeks of TV binging.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons: Airing new episodes since 1989, to date there’s been more than 620 episodes of the series produced. But since each episode of The Simpsons is just 30 minutes long, less minus commercials, you could make it through all of The Simpsons to date in about 205 hours.

Supernatural: This long-running series is currently in its 13th season and has aired more than 280 episodes or about 210 hours of TV. But like The Walking Dead and The Simpsons, Supernatural is showing no signs of stopping, so even if you finish all of Supernatural there’ll be more to watch later.

Difficulty: Difficult

These TV mountains can only be climbed via many weeks of TV binging.

Dark Shadows

Law & Order: Airing since 1990, the Law & Order franchise has produced more than 450 episodes of TV. The series is so popular new episodes are still being produced and the various Law & Order series airs in syndication on many outlets. So far there’s been about 335 hours of Law & Order created. Or, if you did nothing but watch Law & Order back to back and didn’t sleep, it would still take you more than two weeks to make it through all the series.

Dark Shadows: This classic gothic soap opera aired more than 1,200 episodes between 1966 and 1971. Each episode was only 30 minutes long, minus commercials, but still makes for more than 405 hours of TV.

Difficulty: Severe

These TV mountains can only be climbed via months of TV binging.

Tom Baker as Doctor Who

Star Trek: Counting all the various incarnations of Star Trek there are more than 725 episodes of this series or more than 540 hours of TV and counting. To put that number into perspective, doing nothing but watching Star Trek 40 hours a week it would take you more than 13 weeks to finish. Assuming you’d be able to make it through the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, that is.

Doctor Who: There’s been more than 835 episodes of Doctor Who created since the series began in 1963 which makes by my estimation more than 555 hours of time and relative dimension in space TV viewing.

Difficulty: Extremely Severe

This TV mountain can only be climbed via years of TV binging.

General Hospital

General Hospital: General Hospital is the longest running US soap opera and has been producing new episodes on a weekday basis since 1963. Back in 2014 it entered the record books as having the most episodes of any TV series at more than 13,000, or, around 8,600 hours of TV. If Star Trek would take you 13 weeks to finish at 40 hours a week then General Hospital would take you more than FOUR YEARS to finish at the same rate!

The most difficult part of watching all of General Hospital, the Mount Everest of TV shows that’s still growing, would be finding all the episodes. My guess is that in the intervening more than half-century since the show debuted some of the early episodes would have been lost because of time and shortsightedness. But even if most of the episodes are still around finding them would be difficult. First is the huge amount of episodes, so at some point cost acquiring them is going to be an issue. Then there’s the fact that for the most part only seasons of General Hospital that are just a few years old are available making full seasons that aired even prior to 2010 hard, if not impossible, to find.

I take it back, General Hospital isn’t the Mount Everest of TV series, it’s Mount Impossible of TV series!

Do endings matter?

CategoriesUncategorizedPosted on

I watch a lot of TV. A comfortable estimate is that in the last 20 years I’ve easily watched something like 15,000+ hours of television and have seen my share of TV series beginnings and endings. While most series are just plain bad, sometimes shows have bad beginnings but good endings like the US version of The Office and sometimes series have good beginnings but bad endings like Seinfeld, Lost, The X-Files and ER.

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Seinfeld

Recently, after doing some complaining of my own to friends about how the series Lost ended and there being discussion online about what really happened at the end of The Sopranos it got me thinking; do endings matter?

To a certain extent endings matter a great deal. A great show with a bad ending leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste. No matter how brilliant Battlestar Galactica (BSG) was or how many hundreds of hours of great programming we were left with after Seinfeld ended people still remember and bring up the endings of those two shows. While I personally liked the end of BSG I’d agree that the ending of Seinfeld was a stinker.

But it was thinking about a show exactly like Seinfeld that made me wonder if series endings were as important as everyone thinks?

Let’s look at a show like Lost. Arguably Lost, which was on TV for six seasons, had about three great seasons, a few alright ones and a bad last one. So watching Lost we got about 67 hours of spectacular story along with about 31 hours of good TV. Which ain’t half bad by any measure. You could watch Lost for nearly three days straight and be in total awe of what was going on all that time.

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Battlestar Galactica

And maybe that’s why viewers are so upset with a show like Lost, that started out with such promise and slowly wasted away to a shadow of itself.

Even a show like BSG that had something like 53 hours of spectacular story and 19 hours of alright story people still argue about the ending not being in the spirit of the show and using lame sci-fi cliches. Again, I dug the ending.

Why do audiences get so fixated on endings? Why is there so much hate for Lost co-creators Damon Lindelof  and Carlton Cuse who arguably entertained millions of people for years but who also presided over a turd of an ending? Why is it that people are still pestering The Sopranos creator David Chase to reveal what really happened in the last second of that series?

I think why endings matter so much to so many is that most of the time with series one episode leads to another and certain things blur together. Was it the same episode of ER that Quentin Tarantino directed where Doug Ross rescued that kid from a flooded sewer, or were they different? Did David Duchovney leave The X-Files before or after the show moved to California? But with the last episode it’s the last thing people see and remember and if they’re in a heightened emotional state at the time with their favorite series going away and if the last episode is a letdown, well then Lost is total crap and The X-Files ultimately sucked.

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The Sopranos

But I’ve thought for a long while that just the opposite is true. Sure, I was let down by the end of Lost and stopped watching The X-Files before the last season of that show, but I knew enough at the time to enjoy the ride when the shows were still good rather than to focus on the last stop as it were.

Even with most shows that are really good are only like that for a few seasons a the most. After a while creators start to run out of original story ideas and old plots from previous seasons start getting recycled and new blood is brought onto write for the show with different ideas that might not be in the spirit of where things started.

I think the trick is to realize that at best even great shows are only going to be great for a little while. And that even if they are great until the end there’s little chance the ending is going to be something that appeals to everyone.

With series TV it’s the ride that counts, not the destination.