Too Many Channels, Too Few Ideas

Game of Thrones, while it was in the process of collapsing

CBS All Access, the American network’s online-only second channel, is producing a series of Stephen King’s The Stand. Um, wait, didn’t somebody already do that? Yes, a quick Google search reveals ABC, another American network, broadcast a The Stand miniseries in 1994, to warm reviews and a robust sweeps-month audience. We’ve already seen The Stand on TV, to some success. Why on earth is it worth remaking?

I’m among the last generation which grew up with limited TV options. Most American markets had three network affiliates, two unaffiliated local channels, and PBS. The widespread adoption of cable TV corresponded heavily with my grade-school years. But even then, cable granted us twenty or thirty channels, not the hundreds in today’s market. For a small fee, you’d also get HBO, the only source that piped cusswords directly into our houses.

After Netflix switched from mailing DVDs, to streaming original content, we had a brief Wild West period where streaming services performed stunts to attract customers. Your favorite shows, now available on Hulu! Or Sling, or Amazon Prime, or YouTube TV! All for a nominal rate. Studios, like Disney, began skipping networks and cinemas, sending their content directly into our networked devices. Apple and AT&T became content creators.

The result, paradoxically, has been a strange two-pronged paralysis. While I’m loath to subscribe to any fee-demanding streaming service, content creators have become fearful of creating anything terribly new. Besides The Stand, CBS All Access includes two Star Trek series. Netflix has the third Chronicles of Narnia adaptation. Warner Bros. has announced the third adaptation of Dune. Doctor Doolittle, Call of the Wild, and Stephen King’s It have been multiply remade recently.

The protagonists of The X-Files, looking as tired as I feel

With the massive profusion of media markets, the studios have become massive content recycleries. They seem afraid to create anything that hasn’t already shown success as a comic book, classic novel, or previous movie. Importantly, if Internet buzz is reliable, most of these adaptations aren’t very good. Dismal responses to The Invisible Man and Artemis Fowl, and negative advance responses to Terry Pratchett’s The Watch, speak volumes.

I’ve never watched The Mandalorian. As someone who grew up amid the generation which defined itself according to Star Wars, this confession feels almost shameful. But I’ve also never seen The Walking Dead, Modern Family, or The Masked Singer. Numerous fans tried to steer me onto Game of Thrones and Lost, right up until both franchises collapsed into flaming heaps of widespread disappointment. Suddenly, my aversion seemed justified.

But, in today’s near-constant online connection, barraged with social media, we all receive messages daily, encouraging us to adopt some new TV phenomenon. Baby Yoda pictures and “This Is the Way” memes keep me largely abreast of The Mandalorian, without ever needing to watch it. I imagine you, like me, find yourself constantly immersed in media you’ve never actually consumed. We’re simultaneously trapped in media silos, and flooded with media.

Certainly innovative ideas exist; working writers produce new ideas, or new spins on classics, constantly. My friend Bishop O’Connell produced a damned good novel trilogy recently, but without PR support, it’s gone out of print. With a little skillful location work and minor CGI, Netflix or Disney could translate his novels into streaming TV content and make a mint. Instead, they keep rehashing content first popularized in the 1970s.

One of many attempts to keep Star Trek alive and relevant

Maybe it reflects my age (okay, definitely), but the more TV options exist, the less TV I watch. Other than Doctor Who and PBS Masterpiece, I watch virtually no TV anymore. As content becomes both ubiquitous and timid, and streaming services confuse using cusswords for being edgy, nothing draws my attention anymore. The profusion of choices keeps growing faster than the market does. I find myself withdrawing, reading books.

Admittedly, I recognize the contradiction between my recent praise for different takes on Arthur Dent, and my aversion to different takes on Stephen King. Perhaps I’ll reconcile the difference later. I just know that, while Arthur Dent evolved with his creator, Stephen King’s remakes keep happening without him; he’s busy creating new content, while studios limply revisit his back catalog. He gets rich, while corporations get lazy.

This disconnection, between too many content sources and too few ideas, leaves me pessimistic. The gatekeepers of American (and international) culture have created gates so narrow, that ambitious and original writers can’t get through. Perhaps that’s the paradox of modernity. In art, politics, business, and economics, the more venues there are for marginal voices, the more blandly restrictive the mainstream inevitably becomes.