Hook, Line. And Sinker

Going into the 21st century, our minds have morphed into multitaskers and technology consumers. We have become so attached to our gadgets, it’s a bit scary. Not only have we improved our ability to absorb information, but we have also contracted the disease of short attention span. We have to do something consistently or else our minds go crazy. With that said how does television grasp our attention and keep it? It seems that T.V. shows have stretched from half hour sitcoms to hour long shows. If that is the case, then how is it that we have a hard time relaxing and doing a single thing for a good hour, but when it comes to hour long shows, we can actually sit and watch it? It’s the drama, the hook, teaser, and cliff hangers, the heroes and villains, the action and romance, the comedy and suspense. It all plays a huge part in to how and why television works for the 21st century.

At risk of sounding like a typical vampire-crazed teenage girl, I watched abc’s newest hit show, The Gates. I wanted to see if I could actually get into the story and pay close attention to detail and figure out why vampires are so popular today.

I usually do pretty well, jumping into new television shows. However, with the The Gates, it was difficult. About 10 minutes into the show, there were 3 (I picked up 3) storylines that were established. It was obvious that the story lines had begun in the beginning of the season and each episode is a development of the stories. It is not easy to follow up on the show, especially when picking up in the middle of the season. There are so many characters, complex stories, and unspoken tensions in this show. I lasted about halfway through the episode before I became frustrated and decided that I would not be able to appreciate the complexity of the story unless I had begun from the first episode of the season. This episode began with an overview of the last couple of episodes, to remind viewers just how action packed it has been and then it begins with a man sleeping and he is having a nightmare. In his nightmare, he sees his wife being bitten by a vampire. The scene changes to his wife, making phone calls and finalizing her plans for the housewarming party. Immediately, the scene changes to a girl in the bathroom calling her doctor saying that she has been experiencing side effects from the medication and she becomes shaky and nervous. It all bounces back and forth between the story lines and there is so much going on. However, I will say that there was a lot of drama, suspense and tension in the entire episode. The feeling of frustration was drowned by the feeling of curiosity. I could sense that there was so much more going on at a whole different layer. I will admit that before commercial went on, there was a cliffhanger, a clever way to keep our interest in the show. I was definitely curious to find out what was going to happen next. Right then and there, I realized that this is how it all works. We want to know what happens, so we stick around for it. And even though it is an hour long show, it is never enough. We always want to know what happens, so we wait a week to see the next episode.

Clearly, it is much easier to jump into a sitcom or a half hour show because each episode is a different situation. There are rarely episodes that carry on from the previous one. With hour long shows, the episodes are all expansions from the previous episode which goes all the way back to the beginning of the show. The story begins at the very first show and it grows more complex as the season goes on. The use of cliffhangers at the beginning, middle and end keep viewers entranced with the show. These elements are crucial to keeping an hour long show alive. Without heroes and villains, romance and rivalry, suspense and tension, we would immediately turn to our iphones or facebook to keep ourselves entertained until the next interesting show comes on.