Tonight's fight: Cable vs. Network

Television, television, and more television! Is there really an end to all these shows? It seems that no matter what, there is always going to be a steady income of a variety of shows available for us to watch. It really is amazing how much of our lives revolve around certain shows. It also is incredible just how diverse these shows can be, especially between network shows and cable shows.

I watched ‘Rescue Me’ from the FX channel, a cable show about a firefighter named Tom and his life. This particular episode was about Tom’s blackout and the crisis afterwards. The conflict starts when he finds out his ex-wife and co-firefighter are having an affair and his reaction is to drink his brains out. The first part of the episode takes us through his drunken rants and a few of the things he did. At times, some parts of Tom’s past are brought up. Tom spent some time in the bathroom fighting with a ghost, one of his dead co-firefighters. The perspective was very crude and it had this “life sucks” motto kind of feel. Sometime during his drunken period, he picks up his daughter and they both get drunk. He ends up at a woman’s house and passes out there. When he wakes up, he finds himself at his trashed apartment with a huge hangover. Immediately, he gets a phone call from the station and everyone is concerned about his daughter, Colleen. She has been missing for hours and he was the last person to see her, but he cannot remember anything from the night before. I noticed that with cable shows, or perhaps it was only this show, there is no sense of a strong bond with immediate family. His true family really was his firefighting squad. They helped him throughout the entire search. The conversations were filled with swear words, alcohol, and there was a lot of anger involved. The environment was very lower middle class. The show’s big moment was when they all got together and figured out where Colleen was and they went together to search for her at the beach. It was a moment of unity; they all put their differences aside for the sake of Colleen. With this show, there were not much color in the scenes; it all seemed dull, run down. The suspense was his missing daughter; the runners in the show were Tom’s vague flashbacks and getting clues to figuring out Colleen’s whereabouts. When they finally found her, the mood somber, they did not know if she was still alive and when she finally breathed, the show ended. It was, in a word, intriguing.

‘Covert Affairs’ was the network show I watched and it was completely different from ‘Rescue Me.’ I immediately noticed the difference between cable and network shows right at the beginning when the environment scenes began. There was a sense of higher culture and sophistication; compared to ‘Rescue Me.’ It definitely has an upper middle class or an upper class environment. The episode began with an Iranian man in a hotel room who says he is going off to work out and runs off. He wants to go to America and contacts the CIA, tells them he has intel on some nuclear weapon secrets. Annie, the main character, works for the CIA and has recently gone through some sort of breakup with a guy she met in Sri Lanka, who appears to be a secret agent as well. We are exposed to tidbits of that relationship throughout the entire episode, which lets us know that it is the main story of the show. I was immediately drawn into the show mainly because of the CIA thing. Annie’s boss gives her a few days off and Annie accepts. The first thing she does is take a bath and during that, her sister barges in with a crisis. The sister’s husband wanted to put off their 10 year anniversary celebration so he could play golf with his new boss. The sister flips out and forces Annie to go with her on the second honeymoon trip she had planned with her husband. Meanwhile, Annie’s boss requests Annie to work on the Iranian runway case and pick up the guy, who happens to be in Niagara Falls. Annie reluctantly takes the job, but does not tell her sister (sister does not know Annie works for CIA). The conflict is juggling time with her sister on vacation and working on the case with the Iranian guy. It seems that Annie’s desire is to figure out why her guy from Sri Lanka disappeared on her and the jobs the CIA give her appear to bring her closer to figuring him out. Throughout the show, there are scenarios that involve heart to heart talks, which is quite opposite of the cable show. The Iranian guy does not appear to stick to his word and he is highly suspicious. We do not find out whether he is innocent or not until the very end, when Annie saves him from the Iranian agents. The ticking bomb of this episode was figuring out the sincerity of the Iranian guy.

I personally prefer ‘Covert Affairs’ over ‘Rescue Me.’ I think the story was more appealing. It would seem that network shows have a more sophisticated story line with positives and strong family values whereas cable shows are more crude, negative and realistic. Interestingly, each show had similar techniques – they both had flashbacks that appeared throughout the show and the suspense escalated close to the end. Each show had its own ticking clock – Tom needed to find his missing daughter and Annie needed to figure out the Iranian guy’s loyalties before it was too late. The style is completely different; I would say the two were two opposite extremes of the spectrum.

So, for me, network’s ‘Covert Affairs’ wins this round.