On Tuesday I went to the Angelika to watch the season premiere of “Lost.”
They are now playing each new episode on the big screen and anyone can watch it for free. Is that completely awesome? Yes. Am I going to go back every week? Of course.
As I sat in the theater, I reflected on what this experience says about us as a culture and not just where we are but where we’ve come from and where we’re going. Once upon a time, the only projected media we had available to us was the movie theater.
Then television (or TV, if you will) was invented and slowly diffused into the mass mainstream throughout the late ‘40s to early ‘50s. This new product tried to become (and, for the most part, became) the centerpiece of the average American family’s living room. But for many, it also became the centerpiece of the average American family (or the “nuclear family” as we’ve come to know it).
Just picture it: The hardworking patriarch comes home to his loving wife, who has dinner ready for him alongside the paper and his slippers and pipe. His adoring two children manage to work “Golly gee, Pop!” into every sentence but are otherwise completely manageable. They eat dinner and maybe talk about how their respective days have been (or at least the father does, and everyone else listens).
Then comes the moment they’ve all been waiting for: TV time! After all, “Texaco Star Theatre” with Milton Berle is on, and we couldn’t possibly miss it (he is Mr. Television, after all)! Or “I Love Lucy” is on, and we couldn’t possibly miss it! Or any other number of shows are on, and we couldn’t miss any of them!
TV allowed us to experience all manner of wonders from our home. It was so successful, in fact, that it became major competition for the film industry and gave theaters a run for their money. In order to compete, films had to do what TV shows couldn’t: become large scale epic spectacles with high-end production value.
TV almost ruined the film industry, and so I find it ironic that we appear to have come full circle, going to a movie theater to watch a TV show. The very thing that almost ruined movies is now among the attractions advertised alongside them, and one of the major draws of TV is now rendered null.
I also find it ironic that this comes at a time when TV itself has been given a run for its money by a new invention: Internet viewings of episodes. The ‘Net has freed us from the shackles of a given show’s time slot, just as TV freed us from the shackles of having to go somewhere to be entertained.
And as restrictions on what we can and can’t do diminish ever more, we become ever freer to do exactly what we want: watch new episodes of “LOST” at the Angelika on Tuesday nights at 8 PM … for free!
Trey Treviño is a sophomore CTV major. He can be reached for comment at
[email protected].
