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It's a shame it isn't discussed in the article, but I wonder "What about TV?"
I watch a lot more TV shows than I do films, not just because TV is longer but usually TV has the more interesting story to tell.
That isn't to say films aren't interesting, it's just that I wonder if the shift is the dividing line between generations. Films were where all the big stars were. TV was seen as a stepping stone. Now TV has a similar and sometimes even higher level of prestige.
The article does touch on length for a moment, but doesn't dig in. When it comes to TV you might only need to watch 22 minutes, 44 minutes, maybe an hour to get a solid feel for where the story is going. Plus it has a logical stopping point.
For a film you might get 20 minutes in but you're not sure. Should you stick with it? I suppose better films aren't usually this way, but should you watch just a little more and find out?
Both have their place. Both can be great.
Hard disagree. I have always thought that movies have had stronger stories due to the fact that they have a much more focused story to tell. TV shows have a lot more time to fill, which leads them to bringing in random B-plots that often end up as distractions from the main story rather than supporting detail. The investment that a TV show demands is often not worth it in my experience, because 9/10 times the show loses steam before they can tie up the plotlines I care about. For every Breaking Bad, there are a ton of Yellow Jackets, Westworlds, etc. I find it much easier to curate a list of movies than a list of shows.
I found those random b plots often do a lot better at providing character building then the constant ramp up of needing to focus solely on moving the serial plot along.
Then again, I'm also the kind of person who preferred the "monster of the week" episodes of X-files over the "main story" ones. The latter always just seemed so forced, while the former allowed them to relax into the characters.
I actually prefer shows that have smaller stories to tell throughout rather than one large story, so we actually agree here. In these cases if the show loses quality at any point, then I can stop watching without leaving as much plot development unresolved. The downside is now you're either confining each story to a smaller runtime or you're chopping up a larger plotline into these smaller runtime units.
I suppose this is how I would put it: TV shows are a superior format for character development through smaller storylines. This is why Breaking Bad works so well. Sure you could say it's one large story told across multiple seasons, but the way it is told is through smaller stories that can almost stand on their own. The larger story isn't so much a story but one really long thread of character development of Walter. Movies have a disadvantage with character development due to the lower total runtime, but the singular story ends up more rich. One 2hr movie can often feel more satisfying that several hours of a TV show due to how little the viewer needs to invest both mentally and time-wise. That said, there are exceptions to these generalities I'm making, and I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to either of these mediums.