Why Are There So Few “Good” TV Shows and Movies?
When you watch TV/movies, do you step back and ask yourself if it is good media? Would you recommend this show to a friend without thinking twice ? Well, I think that most TV/movies out now are not really as good as people say they are. In most cases, out of the hundred of thousands of TV and movies out there, there are really only a few true gems out there. Even out of those, there are only a few that are widely well acclaimed. In this article, I will go through some of that small few of good TV, and why most other shows just aren’t on their level..
In order to say what is and isn’t βgood tv,βyou have to first define what actually IS good tv. In which I have set up 3 criteria: Well Developed/Realistic Characters, World Building, and Plot. The first criteria: Well Developed/Realistic Characters. This criteria pretty much means you realistically see yourself being the main character or any deuteragonists, and that the character(s) grow over the time of the show/movie. A great example of this is Jinx from Arcane, which I will delve into further. My second criterion is World Building. To define this, you must ask yourself: does the way the characters’ stories are progressing also tell stories about the world around them? A very good example of this is Cyberpunk Edgerunners which will also be developed further. My final criterion is Plot. This one is simple and is defined like this: just because there are high stakes, doesn’t mean that you get high ratings. To further explain,you don’t have to have the entire universe at stake for a good story. So long as the plot and its devices are important to the protagonist and the deuteragonists, then the stakes could be as simple as getting an apple from a tree. While movies and shows with high stakes are generally enjoyable, for example: βAvengers: Endgame,β where the stakes were at the highest it could be, and it was because the entire universe was at stake.
Now with that said, and all my criteria listed above, I will list 3 of the very small pool of very good TV/movies out there. These are not ranked in any particular order, and all are critically acclaimed.
Arcane (Season 1)
The first season of Arcane was a genuine masterpiece. The characters were all unique and each played their own parts perfectly. The protagonist and deuteragonist were both amazing in the settings that they were in, and added heavily to the story unlike some shows. As for my criteria, it was a hit in every single category. The protagonist, Jinx, was a very well developed character from her introduction within the first minutes of the story, to the penultimate last episode. She had grown from being just a kid who made useless contraptions in order to feel useful, and turned those contraptions into twisted works of art she used to defeat enemies and cause mischief in Piltover. Throughout the entire season, you can tell that she was broken as a person, and had not recovered at all throughout the season. This adds to her story and makes her that much more of an enjoyable character, and to some may make her seem more relatable. The way that her story tells of the splitting of Zaun from Piltover, and the classism that the people from Zaun had faced due to simply being born in poor circumstances, what are you suggesting here?. The artwork was beautiful, and every step of the storytelling process had used the art direction to the fullest extent. The plot had decently high stakes, with the splitting of the two sisters, and the liberation of Zaun from Piltover. The show has received high critical acclaim for the art direction and storytelling used, and is one of the most well regarded shows in TV history.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Cyberpunk Edgerunners is one of the best Netflix exclusive anime, and arguably one of the best in history. The worldbuilding done in this show is impeccable from the first episode down to the last one, and it can all be summed up with this singular quote: βThere are no happy endings in Night City.β The story of David Martinez is no different from that quote. He was a poor kid whose mother had worked every single one of her days to put him into a prestigious school, even if it meant doing black market deals with gangsters for the money. David is mistreated and bullied at school, and even if he wanted to fight back, the way that the world is structured around him wouldn’t let him no matter how hard he tries. After his motherβs death, and him becoming an edgerunner, there was no point in the story where he had found himself a happy ending. The plotβs stakes was his mother telling him to make it to the top of Arasaka tower, even though by the end he had twisted the meaning by going insane using a lot of cybernetic enhancements — βcyberpsychosisβ as the show calls it. All of this makes this not only an amazing show, but it is also critically acclaimed, even for how little people have seen the show.
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse
Both of these Spiderman movies were not only some of the highest rated movies of all time, but also had high opening sales at the box office. The characters were all very enjoyable and relatable, and the protagonist, Miles Morales, was someone every kid could relate to with his story within the first movie. Changing schools from one he was well accustomed to, to another one that was very far from his own element was an amazing allegory to students who have gone through similar experiences. The worldbuilding in the movie from the animation and how Miles interacts with other background characters spoke volumes on how important he was to his own community, and how much the community relied on him, much like other spiderman stories. The plot in both movies bouncedwell off of each other, introducing a multiverse, and the usage of Kingpin in the first movie with him being a broken person who lost his family rather than an actual villain really helped move the plot. The stakes of stopping the machine that kingpin had built, and in the second movie it being the stopping of Milesβ dadβs death, really add up to make an amazing storyline amongst the 2 movies, and leaving many viewers with excitement for the 3rd and last installment in the trilogy. Both movies were met with wide critical acclaim, and are some of the best grossing movies of all time.
Something in common with all 3 media (aside from them being animated), was that they all had some part that they excelled at. Arcane excelled in character development and making the characters realistic.Cyberpunk Edgerunners excelled in world building, and forming a story of the world around them just from simply telling the story of the main character. Spiderman had excelled in plot development, and were both amazing in developing their own plots, and setting up the greater plotline for the entire trilogy. While there are shows that do well at all 3, if it is unable to excel at one of them, then it is simply regarded as an ok show at best. The reason why there is so little good tv and movie, is because they try so hard to focus on building up all parts of their show, to where it becomes lackluster in the end since it’s too same-y to other shows and movies out there. There is a saying: βA jack of all trades is a master of none,β and that applies heavily to the current media out there. If your show doesn’t excel at one part of its story, then it will most likely fade into obscurity, like most of the 800,000 shows and movies that have ever been released.