bb10 is no more

I've mentioned before that on Thursday nights there's currently a ridiculous number of programmes that I want to watch. I also mentioned that two of them weren't very good.

Well, on Monday I summoned up the courage and deleted them from my PVR's recording schedule. At the same time I had a bit of a think and also came to the decision that I'm dumping bb10.

Part of me is missing it, but a bigger part of me is relieved that I've freed up so much viewing time. It's already paying dividends, because I immediately started watching Battlestar Galactica.

I'd heard good things about the new Battlestar, and so far I've seen nothing to make me disagree. If I'm brutally honest, the original miniseries wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped.

I mean it was in no way bad, but I was slightly left wondering why people had said it was so great. However, starting on Series 1 it became very apparent that it was a very good series.

And I think this difference was actually something of a falsity, caused by what they did to the miniseries on DVD. Even though it's a miniseries, it's been edited into one single entity. In other words, they've presented it as a (very nearly) 3 hour film.

To be frank, it's too long - I had to watch it in two halves. But also, because of the way American television has to be written to incorporate advert breaks it generally has a very clear 3 act structure. Because of the perceived button-bashing nature of American viewers, they like to go to the ad break with a big suspense moment that will encourage viewers to watch again after the ads.

So, if an hour-long show has 3 ad breaks, you end up with 2 big "act break" moments that will encourage viewers to come back. Plus, with it being a mini-series, each episode is of course going to end on a cliff-hanger too.

But that means when you edit, say, 4 of them all together you end up with 12 act breaks :/. Now that's fine in one sense, but it kinda makes the thing a bit exhausting to view. When you watch a normal show and marathon a 4 ep DVD you'll get the credits in there, telling you "okay, now you can go pee" or get a drink or whatever, or you're are at least aware that you're watching a new ep and can refocus your attention.

With it all edited together, these climactic act-break moments keep happening, but there's no respite - the thing just keeps rolling. And that makes it a little fatiguing to watch.

In other words, what I'm saying is, oddly, if it was broken up, I think I'd have enjoyed it more. But it was still good.