What makes tv shows good

Other people use legal or illegal methods to download an episode or season. This is called " channel surfing ". If a show is " on ", that means you can turn on your TV and watch it at that time. For example, someone might say:. Less frequently, "on the air" or "live on the air" is used by TV professionals to mean a show is broadcasting live at that moment. We use this to talk about surprising moments on TV:. TV critics write reviews of TV shows. In more formal language, you can also say a show is " critically acclaimed ".

A show that doesn't make the viewers think very much can be described as " mindless ":. If you generally like a show, but you didn't like one episode, you can say that it was " weak ":.

She now works as a freelance writer, educational consultant, and occasional teacher. She's interested in all things English and linguistics, and Spanish too.

Improve your English ability by understanding and memorizing common English phrases. Here are some links to help you get started:. Learn English Phrases. Search PhraseMix. The 3 biggest improvements you can make to your English writing The key to understanding natural spoken English 5 steps to achieving your New Year's resolutions 8 reasons why your English isn't improving How your brain learns English and how it doesn't Infographic: How many words do you 'need'?

The problem with language learning "levels" Where do I start? Never tell yourself that you "know" an English word or phrase. Character is who your show is about. Character is the way into any story for the audience.

Your audience can relate to, aspire to be, love, dislike, or absolutely hate, want to be friends with, feel in awe of, confused by, or intrigued by your characters — or any combination of the above. Humans naturally look for stories about human emotion, in any shape or form which is why animated movies about bugs, robots, or cars work just as well as those about human beings. Feeling something — anything — for a character creates an essential connection between the audience and fiction.

That connection, in turn, makes us forget about the screen itself. Character is crucial in that way, but also as a function of storytelling. The characters you create must be so interesting, so compelling, that the viewer wants to watch them do their thing episode after episode, season after season. If at any point the audience feels a character drift or become boring, or fade into the background, that essential connection will be lost, the channel switched, the viewer gone.

Character is a conduit and the source of plot, yes, but character is also the very inlet through which your audience connects.

Want to find out if your characters are resonating? Get some feedback with one of our Script Coverage packages. Theme is what your story is about, deep down, at its core. But serialized content also has a number of other benefits. Updated on February 24th, by Svetlana Sterlin: Television shows seem to be taking over streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. These days, series receive just as much critical attention as films do.

But what exactly is it about television that has become so appealing in recent times? Here are five additional reasons that could explain why TV is "better" than film. With longer runtime comes longer time spent with individual characters. They face more struggles and obstacles than they would in a movie, meaning they have more room to grow. Long-running shows are particularly known for how much their main characters grow.

A movie simply doesn't have enough time to put characters through as many ordeals as a series would. Though a talented filmmaker will be able to incite significant change in a film, it likely wouldn't match up to what a character experiences in a TV show. Movies typically have a single thematic focus. The character's journey begins with a call to adventure, and they face various obstacles until they achieve their goal and learn a lesson. The film typically also focuses on one character or one group of characters, whereas a series can expand to include more characters, and thus, more lessons and goals.

Though shows often start with a single core theme, new seasons often herald new topics to cover. For instance, Anne With An E begins with the story of an orphan trying to fit in, but expands to explore the struggles of other marginalized groups. These struggles are not included in the books upon which the series is based, and neither do they come up in the film adaptations. One of the most appealing things about television is that viewers can become attached to the core cast of characters.

However, things might get a little stagnant after a while. Series often introduce new side characters that usually serve to teach the main characters some sort of lesson. It becomes more interesting when a series introduces a new main character to the mix, which could completely derail things or throw the main characters into the deep end.

A single movie usually can't pull this off, restricted as it is by the runtime. Television has become an on-demand form of media , which is convenient for today's culture of instant gratification. Viewers like to choose when they're going to watch something, and how much of it they'd like to watch. Binge culture has become ubiquitous in recent years, and it wouldn't be the same if TV episodes were as long as movies.

The knowledge that something is short makes viewers feel more comfortable about committing to watching something. They can pull out at any time, and digest the story in smaller tidbits.

TV has more room for twists and turns. Long-running shows end in a way that viewers could never anticipate when they begin the show. Often, each episode has a new storyline and each season introduces a completely new struggle for the protagonist.