What's The Deal?
When you tape or TiVo a game, you have to be very careful not to catch any of it before you rewind. Just a glimpse could give you the score which would make watching the points up to that point pointless.
Which is why I don't get Deal Or No Deal. I recently watched it in real time (a mistake) and, before the commercial break, they actually showed how much money was about to be offered later in the episode. Shouldn't they at least warn you they're about to ruin what's coming up?
I don't even like when fictional shows start with what's happened in past episodes since it tips you off which plotlines will matter, but this is just out and out giving you the scoop that you're about to watch in the next ten minutes anyway. (The worst giveaway I can recall for a fictional show was Coach, when they had a great gag where Jerry Van Dyke's character goes to a family reunion and Dick Van Dyke walks through--this only works if you don't know it's coming, but ABC promoted this moment so much you'd have thought Dick was the star of the show.)
posted by LAGuy @ 12:21 AM
2 Comments:
It all depends on why you watch the game or event. If you wish to experience as "new" and the the thrill of victory and agony of defeat then yes total radio silence would be appropriate. (TV has always had this problem as it balanced drama vs. drawing in viewers with ads- /*SPOILER ALERT*/ Hill Street Blues once had a memorable episode where we saw a disgraced Lt. Howard Hunter put a gun to his head and heard a shot in blackout then the the ads for next week fhowed the character running around with a bandage on his temple)
On the other hand, I like to watch some events without the gut-wrenching uncertainty- and often enjoy old games on ESPN Classic, you can pick up things that would otherwise get overlooked ion the narrative progression or the emotion- I probably won't but I was thinking of TIVOing the the election coverage to watch on Wed after the result is known It probably won't turn out to be that uncertain, but if it is at all on Tuesday, it will be gut-wrenching. (Cue the Who)
Maybe this comes partially from having HBO and watching so many films in segmented out of sequence parts over the years.
There's a curve you could draw that describes the likelihood that someone spoils your tivo-ed sporting event for you. It starts off low (first inning, quarter, etc.), very quickly rises (mid-game), plateaus (last innings/set/quarter and the hour afterward), then slowly drops until another peak the next morning with the morning news shows and papers, then drops off again. I got a chance to think about this while trying desperately to avoid learning the results of the final day of the Ryder Cup until I could watch them on tivo. During the matches, I couldn't have the radio on. When I got home, I couldn't have ESPN or any other channel with a ticker on tv. Of course I had to receive a text message later that night about the awesome US win from someone who isn't even a golf fan. Sigh.
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