It’s all a matter of self-definition. “Family” used to be defined from outside. Two parents and 2.2 children living in a cookie-cutter house in some meaningless suburb. Increasingly, like television, it is defined from within, by the members, according to their own emotional and spiritual needs.

And while I might sometimes long for a world in which my own preferences in that regard were universal, we continue to live in _this_ world, where each of us is part of a tiny niche in one regard or another…each part of some group’s Long Tail, as it were. And in such a world, profusion of choice — especially in the super-critical matters — is a good thing.

(To return to the nominal topic of this post…)

I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched a show aired by a network that existed when I was a little kid. (OK, OK…not technically true, since HBO, which I watch semi-obsessively, is actually almost as old as I am…but it’s undergone a pretty radical transformation in the past decade.) If it weren’t for all that profusion of choice, I’d literally have no reason or desire to own a TV.

TV, they say, is far more writer-friendly than movies. once the studio buys into the idea for a series, the writers take over and do their thing. the person reading their pages is a producer who is himself usually also a writer. meaning there’s not that endless rewriting like in the movies to address flaws and suggestions made by studio execs who didn’t bother reading the script.

i can’t imagine jerry bruckheimer announcing some morning that CSI would be much much better if one of the characters turns out to be a lesbian. TV just doesn’t work that way.

but movies still have the prestige that TV lacks. emmies are nice but every writer would much prefer winning an oscar.

There’s a reason they call it the Golden Rule. Treat people as you want to be treated, and even if you screw up, chances are that they will forgive you. And come back. And tell their friends about how well…