Day: August 6, 2011

The opening credits on TV shows(*) work very similarly to those in the movies – it's just that absolutely no one cares who wrote on directed a TV show, pretty much ever. 😉

With notable exceptions, like all-alphabetical listing, the order the stars appear in is negotiated like everything else as part of their contract. The particular placement the querent refers to, however, is special – it's the equivalent in TV terms of the "marquee spot" – that spot usually reserved before the movie title to mention a particularly well known star, etc.

Pretty much everything about Mark Hughes' answer is correct as far as the many many whys of how someone ends up with the spot – for the newcomer who is being pushed as "studio product", it may be the name recognition angle. For a recurring role played by a big name, it's the glory of the last spot itself… And many times, it's just whoever fought for it the hardest.

Ironically, if you read some of the stories about who gets what in both TV and movie credits (dig, dig, dig, they are out there online, but it's easier to find in actor/show biographies, for sure), you start to dig up some really interesting behind the scenes gossip – many times, taking the "with… as…" spot meant giving up a bit of salary, or some other perk… But oh how glorious it must be, all these years later, to show up like a phantom as the last thing viewers see in the opening sequence… I definitely think whoever gets that spot laughs loudest, longest, and best compared to their on-set nemeses – who may have been better paid, appeared in more episodes, hand more lines, input on stories, etc.

(technically, we're just talking title sequences, as a lot of modern shows and movies either skip opening credits, or just run text credits in-frame while ACT I "starts cold" (which is, in the end, better for the viewer, it means we get that many more minutes of show back from the bean counters who somehow like to think of an hour as consisting of what're we down to these days, 42 minutes?!?)

During TV and movie credits, what does it mean when an actor has "as X" after their name?

It depends on whether you need someone who can "act like a barbarian", or someone who can, you know, "act".

I don't think he's cornered either market individually – but at least for now, he has a fairly good lock on the "Venn overlap" between the two.

Also, while this may sound borderline racist, there is also a factor in casting roles which gives him an advantage – he is exotic looking, without being seen as too exotic for a mainstream audience to accept… Or put more bluntly, he "passes for white" with the white audiences who care about that sort of thing – which, for really terrible reasons, is still a factor in casting larger Hollywood roles.

We'll have to see how re-watchable Thor is, though. Brian Helmsworth may be able to give Jason a run for his money at some point…

Has Jason Momoa cornered the market on Hollywood barbarians and exotic tough men?

This question is kinda like "will Microsoft Office ever die out completely, and be replaced with an alternative office suite delivered via the Internet?"

In most literal terms, the answer has to be NO.

But, that's not to say that both things won't happen, and that there may well be a long period of overlap, which effectively makes the existence and rise of one basically unrelated to the death of the other. No, broadcast TV is going to die, because it will choose death over evolution, after a long and bloody protectionist fight.

Newspapers were heavily damaged financially by upstart free internet classifieds like craigslist. Broadcast TV has seen the rise not only of "internet tv", but also general non-video internet usage, as well as other video-centric entertainment sources like videogames as threats to viewership, and ultimately income.

Still, the greater threat isn't in "taking away marketshare/revenues", its in new solutions that create whole new markets that broadcast TV has a much harder time adapting to/incorporating. Take, say, CNN's use of Twitter(*) as an example. Craigslist isn't killing newspapers. A huge narrowing of the quality/performance gap between traditional newspapers and web journalism/blogging is what's killing newspapers.

In a similar manner, I expect that with TV, it's going to be less about "how long until they transition to Internet Broadcasting?", and much more about "how long until something new usurps Broadcast TV's central role in delivering news and entertainment?"

Not going to guess at an answer to that, but as I alluded to earlier, I fully expect that broadcast TV will not need to "fully die" first to allow such solutions to arise, and both solutions will coexist for so long it will be impractical or even disingenuous to call it a 'transition'. The US Post Office is still fending off email at a few cents per year, after all – but their organizational strengths in end to end delivery never led them to dream such a thing up, nor to imagine (or really even compete with) the likes of Fedex and UPS.

(* No really, take it. Take it far away, and burn it. At sea. A Viking's death for CNN's Twitter account. It's the only way.)

Will broadcast TV die out completely and be replaced by internet based streams and VOD?

In a word? No.

The question completely mis-frames the practical use case and outcome – that "cable TV" itself will instead be replaced by more efficient/flexible Internet delivery, which can then route as closely as possible via cables, only switching to wireless for "last mile" or even "on premise" transmission.

Of course, this is not necessarily desirable on the part of cable networks, who would like to stand up a separate wireless infrastructure for a variety of reasons. But due to the difficulty in obtaining spectrum, and rights to tower placement within communities, it's far more likely that the consumer-side pressures will finally force the abstraction of tv content from delivery mechanisms and telecom providers.

Put even simpler: it's much more likely that what a consumer imagines as "cable over wireless" looks like an AppleTV 3, or a Roku-HD-1080-ng+ sitting on a "smartdumb" IPv6 pipe, than it does like a contemporary cable/telecom subscription package.

Will telecom companies ever be able to deliver cable television to consumers homes wirelessly, instead of over a wired connection?

Well let's see… In reverse order, the top ten are empirically known to be:

• #10 Adric – died, and stayed dead – definitely cool points for a time travel series. I think he also wins for whiniest by a large margin, as well…
• #9 Jo Grant – stood toe to toe against the Master himself, and defeated his hypnosis technique with nursery rhymes. Bad. Ass.
• #8 Tegan Jovanka – If Crocodile Dundee and David Bowie had a daughter*, it would be Tegan. Longest continuous series run, at 3 years 1 month. Also possibly the "longest running" companion in terms of chronological presence in the timeline (from the big bang to Earth's 26th century). The only flight attendant ever to qualify for a spot in the TARDIS crew. Think about it. Also, the inspiration for the Mel Gibson film, Braveheart.
• #7 Captain Jack Harkness – bringing back the Emo Trenchcoat to sexuality-questioning teen boys everywhere. Pure win! Also wins for largest hat size of any companion. Eventually.
• #6 Leela – the noblest of savages, with enough bravado to go back into an about-to-explode lighthouse for her hunting knife. Killed the most people onscreen of any companion. Every Rose Has Its Janis Thorn…
• #5 Romana II – onscreen and offscreen chemistry in action. Hubba-yow! Plus, extra points for anyone who gets to keep a K-9 at the end of their run. If you include the books and audio, she eventually becomes Lady President of Gallifrey!
• #4 Jamie McCrimmon – You thought trenchcoats were sexy? Kilts are the real sexy. Most episodes for a single companion. Didn't take no guff, nor any of that "color television" nonsense. A real man's man.
• #3 Amy Pond – why yes, I would like fries with that shake, Officer Pond. Purest form of "distilled sex per cubic centimeter" on the show, ever. Not that any of it is actually cubic…
• #2 K-9 – Honest and loyal to a fault, armed to the teeth (or, er, nose, anyway), and unkillable – as evidenced by his own "4 regenerations" thus far. That's more than KITT!
• #1 Sarah Jane Smith – Rode with the best of the best. Another K-9 Award winner. Brought the Kastrian race back from extinction (briefly). Only companion (with K-9) to have her own ongoing series. What more could you ask for? We'll miss you, Lis!

* I'll pay $10,000 for filmed footage of any attempts, successful or otherwise.

Who is the best companion to The Doctor? Why?