Web Series Criticism gets Serious
Today must have been extra rough for the creators of Strike.TV’s own Tony Hand and Camp Bloody Beach as they both received some pretty harsh reviews from Tubefilter and Newteevee. Plenty of sites curate content, few cover the creation of that content. Let’s face it, it’s still more lucrative to run a site about silly cats than it is web series. Mainstream press generally lumps what little coverage they have of web series in with their tech sections. As a result three sites, newteevee, tilzy.tv and tubefilter have become the de-facto industry publications. We need that sort of support and legitimacy, to be sure. The cheerleading these sites do is encouraging and validating, so I was surprised today to see two overtly negative reviews. I was disappointed that Tubefilter didn’t like Tony Hand.* I’ve seen that film screened in front of very enthusiastic audiences, and I’ve always found it enjoyable, but hey, I’m biased. What’s exciting, though, is the idea that web series have progressed to the point that it’s ok for a critic to give a show a negative review.
We’re all so caught up with the idea of proving our legitimacy to mainstream audiences (and each other) that sometimes we forget part of what makes a medium legitimate in the first place. Without criticism – real thought and assessment of the art form – these sites merely become bill boards for a few thousand people to show off their latest shows to each other. I’m not saying you have to be negative to be taken seriously, but if you only focus on shows that are successful, then the medium will never progress. We want to be taken seriously, we want to compete with network shows, and we want to be considered artists. Part of the conversation requires derision.*
One of the reasons that we don’t see similar issues in traditional publications has to do with ubiquity. If there are only so many TV shows, on so many networks, then it makes sense that critics should remind us of good shows and warn us of bad ones. With web series there are hundreds of shows, even more viewing options, and no central hub with which to view and be informed of these shows. It’s likely that the only exposure a poor series will get is the warning against viewing it.
While a negative review stings**, I, for one, welcome the criticism. If we fail when no one is watching, we’ll be ready when everyone is.
P.S. Andrew Park, creator of the Hayley Project, owner of the blog Tailslating and person with great taste in wordpress themes, wrote an interesting post about the way niche audiences effect a critic’s approach after today’s NTVS article created a stir in the comments section.
*Seth is a proper success. He was a writer on one of the biggest hit sitcoms EVAR (Friends). His successes and talents are obvious, so I hope that his ego isn’t that badly bruised.
** The NewTeeVee article for my show wasn’t especially positive, for that matter.
For the record, we’ve been writing negative reviews for years…
http://www.tilzy.tv/barely-watchable.htm
Noted, Jamison. Frankly, this was something I’d been thinking about for a while. Having two negative reviews in one day was the final bit of incentive I needed. It’s not that you don’t have negative things to say, it’s that I appreciate that you do (even when it stings).
Great article Matt –
We really have to be honest about what is working in web series and what is not. Sure, there are so many non-mainstream series out there and for some reviewers the show might not be their thing.
But there are some universal questions that apply to most series – would I watch another episode? Do I care about these characters? Were any of my emotions stirred? Is it original?
I’ll watch some pretty odd stuff and laugh my ass off. I probably fall into a few “niche” categories in my tastes, but I still want it to be good.
Niche shouldn’t become synonymous with crappy.
This is great we’re finally talking about a gateless infrastructure. The advertisers are figuring it out and are starting to take this stuff more seriously. But I agree with these bad reviews and I’m not completely sold on the content rules so far. Some shows are quite horrible (no pun intended), and the age-old question still remains to haunt us– What works and what doesn’t? So far, what’s not working for me is when a TV writer from a famous show tags a web series with their name on the basis that it will be successful solely on that name or connection regardless if its good or not. I admit, I thought Tony Hand was less entertaining than most amateur Youtube videos. That quality of writing and the lack of production value only allows the audience to question the merit of these creators (and thus their future)… It’s almost unbelievable that the Tony Hand creator had a real TV job after reviewing his web show. I mean no offense to that creator. Heck, he worked on Friends. But perhaps Tony Hand would be a critical success if it just had the showrunner and studio execs providing notes along the way. It almost makes a writer want to appreciate those notes. It brings up the question, why isn’t Strike TV practicing the showrunner/exec roles that seem to benefit content?
My point is, sooner or later the rules of the web format will be obsolete, and as the TV-Web convergence grows larger, audiences will come to expect TV quality writing and production values on the web. To think you can succeed on faux video blogs, popular TV show labels, and quirkiness alone is probably a foolish assumption. That said, I doubt the big question will ever be answered, and that’s what works and what doesn’t. Case in point, if you look at Pink vs. The Guild they appear as two successful shows. Both get funding from a web studio or an advertiser, and that is a success by itself. But if you look at the Youtube results on these shows, the difference is much more clear… Both posted on Youtube about a year ago and opened to an average of 2.4 million viewers for episode 1. But if you look at those numbers throughout the season, you can see that Pink virtually lost its audience after episode 1, where the guild maintained an average of 600k viewers per episode. So you can look at Pink and say, it was not successful because it was unable to maintain the audience, perhaps lacking the quality of writing a hired killer plot deserves. But on the other hand, you can say The Guild ONLY kept its audience because of its connection to WarCraft– a video game community with an estimated 11 million players. I think this just shows how infantile this format is right now, and that big question will always remain.
Yes, it’s no surprise people will be attracted to brand names. It’s our culture. And lets not discount Tony Hand too much. Without that show, we (and its creator) wouldn’t have a clue what really doesn’t work. And for that reason, Tony Hand is a groundbreaking show… Literally.