Television vs. Film
 

Which medium do you guys prefer?

For me, I love them both at their full potential and my interest in one or the other tends to shift back and forth quite often.

I will say though that in general, television is more entertainment for me, to be enjoyed more than to be pondered. With television shows, time is on the producer's sides so they have plenty of room for meaningless scenes and filler.

Whereas with film every shot needs to serve a purpose, and there's really no room for wasted scenes. I also think films tend to place heavier emphasis on themes, motifs, and basically just dissecting the writer's/director's intentions, which if you're a nerd like I am, can be a lot of fun. HBO has brought TV shows closer to the film realm, but I still would put them in a class of their own.

So what do you guys think?

I prefer film by a great margin. The only TV shows I've ever really gotten into are Freaksand Geeks, breaking Bad, trailer park boys and adventure time. That's only 4 shows where I can consistently watch every episode online and be genuinely sucked into what is happening. Most Tv shows have a few episodes worth watching but the rest are just filler episodes. Whereas the number of films I've loved is probably over 100. I watch a ridiculous amount of movies and even ones that are bad but not bad and funny I usually find an amount of enjoyment. Even movies I hate will have some redeeming parts, whereas a bad episode of tv will just be boring to me.
I rarely watch tv but watching movies is one of my main interests. I am however open to TV shows where you truly connect with the characters in it and get totally sucked into the world you're watching.

Film.

Not to sound elitist, but most non-hbo series i just can't get into. Well with the exception of southpark and louie, and maybe some other comedic stuff.

I find a lot of characters just aren't meant to be dragged on for years worth of matireal. It ruined Dexter for sure, and many other shows as well. The writers don't have a clear story arc, so they end up having to change or deviate the characters and setting so much to keep it fresh it stops being what it originally was.

Acting is also far more believable and realistic in films as oppose to most shows. Films are allowed to show more explicit material and have a larger range of stories because of it.

Yeah just from a business perspective, tv shows almost always seem to be about how much of a profit can be made from them, as opposed to artistic merit. That's why you see shows go on for years past their prime, simply because they're still making money.

Whereas with films you get arthouse projects and stuff which will never make a lot of money and the directors obviously know this, but they have their own ulterior motives that don't begin and end with the profit margin.

I vastly prefer movies to TV Series. I believe the amount of memorable enjoyment I've gotten from movies vastly outnumber what I've got from watching series, both in number of titles and in time spent watching.

Television is of course the better medium. Yes, there is a lot more sifting that needs to be done to find something of genuine merit, but I think the episode by episode structure gives real creatives a wider landscape to form their art.

Nothing against Film of course, but Television shows, at their best, can come as close as it gets to reading a great novel. Take The Wire for example. Each episode was around an hour long, without adverts,and had five series' of around thirteen episodes.

The subtle storytelling that went into the making of that series cannot be found in a movie.

I definitely recognize your point here, but the amount of quality shows that I've found is so low compared to the amount of quality movies so in a comparison of which one's the favourite, there's no contest in my mind.

I do love it when I find a series I really love. They can be hard to come by.

Well, I nod my head towards The Wire of course, Breaking Bad is also fantastic. And I am also loving Mad Men at the moment.

film

i am biased here cos i really don't watch much TV

i have a really short attention span and how can i spread it out over several years?

the only TV series i followed was Smallville, but even then, getting from point A to point B was a torture, and the Justice League, as was portrayed in that show, sucked ass

I wouldn't want anyone to judge their idea of Television on Smallville...