Is My Life About to Become a Sitcom?

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Sitcoms (or situation comedy) are an extremely important and popular part of television programming. They constantly top viewing figures and are one of those things people are talking about and referencing for years. Think about the famous American sitcom Friends, even if you haven't seen it you'll probably be able to name one of the characters and maybe quote one of the famous lines or tell me a storyline from the show because it has become such a staple of viewing that nearly anyone who has ever been near a television will know about it.

The reason sitcoms are so funny and popular is because most people viewing are able to relate to it in some way. I may not be able to relate to sitcoms at the age I'm at (20) but I still find them funny. On top of that I have now realised that I am getting dangerously close to the age of the character in these shows.

This has honestly started to worry me because I am now thinking of all the problems that the characters face in these shows and I realise that most of these problems will be happening to me soon. Think about it right now, think of all the sitcoms you know about; Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Coupling, The Big Bang Theory, Gavin and Stacy and countless others that have come and gone.

Right, now think of the average plot synopsis of a sitcom. 'A group of twenty-somethings struggle through relationship, jobs and all the problems that come between.' Yeah sounds like a right fucking laugh  The average TV viewer (ie someone over 30) will look at something like this and fondly remember the days when that was their life and they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. But if you're my age, then you should be shitting yourself; I know I am.

If you think about all the problems that the characters traditionally go through it's normally about finding a partner, getting married, finding somewhere to live and then starting a family and then after that theres all the money worries and problems with in-laws and it's all a giant fucking laugh for everyone involved.

Well it doesn't sound like fucking fun to me. I am genuinely terrified of getting older. At the moment I'm kind of in a state of limbo whereby I'm too old to have my parents take complete care of me by feeding me, clothing me and housing me, but I'm also too young to kind of take care of all those things myself and become a completely individual person. Maybe if I hadn't gone to Uni I could be financially independent by now, but then I wouldn't doing something I loved.

But I now know that in the next few years I am going to have to take care of myself. Most people think of their lives in 5-Year Plans. That's always the question you seem to hear at important job interviews (I mean like in films and TV, I've never been to a proper job interview) "What's your five year plan?" or "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

I have no idea where I'm going to be in 5 years, when I will be 25 and halfway to 30. When my mum was 25 she was married, had had me in Glasgow and moved down to Cambridge (like 600 miles) for a job and was planning to have my younger brother. I can't really imagine anything like that when I'm 25. I could maybe see myself being married when I'm 25, I've had a girlfriend for almost 4 years now so I guess it would make sense. But I don't want to ask her to marry me until I can afford a proper wedding and for us to be financially stable and ready to start a family or something. Average engagements last around 1-2 years which would mean if I'm going to married by 25 then I have to propose when I'm 23 or 24. I'll finish Uni when I'm 22 so I don't think there's anyway that I will have enough money for any of that.

I mean parts of me are so looking forward to getting older and married and having children and proper job doing something I love and a house and everything. But I can't imagine that happening in the next 5 years. I can barely see it happening in the next 10 years. On top of that, I've seen how much the characters in these shows struggle but it's all fine by the next episode. Is life going to be like that? Or has TV lied to me?

So I'll give a 5 year plan, seems like a good time, I'll live my life in blocks of 5 years. In 5 years I want to have a degree and be working my way up the Television Industry, I'll still be with Olivia (My Girlfriend) and we'll be thinking about future stuff. Oh, and I'll have somewhere nice to live. Now does anyone know Matt LeBlanc's phone number? I'm going to need him to say something funny whenever something fucks up.

I'm a little bit useless...

... well, I'm not exactly a bit useless. I am actually a lot useless. I'm sat here waiting on my mum to pick me up from my flat. Which doesn't actually sound that bad unless you know that I'm only getting picked up by my mum because the car in my battery is dead. The car in my battery is only daed because I left my fucking lights on last night and that drained the battery.

But seriously, it's so annoying. I don't understand what's been happening to me recently but my brain is just crap. It's absolutely atrocious. I just keep forgetting everything, not just big things or little things, I'm forgetting everything.

Earlier on Liv asked me for some Weetos, I replied that I would get them, and then before I knew what was happening she asked me where her Weetos were and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

I wasn't kidding when I wrote in my first post when I said that I needed activity for my brain. I just need to find some sort of activity that is going to make me think more. I've been working everyday this week and now I feel a lot better, but it hasn't been anything mentally stimulating, just lots of physical labour.

So here we go, I'm setting myself a first deadline: Between now and this point next week I will post 2 new long blog posts about something. And they will be good. And as a special bonus I will be putting up a post about the first episode of my television series.

There we have it, we can now measure how useless I am; if I do the posts then I'm getting better, if not then I'm getting worse. I'll re-evaluate myself in a weeks time.

Will The Internet Destroy TV As We Know It?

This was one of the questions posed to me as part of my final coursework at Uni. It was a subject I had covered in a class debate earlier in the year so I already knew quite a lot about it. It's a really interesting question because as I came to think about it I realised that for the past couple of years I've been watching TV in a very different way to traditional broadcasting.

Even before the internet was anywhere near capable of allowing us to watch videos, advancements in technology were already changing the way we were watching TV. Home video recorders were around long before and they allowed us to record whatever was being shown on TV and keep it to watch at our leisure. And with home videos being fairly expensive people didn't mind fast forwarding through adverts, from a home recorded version, if it meant they could save some money.

When digital television came along we were able to access a lot more channels than regular terrestrial television could offer. A lot of these channels were dedicated to showing reruns of classic British programming from the BBC and ITV. Sky were the first company to really sell digital television equipment on a mass scale, and it wasn't long before they completely changed the way we watched TV in this country. When they released Sky+ it was the first time that people were able to record a television show and have instant access to it without having to use a video recorder. Of course the box only had limited space on the hard drive so it wasn't long before people were popping up offering to switch the hard drive to a bigger one, allowing people to store more content they'd recorded.

It's always been about money and people want to feel like they are getting the most for their money. When 4oD launched it was the first time one of the major British networks had offered consumers their television shows to download on their computers to watch. Of course when 4oD originally launched it was a very different service to what we get today. It was originally a software that had to be downloaded similar to iTunes, but full of archived Channel 4 shows. But with time it has evolved to work inside a web browser and allow people to stream their content easily. Of course to make some money off of this they have attached small adverts in the shows, but as I've already said people will sit through adverts if it means they can save some money on buying the DVD.

When BBC iPlayer launched it was all through the browser but it was, again, very different to the service we see today. It launched with selected content such as Top Gear and Doctor Who for viewers to stream instantly. Similar to their channel, these videos ran without adverts interrupting. But as technology has evolved they are able to host more content for viewers to stream with nearly all programming on BBC 1 and BBC 2 being able to view immediately after it's aired on live broadcast.

It wasn't long before ITV also launched a service and soon after Sky launched a streaming service for their entertainment channel Sky 1 with some other content being available. But with the advancement of technology there's always money to be made and it wasn't long before subscription streaming services became available. The first available was LoveFilm which had previously been operating as a postal DVD rental service. They started offering the streaming service to existing customers before allowing streaming only subscription packages.

A pretty much identical company had done the same thing a few years previously. That company was Netflix and they have, fairly recently, launched in this country as a subscription streaming service. These companies then branched out further into other technologies and made deals with Sony and Microsoft to launch their streaming services on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 respectively. These services don't cost a lot either, Netflix costs £5.99 a month and that gives you unlimited access to the 1000s of films and TV shows they have ready to stream.

Of course it's not even internet companies that are supplying us directly and instantly with the content. One of the major ways the internet changed how we watch television was through the website Amazon. Amazon was the first major website that allowed people to go online and shop for their favourite TV show boxsets. Before consumers would have to rely on their local DVD shop being in stock of the show they wanted to buy. Even then Amazon were able to offer the DVDs at a much lower price.

It's not just legal ways that the internet offers us for viewing programmes. There are 100s of sites hosting copyrighted content that anyone can stream instantly. And unlike services offered by the network these aren't locked by any sort of region copyright laws. This means that we in the UK are able to stream an American show a few hours after it's aired.

And if you were to used Torrents then you are able to download copyrighted content to your hard drive. This means you don't have to rely on the internet connection cutting out in the middle of your viewing and you have the video there ready to watch whenever you want.

In no way am I endorsing using illegal sites to view copyrighted content but these networks need to see what's going and rather than fighting all these stupid copyright lawsuits against teenagers who downloaded a film once they should be updating their servies. The simple truth of the matter is people don't really want to pay for things, especially DVDs which nowadays seem to contain nothing else than 3 different copies of watching the film. If you want a consumer to buy the DVD then you have to offer them something more than what they got from watching it the first time round on television because they are able to access that online for free.

Sky have been the first to catch on in this country and have started to make some deals with American networks to broadcast their shows sooner after that US broadcast than previous. What was happening before that was that we were getting to see American shows months after they had aired in the US. With the internet allowing people to connect better with other fans they don't want to be left behind so will use these illegal websites to stay caught up so they don't get the story ruined for them.

When Heroes was first broadcast in this country on the BBC the entire first season had already been shown in the US. By the time it finished airing over here the second season was about to begin in the US; it wouldn't air for several months on the BBC. This led to people in the UK viewing it online illegally and downloading it and sharing it with their friends.

The show that really changed everything, in my opinion, was Lost. The show originally aired on Channel 4 a few weeks after broadcast in America. The show itself gained a huge cult following so people didn't want to have to wait to find out what was going to happen next. After the first two seasons the show switched to Sky who aired it a few days after the American broadcast. When it came to the finale of the show it was so anticipated and kept so secret that Sky simulcast it with the US. This meant that for the first time fans could watch the show at the exact same time as their American counterparts and there would be no chance of anything being ruined.

The technology and services being offered are definitely moving in the right direction but at the moment it's not enough. This question can be looked at in two different ways. A more negative view you'd think that the internet is allowing people to watch illegal versions and ruining TV as networks aren't making as much money. But I prefer to think that the internet is destroying the way we watch our shows. I can't remember the last time I watched a show live, I mean I don't have a TV license, I just watch them all at my convenience on catch up services. If only the networks truly embraced everything they could offer their viewers then they wouldn't have to worry about people stealing their content because no one will bother with an illegal copy if they can watch it legally and free.

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Hello, and welcome to my blog. I would invite you to have a look around but there isn't really anything much to look at at the moment. It's like I've moved into a house that everyone can come into but I haven't had a chance to decorate yet.

I've just finished my first year at Uni, well it's been over a month now. I have enjoyed spending the past month relaxing but I've gotten to the stage where I can actually feel my brain not working as well as it used to so I think I need something to keep my brain occupied.

Over my first year at Uni I've come up with a few ideas for things that I would like to work on so I'm going to be using this as a record of everything I've done because it will hopefully encourage me to do more. I have an idea for a TV series that I'm going to be spending the majority of my time working on and when there is something to share about it, I will. I'm also going to be writing articles about all kinds of things; sometimes it might be about a TV show or film, other's will probably be about something that pisses me off or something that I think is stupid.

So, for now, enjoy this post because it's all you're going to get for now, but check back soon and you might find something you enjoy.

Bye.