The Golden Age of Television: Alan Ball on Vampires, Death & The Mundane

Last week I was lucky enough to catch the fabulous Alan Ball at The Opera House in conversation with Wil Anderson. The writer/director of my all time favourite TV show, 6 Ft Under, talked life and work as we were taken on a journey through his career as a sitcom writer in LA, to creator of cult sensation True Blood, touching on the Oscar win for American Beauty which he wrote in 1999.

For me, the most interesting part of the night was a very discussion sparked by an audience question about the quality of television shows today. There is no doubt that there are a number of incredibly high calibre television shows that have been produced over the past few years; aside from Mr Ball's offerings, we've seen a host of amazing series including Big Love, Breaking Bad, MadMen, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Treme and and and... all dealing with deep characters and complex narratives.

When asked why the growth in such high-quality television, Alan Ball had a few hypotheses: 

• We now have bigger screens at home, better sound systems so of course we will be more open to a cinematic experience in our living room.
• Thanks to DVD box sets and digital downloads, people are consuming whole series in a weekend, changing the way we view television... it doesn't have to be a self-contained, short comedy to hold our attention.
• Television, more than film, allows you to develop complex stories, "You simply have more time on television". When likening television and film mediums to the written word, "A film is like a short story, a series is a novel".

So television, it seems, has really come into it's own as a medium, but interestingly it's no longer only watched through traditional broadcast means... will this 'Golden Age of Television' be ruined with the advent of illegal downloading and the world of torrents?

"You know, I'm in two minds about illegal downloading... on one hand you're taking money away from the people who are working hard to produce the shows, on the other hand it's the big, wealthy corporations that are getting that money anyway... that said, I don't do it".

So will these networks, and big corporations keep making these shows?

"...As long as they're making money."

Our research suggests that people are happy to pay if the product is made easily available at a reasonable price. Let's hope the big players start thinking about new distribution models so that we continue to see quality television like 6 Ft Under and Trueblood commissioned.