Is TV Fiction Mirroring Surveillance From Modern Life?

Everyone of us spends an evening now and then viewing our favorite television shows. When an individual participates in the comfort zone of being a couch potato for a few hours, does she or he ponder the thought of what inspired the writers to create interesting TV fiction? Think about it. Putting aside ratings as the number one motivator does not explain the entire story. Keep in mind these talented writers must do their homework in order tap out a number one hit on their keyboards. You visualize the idea. We do the same thing without the intense pressure of keeping on schedule. Consider this: Would you agree that a part of what is presented on prime time TV mirrors what is happening in modern life? Or do you think it stems from the controversial issues of our time.? For instance think of CBS with a show entitled Person Of Interest. What were the motivational factors in the concept and ultimate bringing forth of that popular TV series? A brilliant nerd by the name of Harold Finch invents a "machine" which has the ability to predict who is in mortal danger. This machine seems to have the mind of a person such as in the case of Hal from Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001 A Space Oddyssey. The "muscle" is a man who is ex-CIA by the name of John Reese. A woman named Shaw provides the ammunition to fuel interest into the story. These heroes, as the narration goes, involve themselves in upcoming "crimes that the FBI and CIA consider irrelevant".

What wraps around us in current events, reverberates in fictional thought. Intriguing as it is to us viewers and how mainstream news media fears to show us, the forbidden from the powers that be are exposed in television fiction. The success of a show incorporates this into popularity and year upon year of the particular run of it. In other words how can they create so much interest to extend the life run of the series. That particular I speak of is the "hook".

Seek the lure that can tempt the audience to become "hooked" into anticipating what comes next. Think of the time before you were born when short subject films projected an image of future space exploration.What comes to mind? Buck Rogers? Imagine the impact Buck Rogers had on those who were born before World War II. What an influence that serial was to the ultimate dream of the Space Race of the late 1950s well onto the Moonwalk in 1969. Think of the astronaut who said "One small step for mankind".

Consider that subtitle. Do you somehow find an inkling of truth in it? In these days of unemployment, underemployment, lack of employer health benefits, wars and global climate change is fiction hinting at the truth? When Charles Dickens wrote his novels were we seeing a view through a sooty pane glass window illustrating the life and class struggle in Victorian England? That paragraph deserves considerable thought.

A social reformer can bring attention to the social, environmental and economic ills of his or time period via writing and other artistic avenues. This weaving of the pursuit of social reform was done not only by Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo employed intertwining social reform with writing. They go on as there were others famous and non-famous who shared their views of needed change.

Let us all work together to make this a better world.