Boxing
In the future, alien archaeologists* will wonder about DVD box sets. They mark a particular period in our history, much as cables trailing throughout a house to ensure ‘internet access in every room’ means that your home was built in 2003. People who have enough cable to go round the planet three times in their home just to ensure that they can have internet access in the loo (why? I know why, you dirty dirty sods) must have been tremendously pissed off in 2003, when the same could be achieved, but with much faster bandwidth, by the purchase of a wireless router. Added bonus - neighbours get web access too, until you figure out how to tighten up the security features.
Getting all the episodes of your favourite telly series used to be something of a challenge. Insert tape into machine, set time for programme, go out, hope it tapes. Do this week after week and you’d soon have a mounting pile of unwatched programmes and a warm fuzzy feeling that you would soon have every episode of ‘24’. However, one of two things would then happen, you’d either forget to tape an episode or, more likely, the snooker would overrun. If the former then you’ve probably lost interest anyway, if the latter then at least the impotent rage you’d seeth with half way through your telly marathon when you eventually got round to watching the damn thing would give your heart a workout.
People who buy box sets boil down to two different types. Men and women. Women buy ‘Sex in the city’ or ‘Ally McBeal’. They do this by standing in the queue at HMV with their mother standing behind them, so obviously looking forward to spending twenty straight hours pretending they are part of a circle of sophisticated friends who have romance in their lives and eat and drink in fabulous places rather than, for instance, queue in HMV with their mother and should in fact be buying a tee shirt that says ‘I’m nearly 30, still live at home and am a psycho’.
DVD box sets will be redundant in a few years time anyhoo, as we simply order up telly programmes past and present from a back-catalogue from the BBC or whoever, getting them delivered down the line (or by wi-fi) to keep or bin as we see fit.
The move from VHS to DVD was a painful one for some of us. I paid ninety quid a pop for my X Files box sets - ninety quid. You can now get them practically for free on DVD. And you can’t sell them on eBay or give the sodding things away. Real kicker - I never watch them, I got married instead and somehow my free time now consists of redecorating rather than sitting slumped in front of the telly idly picking bits of myself. On the off chance there’s an afterlife, I’m going to be buried with them as it’s the only way I’m ever going to get to be with the young Gillian Anderson.
Last box set purchase was the excellent ‘Firefly’, bought based on seeing the movie of the teevee show, rather than binge I span out the ples……ure of watching the seventeen episodes for as long as possible.
But surely the best box-set has to be the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings films. Watching these back to back is so near to being in Middle Earth that before doing so you should check to see if there is still an FCO warning about visiting Mordor. Certainly, a pair of those DVT stockings that people use for long haul flights help.
As for watching a box-set of programmes you’ve already seen before? Who’s got the time - women, that’s who. Why? Because women don’t play Nintendo.
* It’s always alien archaeologists and it boils down to two types, both seen in the last panel of a pulp sci-fi comic. The first is a humanoid type (but with alienesque feature such as antenna, tails or something not normally sported by humans outside of the red states in the US), the second is clearly alien - let’s say a blob. In the first case the field party are normally excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization and in the second well, pretty much the same. Both stories end the same way, with the archaeologists looking at a pit containing a television and the skeleton of some sod who was too idle to get up off their arse and feed themselves. The last line is normally something like ‘they had a wonderful planet…but then they covered it in burger wrappers and their civilization perished’. This is followed by a huge exclamation mark - the sign of good sci-fi.
Getting all the episodes of your favourite telly series used to be something of a challenge. Insert tape into machine, set time for programme, go out, hope it tapes. Do this week after week and you’d soon have a mounting pile of unwatched programmes and a warm fuzzy feeling that you would soon have every episode of ‘24’. However, one of two things would then happen, you’d either forget to tape an episode or, more likely, the snooker would overrun. If the former then you’ve probably lost interest anyway, if the latter then at least the impotent rage you’d seeth with half way through your telly marathon when you eventually got round to watching the damn thing would give your heart a workout.
People who buy box sets boil down to two different types. Men and women. Women buy ‘Sex in the city’ or ‘Ally McBeal’. They do this by standing in the queue at HMV with their mother standing behind them, so obviously looking forward to spending twenty straight hours pretending they are part of a circle of sophisticated friends who have romance in their lives and eat and drink in fabulous places rather than, for instance, queue in HMV with their mother and should in fact be buying a tee shirt that says ‘I’m nearly 30, still live at home and am a psycho’.
DVD box sets will be redundant in a few years time anyhoo, as we simply order up telly programmes past and present from a back-catalogue from the BBC or whoever, getting them delivered down the line (or by wi-fi) to keep or bin as we see fit.
The move from VHS to DVD was a painful one for some of us. I paid ninety quid a pop for my X Files box sets - ninety quid. You can now get them practically for free on DVD. And you can’t sell them on eBay or give the sodding things away. Real kicker - I never watch them, I got married instead and somehow my free time now consists of redecorating rather than sitting slumped in front of the telly idly picking bits of myself. On the off chance there’s an afterlife, I’m going to be buried with them as it’s the only way I’m ever going to get to be with the young Gillian Anderson.
Last box set purchase was the excellent ‘Firefly’, bought based on seeing the movie of the teevee show, rather than binge I span out the ples……ure of watching the seventeen episodes for as long as possible.
But surely the best box-set has to be the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings films. Watching these back to back is so near to being in Middle Earth that before doing so you should check to see if there is still an FCO warning about visiting Mordor. Certainly, a pair of those DVT stockings that people use for long haul flights help.
As for watching a box-set of programmes you’ve already seen before? Who’s got the time - women, that’s who. Why? Because women don’t play Nintendo.
* It’s always alien archaeologists and it boils down to two types, both seen in the last panel of a pulp sci-fi comic. The first is a humanoid type (but with alienesque feature such as antenna, tails or something not normally sported by humans outside of the red states in the US), the second is clearly alien - let’s say a blob. In the first case the field party are normally excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization and in the second well, pretty much the same. Both stories end the same way, with the archaeologists looking at a pit containing a television and the skeleton of some sod who was too idle to get up off their arse and feed themselves. The last line is normally something like ‘they had a wonderful planet…but then they covered it in burger wrappers and their civilization perished’. This is followed by a huge exclamation mark - the sign of good sci-fi.
1 Comments:
That's why I love OnDemand. Not only do you have access to the new movie releases, but there is a sampling of old movies to choose from as well as every HBO series, and other "premium channel" series which include shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm (my personal favorite)and of course, Sex in the City. Soon I think we'll all have access to every movie ever made-----Can't wait.
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