Is It Good For You or Not?

Does watching TV make you more intelligent? Steven Johnson, who wrote Everything Bad is Good For You, argues that it does make you smarter I’m kind of two side on this. In the article Brain Candy has statistics that IQ test scores are getting higher than they were in 1920’s. It says that upper class people are not the only ones that are having higher IQ test. So something in between is happening.

I watched a television show called The Closer.  This show is a cop show. It is a set of detectives that solve homicide cases. Brenda Johnson is the duty chief she is a unique woman. What I mean by unique is that she acts goofy to make her suspects think that she doesn’t know what she is doing. That’s how she gets into their heads. Her team is just like any other team that you see on detective television shows. Detective Daniels she is the only female on the team besides Brenda she isn’t like Brenda she isn’t the go-getter like Brenda is. Luitentent Berdena he is the oldest on the team says he is always going to retire, but never probably will he is like the father figure. Luitentent Michael Tal he is the guy that does everything that Brenda tells him one time he had a fake blood spatter test that he has in his desk and that’s how she tricks people. He is the smarter one of the bunch he is the one that messes with computers a well. Brenda is the main character and the other characters are side characters. In the case of TNT's series The Closer,  the claim to standing out in a very crowded crime drama field is the show's main character, Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, a CIA-trained former Atlanta PD detective who comes to the LAPD to run it's Priority Murder Squad. Johnson's known for having  knack at nailing people in the interrogation room, getting confessions. Thus the show's title. Starring Kyra Sedgwick as the Deputy Chief,  The Closer is a sharp, interesting drama with a a strong, multi-dimensional main character. The series, like Johnson herself, manages to solve crimes with a twang that sets it apart. (Associated Content)

 In the first part of the book Johnson has a theory the Sleeper Curve, which suggest that the most debased forms of mass diversion video games and violent television dramas turn out to be nutritional after all. Johnson talks about how shows have changed over time. “According to television lore, the age of multiple threads began with the arrival of Hill Street Blues in 1981”. (63) How they have come more complex than shows that have been played years ago.  Johnson brings up good points in his section on television. He says television requires you to think you have to use your mind to watch television now in days. He says there is things that make you think more. Multiple threading, flash arrows and social networking is what he talks about that makes you think. 

First, multiply threading is when a television show has a main plot, but then has many little series also in the episode. I love Lucy and Laverne and Shirley are not the types of shows that have multiple threading that are what I think Johnson is talking about when he compares the shows. These types of shows have “House Wife Problems.” What I mean by that is that they have problems that are common what should we have for dinner, what we shouldn’t buy, how we shouldn’t do that, and why should we do that because we will get hurt. These are the types of episodes that play on I love Lucy and Laverne and Shirley. That’s why people have grown accustomed to them because they were simple to watch didn’t boggle your mind like the television shows we watch today.

In my show The Closer there are plenty of multiply threading in my show. They show up in every episode that I have watched. In all the shows I watch on a daily bases there is multiply threading I don’t think I can name a show that doesn’t have a multiple threading in it. Johnson says that it makes you think and I believe him. I watch these shows and you have to follow the show in order to know what is going on. The Closer will fit Johnson the sleeper curve that Johnson describes in the book. “Multithreading is the most celebrated structural feature of the modern television drama, and it certainly deserves some of the honor that has been doled out to it. When we watch TV, we intuitively track narrative-threads-per-episode as a measure of a given show’s complexity..” (74) Everyday you see this happen you just don’t know what is called. You have to understand that movies are more complex then what you or I think of.

Flash arrow is when your suspense is built up at a certain part of time during the movie by music or maybe the suspense of knowing what is going to happen. Johnson says that this type of cognitive work is preventing people from getting smarter. It doesn’t have you fill in information that the television show gives you when you watch. It lets you know what happens next, which doesn’t make you think.

The Closer does not have the flash arrows. My show isn’t scary and it never plays music it’s very unpredictable. Even though my show doesn’t have flash arrows I would expect if there were flash arrows it would be in the beginning. If it was in the beginning of the show it could like a flash of a note, or a flash of a character that might be the killer or might be a victims. Everything that you think will happen there is normally a twist to it. Especially even with the multiple threading involved in it.

Social network is an inside joke. An inside joke, which is very important because it makes you want to watch all the episodes. In my show I watched weekly deputy chief Johnson doesn’t have social networks. It’s not that type of show. The shows that Johnson describes that have social networking are Home improvement, The Simpsons, and The Seinfeld. These shows are not the same as the show I watched my show is supposed to be more serious. The type of shows that Johnson mentions is shows that have no multiple threading. They are shows that you can flip the channel and know what is going on without watching other episodes.

“The Closer cases are complicated, the dialogue fast-paced, and the working relationships tense -- all accompanied by a strong, complex female lead showing off her stellar detecting and interrogation skills.” (Common sense Media) This is a review sight author of the review is Sierra Filucci. I picked this because it does describe the show better than what I could. Plus it fits Johnson’s theory that television is more complex. The show is very complex because you have to watch this show every episode or you don’t know what is going on. Since there is so many multiple threading going that you have to pay attention.

Work Cited

Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad Is Good For You. New York: Penguin Group, 2006.

Filucci, Sierra “What’s the Story?” Common Sense Says. 2009. 14 May 2009<http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tvreviews/Closer_2.html>

Gladwell, Malcolm “Brain Candy”. The New York. 2005. The New Yorker.10 May 2009 <http://newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/16/050516crbo_books>

Abe “Kyra Sedwick in TNT’s The Closer”. Associated Content. 2005.1 June 2009  <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/16068/kyra_sedgwick_in_tnts_the_closer.html?cat=39>