The Shows That Never End

I have just finished binge-watching Altered Carbon on Netflix, the series based on the 2002 book of the same name by Richard Morgan. I read the book -  which won the Philip K. Dick Award for Best Novel in 2003 - shortly after it was published and loved it. I thoroughly enjoyed the TV show too, but with the passage of time, I have no idea how faithfully it matches the book, although, from a little judicious Googling to refresh my memory and answer some questions I had from watching the show, there are a few differences that I now know of - some minor, some not so.

Adapting books into TV shows or films frequently divides the fans of the originals; we must all have watched shows that differ so wildly from the books that we loved, that - original title and main character apart - they might be completely different stories. Or - and this can be just as frustrating - there are minor changes that seem to have little justification and achieve nothing more than infuriating the viewer. Sometimes we may accept these changes, or at least grudgingly recognise the necessity of them, sometimes not. And if we read the book after watching the TV show, it can be easier to simply acknowledge the differences between the screen and print versions, and while sometimes I question why they were necessary, find them less irksome.

In direct contrast to Altered Carbon, I watched the BBC adaptation of  China Miéville's The City and the City, before I read the book, and although  I could see a few differences - lead character Tyador Borlú seemed to have acquired a wife in the TV show- missing and shown in flashbacks - who was absent in the books, while one of the characters changed gender for no discernible reason - these are minor cavils. One virtue of the BBC adaptation, however, was the fact that the story was not embellished to extend to more than the four episodes that were all that were required to tell the story. Mind you, if the BBC ever get round to adapting Miéville's Perdido Street Station that might be a different story.

One of the major problems that I have - and I know many people feel this way - when watching a TV adaptation of a book is that all too often the characters I have imagined do not match the actor who plays them. Recently, the best example of this was in the TV version of Stephen King's 11.22.63, where I could not for the life of me have any empathy with the character of Jake Epping/James Amberson as played by James Franco, a much less sympathetic version of the character from the novel.

I couldn't warm to James Franco in the lead role of the TV version of Stephen King's best-seller

But, as tiresome as the issues of seemingly inexplicable plot changes or of actors who seem out of kilter with the part may be, my biggest bugbear with TV shows - and this does not apply solely to adaptations of books - is the fact that the producers sometimes seem not to know when to stop. Apparently, Altered Carbon could run to five series - plausible in that the novel has two sequels (Broken Angels and Woken Furies) - but I am not sure that I have the stamina to invest the time or engagement with another of those shows that seemingly never ends. I appreciate that once TV production companies have hit upon a winning formula they are loath to call time - a series like Altered Carbon is likely to be pretty expensive, so clearly a good return on investment is desirable - but sometimes I have to give up on series because frankly, there looks like no end in sight; or at least not one that is satisfactory.

Two series that fall into that category have been Gotham, and Westworld. I confess to a weakness for the Batman story and watched the first two series of Gotham avidly on Channel 5, but after what seemed like an interminable wait for Series Three, found that E4 had started showing the fourth series, with the third available only on Netflix. Frankly, I don't have the patience to troll through the forty-four episodes I would need to catch up on before series five; even less so since the producers have intimated that season five would be far from the last. Similarly, Westworld. The first series was decent enough, but when I learned that not only would there be a second series, but likely a further three after that, I lost interest. Too often with these sorts of shows, what should be a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end turns into an endless soap opera, where rather than propel the narrative along, too many episodes take detours down scenic but pointless byways.

Another reason for me ditching Westworld is that it airs on Sky Atlantic; I watched the first series on our Now TV box, but we have since got Virgin Media, and they don't broadcast Sky Atlantic. So, I could renew my Now TV subscription to get Westworld, but it is the thin end of the wedge, because what about those shows that I want to watch that are on Amazon Prime, or any other provider? I really wanted to see The Man In The High Castle, the adaptation of the Philip K Dick novel, but apart from having to subscribe to Amazon Prime, I now see that that has run into multiple series - another show with potentially no end then, so ultimately I am glad I didn't succumb - and so is my bank balance.

While I've been complaining about the series that outstay their welcomes, the ones that seem incapable of coming to a conclusion, there are the shows that are the polar opposite; the ones that end abruptly. These are the shows that conclude the first - or sometimes the second - season on a cliff-hanger, but then get cancelled, usually due to poor ratings; shows like Journeyman, about a time travelling newspaper reporter, or Moonlight (vampire private detective). Then there is Timeless, another time-travel show that ended series one on a cliff-hanger, got cancelled and then recommissioned, but ended series two on another cliff-hanger and now apparently has no chance of making it to series three, albeit that a one-off wrap up episode may be in the offing.

Timeless was enjoyable hokum, but with no third series in sight, the
somewhat meandering second season still ended on a cliff-hanger.

The way we consume television has changed greatly in recent years with the growth in the number of subscription channels and the streaming services that provide a greater variety of programmes and flexibility in how we watch them. Unfortunately, the shows I want to watch are increasingly being spread over a range of different providers; I think that I pay enough as it is, I have no intention of paying more for a plethora of different cable companies and streaming services, only to be frustrated by shows that are terminated prematurely or plod on flabbily for years on end with no conclusion in sight.

All of this is, of course the very definition of a first world problem, and it isn't so many years since the only TV available was broadcast by the three terrestrial channels, BBC1, BBC2, and ITV - we complained then that there was little enough on - but while the increase in the number of channels has resulted in a number of new shows that I want to watch, they are spread pretty thinly across all of the channels and providers, which probably explains why I  often find myself watching repeats of QI on Dave.