Blogging: Gods of a secularised world: All the international sports events, from olympic games to football championships, have been marked, in recent years, by ceremonies that tended to be ever more somptuous, ever more costly...
The struggle for sports: Romania used to be one of Europe's sports powers during the communist years. Now, the performance achieved in this malfunctioning system is considered a miracle...
The broken government: Daniel Timoce explains how and why Romania's governing coalition broke up
Is the concept of TV series changing? Everybody who lives in a part of the world that benefits from the miracle of electricity owns a TV set and knows what a series is...
Agro-dementia: Charles Bell discusses why Romanian farmers are turning their backs on European money
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Everybody who lives in a part of the world that benefits from the miracle of electricity owns a TV set and knows what a series is.
There are different types of series for every kind of ‘consumer’ there can be. And everybody knows the rules; the unwritten methods of producing something able to make you come back again and again for the next episode and want more, turning you in an addict looking for the next dose the same time next week or tomorrow or... whatever time they see fit to schedule it.
But 'the consumer' (you know, the guy with the remote) seems to have found a loop hole. No more waiting for the next episode to air.
Wait some time (two or three months, usually) and download episode after episode from the internet and watch as much as you physically can on your PC possibly hold, maybe one entire season in a day and night, if you please.
Well, if you want it bad enough... you can. Or, of course, you can wait a little bit more and buy the DVDs from the store and do the same, legally this time, but that’s not the point.
The whole idea of a series was to offer to someone who hasn't got enough time to watch a movie something shorter, like an episode and make him/her come back again for a much longer story for weeks, or years even.
Lately, the TV has become so good that you can no longer wait for the next episode so you get the whole series and watch it all at once. Is that a reason for the rules to change?
95% of the people I know who watched Prison Break did it on their computers, not on TV. They became instantly addicted (well done to the makers of this series), and watched a whole season in a week(end) or something like that depending on the time they had on their hands.
What if they had to watch it on TV? One episode a week? Is it captivating enough to make you leave aside everything else and watch it again for so many episodes? It's not like you can miss a few episodes and still watch it randomly later. You missed it, you lost it.
This is neither CSI that allows you to watch independent cases solved by several teams, with no connection to each other nor a predictable day time drama that you can watch once every two years and still get the story.
So? Is this a series for the net surfers and all the friends they share it with? Is this a fluke? We are no longer talking about collectable items like the Star Trek series were for avid fans.
Or is TV going to change from what we know? Is our voyeuristic pleasure to immerse ourselves in others' possible lives going to transform television in a way that will change its very definition, depriving it of the very idea of actually watching something on TV and turning it into a product of 20-30 hours long stories per season to watch on your computer or DVD players?
The movie Katalin Varga (2009, directed by Peter Strickland) tells a troubling story of love, crime, forgiveness, and revenge. Read our news about it here.
For Sale: Dracula's Transylvanian castle
You already know the myth. Now find out the facts about Bran Castle from this short Al Jazeera film. At present, a large number of old Transylvanian castles are waiting for investors pepared to buy them and restore their condition. Read more here.
Too much Krivach won't kill you
A fresh and untypical interpretation of Queen's 'Too much love will kill you' convinced the members of the jury that Razvan Krivach deservs the big trophy at Brasov's 2008 Golden Stag music festival. Read more here, or listen and watch the song below:
Afrim's Attic
They are gross and at the same time funny; they are genuine, but also bold: The characters pictured up by young director Radu Afrim tell something about our own fears, our hopes, and maybe our madness.
Mr Afrim's work has been recently acclaimed at Avignon Off 2008 festival. Find out more here, and watch this short scene from his 'Mansarde à Paris/ Les détours Cioran' recorded by an amateur:
Drama experiments in Transylvania
A walk to the fringes of the possibilities of modern theatre. It's called Man.In.Fest, and it's an international festival of the experimental, the unexplored, and the unimagined theatre.
Read more about the 2008 edition here, and watch a short film about the 2007 edition of Man.In.Fest below:
