Watching TV Makes You Smarter
April 25th, 2005 by owenamThe New York Times Magazine is running an article on why Watching TV Makes You Smarter:
A contemporary drama like “The West Wing” [...] constantly embeds mysteries into the present-tense events: you see characters performing actions or discussing events about which crucial information has been deliberately withheld. Anyone who has watched more than a handful of “The West Wing” episodes closely will know the feeling: scene after scene refers to some clearly crucial but unexplained piece of information, and after the sixth reference, you’ll find yourself wishing you could rewind the tape to figure out what they’re talking about, assuming you’ve missed something. And then you realize that you’re supposed to be confused.
I knew there was a good justification for my recent purchase of 24 DVD’s worth of “The West Wing” out there somewhere…