Watching Two TV Shows at Once

I don't really remember when I started watching two (three, or four) TV shows at the same time. It's all the fault of these media players installed in computers these days, and the further options of streaming shows from sites such as Hulu or iTunes.

Here's what I do: I select a show I want to watch from one source -- say, Hulu -- and open it in a pop-out frame. Then I line up another -- from the internet TV choices in the Windows Media Player -- alongside it, and lo and behold!: something very interesting happens. There are moments of serendipitous synchronicity or divergence of action that are engaging in their own right.

Of course, if there's a new episode in one of the (very few) series I watch, I will run through it once by itself. Then I start the visual mix-and-match. So far I have been concentrating only on the visual aspects of the process, although there are times when the dialogue from one show seems to comment directly on the action of the other one, and it becomes a kind of mini Mystery Science Theater 3000, with frequent hilarity.

Shows that fill a one-hour time slot on American TV run around 44 minutes (used to be about 48 minutes in the 'eighties). Since this format allows for significant inclusion of establishing shots and lingering on shots containing great visual compostion, there are plenty of opportunities to notice clever, beautiful, and revealing images that comment on the theme or action of the episodes themselves (note: I'm not a photographer nor a lighting director, so forgive me if I don't really know how to talk about visual images using all the right terminology).

I usually have the sound up on only one of the shows (note: Windows Media Player won't let me turn the volume down on it, and then up on Hulu; it's linked to the central nervous system of the OS -- there's probably a way to do it; I haven't found out what it is, though).

I mean, I don't want to suggest that watching only one TV show at a time is boring or passé or anything.  Often, there is quite enough to look at on one screen, never mind adding more. 

Here are some examples of various ways the TV screen can be used to focus attention -- with color, with composition, and with light.  In that order. . .

Go on, try it.  It's fun -- and instructive. Line up two action dramas, and watch as chase scenes coincide. . . explosions echo each other. . .

Incidentally, if I were any good with Photoshop or even Paint, I could mix and match more screen shots.  As it is, I've just been relying on chance that the screens will comment on each other in some way.

This format is too small for wide-angle action shots, so here is a section on faces -- some in repose, some in anguish, and some just plain good to look at. We are all (well, most of us, anyway) fascinated by faces -- have a look at these ones.