重温电视“慢时代”

Television
My Life as a Television Throwback
By TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER July 31, 2013
电视
重温电视“慢时代”
TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER 2013年07月31日
Los Angeles
洛杉矶
IN 2009 my husband and I dropped our cable carrier, feeling we were paying too much. Before we could find a new one, my husband was laid off, and we decided that our money was best spent on food and rent, especially when Netflix was streaming, and most shows were available online. We’d find a carrier when our future wasn’t so unpredictable.
2009年，我和丈夫切断了有线电视，因为感觉费用太高。还没等我们找好新运营商，丈夫就失业了，我们觉得钱应该先花在食物和房租上，更何况Netflix公司实现了流媒体在线播放，大部分节目在网上都能看到。我们心想，当未来不再这么不可预期的时候，我们会再找一个运营商的。
I’m not being dramatic when I say this was devastating. Television has been the one stable thing throughout my life. It drowned out the sounds of my parents’ impending divorce; it muffled roommates’ romantic escapades. But, more important, it was a crucial tool of escape and catharsis, exactly what I needed when our financial future was at risk.
如果我说这对我来说简直是灾难性的，那我绝不是在夸张。电视是我生命中唯一不变的东西。它淹没了我父母快离婚时争吵的声音；它盖住了室友进行“浪漫冒险”时的声音。但是更重要的是，它是逃避和宣泄的重要途径，在我们未来的经济来源没有保障的时候，我尤其需要它。
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Christoph Hitz
一位电视迷从传统的观看方式中找到了更大的乐趣，电视本就应该用这种方式来观看：全神贯注，不要暂停。
Our options narrowed from a world of entertainment to the whims of the few channels that would deign to come clearly through what are essentially newfangled rabbit ears: a high-definition digital antenna intended to capture the over-the-air signal, which was once how everyone watched TV. Sure, some shows were online, but in the beginning the number of commercials in them seemed prohibitive. We’d just come from a paradise of DVR fast-forwarding. Now we had to sit through the same ad over and over? We also had only one computer; with two writers in the family, it wasn’t available for TV watching.
我们本来有各种娱乐节目可选，现在却只能听天由命，收看仅有的几个清晰的频道，那还是我们用最新式的兔耳朵样的高分辨率数码天线捕捉到的无线信号——很久以前大家伙儿都是用这个看电视的。当然，有些节目在网上也能看，但是节目开始前的广告多得让人受不了。我们来自用DVR快进的极乐世界，现在却不得不耐着性子一遍又一遍地看同样的广告。而且我们只有一台电脑；我们两个都是作家，所以电脑可不是用来看电视的。
We quickly learned some lessons. Would “Mad Men” still run if we couldn’t watch it? (Yes.) Would people refrain from spoilers while “Breaking Bad” made its way to streaming? (No, they would not.) What was this “Walking Dead” everyone was talking about? (Still not sure, but apparently it’s a big deal.)
我们很快就尝到了苦头。如果我们不能看的话，那《广告狂人》(Mad Men)还会继续吗？（会的。）《绝命毒师》(Breaking Bad)成功实现在线播放，人们能忍住不看剧透吗？（不，他们忍不住。）每个人都在谈论的《行尸走肉》(Walking Dead)说的又是什么事？（还是不太清楚，但是这部戏显然很重要。）
When the weather is right, we get most of the channels. Sometimes. CBS is the only network that shows up consistently and pristinely, and one day I’ll be old enough to enjoy its fare. There is also a channel that doesn’t seem to have a name but broadcasts reruns of “Three’s Company” or “[要查看本链接请先注册并登录],” which is not so bad in the beggars/choosers category.
天气好的时候，我们能收到大部分的频道。我的意思是有时候能有这样的好运气。哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)是唯一能始终收到清晰图像的频道；等我老了，早晚会喜欢上它的节目。还有一个频道，好像没有名字，但是在重播《三人行》(Three’s Company)或者《桑德福和儿子》([要查看本链接请先注册并登录])，对于我们这些蹭电视看的人来说，这还不算太坏。
Yet what initially seemed like a torture we’d simply have to endure became a surprising reminder of the simple pleasures of simple TV.
一开始，这些对我们来说是不得不忍受的折磨，后来却意外地让我们重温了简单的电视带来的简单快乐。
Call it Slow TV. I had never stopped loving TV, but I had stopped appreciating it. Entire seasons of shows had piled up on the DVR, on the theory that they might be interesting someday. TV was everywhere now — on the phone, on the computer. It was on while I wrote, did taxes, folded laundry. It was background noise. When I really had to make choices about what to watch, and then pay attention with no rewind to fall back on, TV became absorbing again, an activity in itself, as it had been when I was younger. And I watched much less, if only for logistical reasons.
你可以把它称作“慢电视”(Slow TV)。我从来都没有停止过对电视的喜爱，但是我很早就不再那么痴迷它了。DVR里存了一整季的各种剧目，因为我们总觉得有一天会有兴趣去看。现在哪儿都是电视——手机上，电脑上。我写作的时候，计算应缴税款的时候，叠衣服的时候，电视都开着。它成了背景噪音。当我真的必须选择看什么的时候，因为不能倒带而必须全神贯注地观看的时候，电视又变有趣了，看电视成了正事，就像我年轻时候那样。而且正是因为没条件看，我看得也少多了。
As it turns out, I unintentionally had become part of a growing group of Americans[要查看本链接请先注册并登录] and even televisions. Nielsen recently reported that [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] to 96.7 percent of American households from 98.9 percent, and it isn’t because we’re reading more. Instead we’re cobbling together new ways of digesting programming. We watch on iPhones, computers, Rokus, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], and yes, a digital antenna; one-size-fits-all TV is over.
结果，我无意中成了越来越多的[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]、甚至放弃电视的那群美国人中的一员。尼尔森公司(Nielsen)最近报告说，美国家庭的[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]已经从98.9%降到了96.7%，而这并不是因为我们阅读得更多了。相反，那是因为我们找到了收看电视节目的新途径，包括iPhone，电脑，Rokus，[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]，当然还有数码天线；“统一标准的电视”的时代结束了。
Still, analog watching isn’t without its inconveniences. Even in the heady days of cable service, the DVR was overwhelmed by the choices on some nights. The answer should have been simple: Watch some shows online when the computer is available. But “Gossip Girl,” for instance, had so many unforwardable commercials on Hulu that it’s clear who the real demographic for those shows are: people who don’t yet believe that they have the right to not be advertised to for 30 minutes of a 60-minute show. When the ads became burdensome, the series had to do some mighty things to stay on the list. Blair’s marrying a prince, then leaving him for Chuck, simply didn’t qualify.
但是，用天线看电视也有不便之处。即使在拥有有线服务那些令人陶醉的日子里，有时候一晚上想看的节目太多了，都不知道用DVR录哪个好。方法很简单：电脑空闲的时候，有些剧目可以上网看。但是，举个例子吧，Hulu网的《绯闻女孩》([要查看本链接请先注册并登录])里面的广告很多，而且无法快进；很明显，这部电视剧真正的目标人群是那些年轻人，他们还不知道自己看60分钟的节目，没有义务必须看30分钟的广告。当里面的广告多得让人心烦的时候，这部连续剧也不得不编出些惊人的情节，好让自己继续留在必看榜单上。布莱尔(Blair)嫁给了一位王子，然后又为了恰克(Chuck)离开了王子，但我依然不能因此而容忍那么多广告。
A return to as-it-happens TV is also a reminder of the annoyance of learning that there’s a rerun when you didn’t expect it. The monthlong wait for a new “Revenge,” which was delivering fresh installments in the fall but grew spotty as the season wore on, seemed interminable. There was the sinking realization that, sigh, this wasn’t a new one, or worse, that there was some kind of news or reality special in its place.
重新回归传统的看电视的方式，也让我们再次体会到，得知你看的节目是重播，是多么让人懊恼。为了看新一季的《复仇》(Revenge)——这个剧目在秋季分段播放，但是后来面画上开始出现麻点——我们等了一个月，等得花儿都谢了。后来我们才意识到这不是最新的，我们的心都凉了，只能无奈地叹息；更糟糕的是，它后来又被某种新闻或特别实况报道给取代了。
And in this online-watching, DVR-heavy, pause-happy culture, the phone always seemed to ring during pivotal scenes.
而且，如今人们都在网上或者用DVR看电视剧，随时可以暂停，所以别人随时都会给我打电话，而且似乎总是在电视剧演到重要关头的时候。
Worst of all was arranging my schedule around TV. There once was a time when no one would ask you to do anything on a Thursday night. “Seinfeld” was on! Now, with the timetable made so irrelevant by digital recording, it was hard to explain why a book club on Monday nights wouldn’t work. Not while “Smash” was still on the air, no sirree, Bob.
最糟糕的是，我的日程得根据电视节目来安排。曾经有段时间，没人会在周四晚上约你出去。因为周四晚上在放《宋飞正传》(Seinfeld)！现在呢，因为有数码录像，日程安排跟电视毫无关联，所以我很难跟人解释为什么读书会安排在周一晚上，对我不合适。《名声大噪》(Smash)播放的时候，我可不能去读书会；我可不能去，鲍勃。
But slowly the advantages of Slow TV began to outweigh these problems. First, while swallowing a season whole is a lot of fun — as with Showtime’s “Homeland,” which I did because I got a press screener — some shows (and maybe even “Homeland”) benefit from a weeklong wait. The anxiety of a cliffhanger could have me reeling for days. It might be that these shows are best watched with breaks between episodes to build suspense. Think back to the six-week arc of [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] on “NYPD Blue” in 1998. That was six weeks of gloom in which you could get so enmeshed in a character’s fate that it began to affect your soul.
但是慢慢地，“慢电视”的优势开始盖过了这些问题。首先，虽然一口气看完一整季很爽——我就是这么看完“映时频道”的《国土安全》(Homeland)的，因为我拿到了一个压缩录像带——但是有些剧目（甚至包括《国土安全》），如果你等上一周再看，会更有意思。对一个吊足胃口的情节的焦虑，能让我心烦意乱好几天。也许这些电视剧，最好是看完一集，等一段时间再看下一集，这样才能留有悬念。回头想想1998年的《纽约重案组》(NYPD Blue)，它用了六周的时间讲述[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]。你因为沉浸在主人公的命运之中而郁郁寡欢六周之久，他的命运甚至开始撼动你的灵魂了。
And there is nothing to make a person focus like knowing there’s no pause or repeat. Yes, a DVR can reduce an hourlong show to 40 minutes, but mostly it lets the show linger for hours, or days. Pausing to get something to eat or to remind your spouse about a bill isn’t how the writers want you to watch their work; it also isn’t how to get the most out of it. What is so interesting about Slow TV, in the end, is that the screen that we so often accuse of outsourcing our mindfulness became a source of actual mindfulness.
当你知道不能暂停、不能回放的时候，你最全神贯注。是的，用DVR你能用40分钟看完1小时的一集电视剧，但是更多的时候，一集电视剧，你也能时断时续看上好几个小时，甚至好几天。停下来找点吃的，或者提醒你的配偶有个账单该付了——编剧们可不想让你这么观看他们的作品；这样你也不能充分享受其中的乐趣。说到底，“慢电视”的有趣之处在于，以前我们经常抱怨电视屏幕分散了我们的专注力，而现在它成了专注之源。
We have two computers at home now, one easily hooked up to the TV monitor. (Note to Netflix: Exactly when is the fifth season of “Mad Men” going to start streaming? Tick tock.) But I am still lost in the sweet haze of intimacy I have found again with television. So maybe we’ll keep ourselves cable free.
现在我们家有两个电脑，其中一个很容易就能连接到电视显示器上。（顺便问一下Netflix：到底什么时候《广告狂人》第五季才可以在线即时播放啊？时间不等人啊！）但是我还沉浸在我和电视重新建立起来的亲密关系带给我的甜蜜的眩晕之中。所以，也许我们应该继续切断有线电视。
Or maybe not. We’re both gainfully employed now, and there are a million reasons to get cable again, along with a DVR. Maybe three years is long enough.
还是不切断吧。我们现在都有工作了，有经济来源了；而且有一百万个理由重新开通有线电视，搭配DVR使用。也许三年没有有线电视已经够长的了。
And God, I do miss “Gossip Girl.” I was flipping through the channels the other day, and [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. Dan and Blair! Can you imagine?
而且，天哪，我真的非常想念《绯闻女孩》。有一天，我飞快地换着台，忽然瞥见[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]。丹和布莱尔！你能想到吗？