Rotten Tomatoes turns its Tomatometer to television
Matt Atchity is the editor-in-chief at Rotten Tomatoes, the website known for its film reviews and its signature “Tomatometer.” The site is now a year into featuring television reviews alongside its long-running film reviews. Atchity reflects on the reasons that TV has moved so much more into the spotlight in recent years.
People want more of it
Film watchers are passionate, but the buzz usually dies down after opening weekend. Atchity says television audiences don’t want the coverage to stop after a season premiere. They want to read and talk about the show episode by episode.
“People have really emotional relationships with the characters and you hear people talk about, ‘Oh god, did you see what happened with Walter White and his wife last night?’ It’s gossip. They invite these people into their homes because they’re invested in those characters’ lives.”
Television is the new film
Television series are increasingly filmed all at once, similar to the way feature-length movies are shot. Atchity gives “The Knick,” a drama series from Cinemax, as an example. “They shot that like a movie. That was a 70-day shoot.”
Beau Willimon did the same thing with “House of Cards,” the series he created for Netflix. That’s also the way creator and director Jill Soloway shot her new Amazon series “Transparent.”
When audiences are able to binge-watch 12 or 13 or even more hours of a television series, it can certainly feel like they’re watching a very long movie.
TV is more convenient
Atchity says Roy Price, the head of Amazon Studios, is right when he told Kai Ryssdal that TV should start when the viewer wants it to start. That’s a common theme among television services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and Showtime Anytime.
Atchity also points out that younger viewers — like his 10-year-old son — are already comfortable watching 30- or 40-minute TV shows on their smartphones. The services and networks that figure out how to serve those audiences are going to win in the long run.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the name of Showtime’s streaming service. The text has been corrected.
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