Travis McClain

Arising from the challenges compendium thread, we're looking to establish whether there is any interest in participating in a TV on DVD Challenge for the month of November. Trevor proposed it, thinking that it would be a nice segue into the Holiday Challenge, which also allows for TV content as well as films. Here are my preliminary ideas:

The challenge would run from sunrise 1 November until either midnight 21 November (ending just before the Holiday Challenge begins) or, if members are interested, until midnight 30 November. Since TV content is allowed in the Holiday Challenge, participants could have dual citizenship so to speak and count TV content for both, if viewed in the last eight days.

In addition to TV shows on DVD, special interest material such as stand-up specials, concert videos and the like would also qualify. They're the kind of content that generally is shown on TV, but sometimes they're direct-to-video. Rather than worry about whether something had an airdate before it had a home video release, we'd just allow all such content. It's a chance to actually watch that Rolling Stones DVD box set you bought at Best Buy last year and kept not having time to watch. Made-for-TV movies would, of course, also qualify so if you're wanting to score some brownie points with your wife, now's the time to actually suggest that you pop in one of those Lifetime Channel movies she's got. (Yay, sexism!)

There will be no prizes (unless someone wants to volunteer something).

I personally favor the TV to Movie conversion formula used in the other challenges for the sake of uniformity, but I'm not sure this challenge really needs any rules about counting. I see it more in the spirit of the Criterion Challenge, where the emphasis is on delving into a title, rather than racking up the viewed content numbers.

Along those lines, it's also hard to develop a checklist, since one season could easily dominate a couple of weeks.

Finally, I personally favor excluding over-the-air TV content for this challenge. Since we're talking about creating a TV-centric challenge, I think the right thing to do is emphasize the "DVD" format aspect. The reason I say this is because it would otherwise be entirely plausible that participants would be able to count whatever is broadcast that they tune into see without ever actually playing a DVD. Since this is still DVD Talk and not Whatever You're Watching Talk, it seems only fair to exclude OTA content.

Update: Poll
I've added a poll with three questions. Please select the answer for each question that best characterizes your feelings about the potential TV on DVD Challenge.

llandros

I'd be more interested if it were done during the month of January, but it sounds like a good idea.

Trevor

Awesome! Much more later, of course, but one thing I'd suggest is the standard midnight starting time.

Travis McClain

You know, January might actually be a better idea. Start the year off with the TV season sets they get for Christmas. Anyone else interested in delaying this until then?

If you think I'm going to suggest anything that competes with the Horror Challenge, you're crazy! Those people are hard-f'n-core!

Numes

To be perfectly honest, I'm about challenged out and need a break. With the addition to the animation challenge in August, it is non-stop from July through October with just a small break before the Holiday challenge.

Also, speaking only for myself, most of my TV titles could fit in the other challenges anyways, so having a separate challenge wouldn't really mean a whole lot.

Part of the fun of the challenges is to have a specific genre or group of titles to watch. Just having a generic TV challenge seems, well, generic, and a bit unexciting.

Trevor

There is no competition between Challenges. They are independent of each other and always overlap to some degree. Sure, a few of us do all or most of them, but they are meant to appeal to different sets of people.
You're forgetting the April, May, and June Challenges. We're already pretty much year round.
That's a good point. We're trying to prevent Challenge overlap, and a good chunk of TV seasons qualify for existing Challenges.

Perhaps other genre Challenges would be better, to allow the remainder of films and TV shows that don't fit current Challenges.

Travis McClain

I don't see this as a big issue. For one thing, only genre-specific TV content qualifies in the other challenges. If you want to gorge on Star Trek or Batman: The Animated Series, you've got July and August to do that but when can you justify a Burn Notice or Golden Girls marathon?

This is also why I suggested the inclusion of non-series special content, like stand-up comedy or concert performance videos. Those things won't qualify for any other challenge, and even though a lot of them are DTV they're the kind of thing that once existed exclusively in the realm of TV.

Maybe the key would be to exclude content that would qualify for other challenges?

Corey31

I will likely participate either way (I got a MASSIVE backlog of TV DVDs) but I would definitely watch more if this was in January rather then November so I am not against postponing it if that is what the majority want.

Cardsfan111

I'd be up for it whenever it's scheduled. I used the Make Your Own Challenge a TV-on-DVD challenge and loved it. Like Corey just posted, I've got plenty of unwatched material available. That's what I use the challenges for--I constantly battle the unwatched pile each month. This just makes choosing what I view in a particular month a little easier.

Travis McClain

I, too, have taken to using the challenges to tackle the Unwatched Pile. And I also think January is a better month for the TV on DVD challenge, but I'm content to defer to consensus. Does anyone have any feedback about any of my initial proposals? Any other questions or concerns?

adrenaline78

I should be done with my TV on DvD watching by january.. Sept/OCT is when I do most of it. I like the challenge idea tho!

voted for November, include and Disc only

That'sAllFolks

Why don't you limit this. Make it ONLY TV series and mini-series. NO movies, stand-up specials, no 1-shot documentaries, no concerts, no TV specials either --- ONLY series.

I think most people have enough series that they need to watch to justify this.

And delaying it until Jan. is best. Regular TV kinda goes on hiatus from mid-Nov to mid-Jan, so it would be perfect.

It seems there is too much inclusion in most of these challenges. It seems like the rules are stretched so that almost anything counts.

kstublen

What's funny is, I actually watch more TV on DVD than I watch movies, so this would probably be THE challenge for me. There's something about marathon television viewing that I especially enjoy and you can't really do it with movies.

I know recently I've watched Community: Season One, Daria: The Complete Series, The Office: Season Six, The League: Season One, American Dad! Volume 5, I Dream Of Jeannie: Seasons One & Two, Boy Meets World: Seasons One to Three, The Dick Van Dyke Show: Seasons One & Two, The New Adventures Of Old Christine: Season Three, and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Season Five. And I'm sure I'm missing some in there too. But even then, I've still got tons of stuff to watch and I never mind revisiting shows.

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January sounds good to me. Not only is there not a lot on at the beginning of the month, but we'll all have some sets we've probably received (or purchased as gifts to ourselves) during Christmas, etc.

I think people should have to watch stuff on DVD though. It shouldn't count as TV on DVD if you're watching it during broadcast or online or something.

I agree with this. Limiting it strictly to television shows would probably be a good thing. My only suggestion would be to permit movies that are actually continuations of television shows. By that I mean stuff like The Simpsons Movie, Sex And The City: The Movie, Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker, The Man Called Flintstone, the Futurama Direct-to-DVD movies, etc. That's just a suggestion though. If we limit it to just television shows that would be fine too and I could use a wild card for stuff like that.

HyperWeather

I'm good with whenever, like kstublen this will be the easiest thing for me to do a marathon of, I just don't get sick of watching tv shows. The only problem I see with Jan. is wasn't it just recently they moved the Oscars to March, and haven't they talked about moving it back to the end of Feb. or earlier (I can't remember if I read this or not), so they would overlap which is fine, they just don't mesh together at all like the Holiday challenge and this would.

Travis McClain

Speaking entirely as a potential participant, I'd like to take a crack at arguing for the inclusion of non-series special content.

Prior to the proliferation of DVD, this kind of material was almost exclusively released for TV broadcast and only certain specials got a home video release. HBO, for instance, really thrived in the 90s based on things like the periodic Chris Rock stand-up specials or Garth Brooks's 1997 Central Park concert. In the last decade, driven by Sex and the City and The Sopranos, especially, HBO expanded its offerings of original programming, but the appeal (other than movies) for subscribers used to be these kind of one-off specials. And those of us who grew up in homes without HBO learned to be envious of our friends and neighbors because of this kind of content.

The other part of it is, I'm imagining a day of finishing a whole season marathon and not wanting to start another full season the next day, and wanting to turn my attention to something shorter for a break. I'm sure there are TV junkies who wouldn't dare sully their marathon gorging with such fare, but it seems to me that such content is just as legitimate for consideration and while I share the apprehension about making the rules too permissive, I don't see any danger in allowing it.

As for continuation movies, I think that seems fair but in the interest of cooperation and fairness, etc., I would propose that only such content that features the original TV series cast would count. So if you wanted to watch The Dukes of Hazzard: Dukes in Hollywood TV movie that would be fine, but you couldn't count the movie with Johnny Knoxville.

Bluelitespecial

I might be interested in doing this in January, after the Holiday challenge. But not before it, especially for those just finishing the horror challenge.

kstublen

lol, that's me. I watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Complete Series in a span of 10 or 11 days, maybe less. I just get on a kick and will ride the show until the end. In fact, a few summers ago I actually watched all of The X-Files, Millennium, The Lone Gunmen, and Harsh Realm. Watched a huge chunk of The X-Files and watched Millennium and The Lone Gunmen before Millennium (The X-Files Episode) and Jump The Shark (The X-Files Episode) since they served as series finales for the other shows.

After hearing what you said, I think you make a valid point for including certain specials like the stand-up stuff, etc. and including them would probably make sense.

Oh yeah, definitely. No remakes or reboots or anything like that, but ones that are the product of the original creative teams and actors.

Ash Ketchum

Foreign series allowed...right? I have a million Japanese series (live and animated) I need to watch, so this would be a good one for me, esp. in January. Plus, allow VHS, since a lot of my stuff is on VHS. Otherwise, the more restrictive the better.

Travis McClain

Foreign is in, for sure. As for VHS, I think it should be fine but it does appear to be in a bit of a murky area, given the early anti-OTA sentiment. Anyone want to argue for or against VHS one way or the other?

kstublen

I mean, if it's a television series that has only been released on VHS, I don't see why it should be excluded. It's not as though someone could watch it otherwise.

Ash Ketchum

Yeah, I'm talking about legit VHS releases, not taped off the air. I have tons of anime series I bought on VHS in the pre-DVD era. ("Dancougar" is one--I've got all 35 eps. on VHS pre-records from a now defunct distributor.) Plus, I have numerous live-action Japanese series purchased from Japanese video stores on both VHS and DVD.

If over-the-air was allowed, I have hundreds of "Pokemon" and "Power Rangers" episodes I need to catch up on and I'd never get to the stuff I have on DVD and VHS pre-record. So, I can live with the anti-OTA position if the majority does. Plus, I have plenty of original Pokemon eps. in Japanese and original Sentai eps. (the basis for "Power Rangers") in Japanese as well.

I only voted for one thing in the poll, because I'm so used to clicking once and then hitting "vote now" that I forgot to vote on the other items.
Oh well...

GoldenWheels

Hamilton's would be happy to offer a few TV themed prizes to spice things up a bit as we do for the other challenges. Shoot me a PM if interested MinL.

Travis McClain

There seems to be some debate in the Challenges Compendium thread about whether TV on DVD is important enough to occupy the month of January. Nearly three in four potential participants favor hosting this challenge then, but I want to go ahead and ask: Is there a challenge you'd prefer for January? Leading contenders are Comedy, Drama (possibly merged as "Dramedy") and Action/Adventure.

I personally am of the mind that the DVD format has really changed TV viewing habits for many of us, and that it's a medium worthy of its own challenge whether TV content is also eligible for other challenges or not. Given that January is a dead month for new TV content anyway, and that all Holiday Challenge-eligible TV content will air or be sold during its run, I don't feel that a TV on DVD Challenge needs to concern itself with coinciding at all with the year-ender.

I also feel that even though those other possible challenge themes represent large parts of our individual libraries, the point of the challenges is to explore beyond the basics. I'm not concerned about Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Casino Royale going un-watched; I'll get to those on my own. I see the challenges as an impetus to explore themes that aren't part of my default viewing habit.

So, how about it: Is TV on DVD a challenge you actually want, or would you prefer something else?

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

If we did the TV Challenge, I'd probably watch some mini-series. I'd also be up for a Foreign Challenge.

shellebelle

This would be a cool challenge to do. And my husband could watch with me. He hates the months of July and October since he doesn't care for SciFi or Horror much.