Earlier this year, I wrote a story about how Norwegians flocked by the millions to their television sets for “National Firewood Night”—a 12-hour special devoted to the cutting, igniting and watching of firewood. The show’s last several hours featured, simply, an active fireplace. The most gripping moments of the telecast were those rare instances when a log would pop.
The story was so outlandish that a few readers wrote to tell me that I must’ve been punked. It sounded like a story from the pages of The Onion.
But the tale was not a tall one—and, apparently, not the only example of when Norwegians have been captivated by really boring television.
According to a new story from Time, other Norwegian ratings winners include the telecast of a seven-hour Norwegian train trip (from Oslo to Bergen), a five-day cruise, and (to air later this year) a multi-hour examination of knitting. That’s right, Knitting Wars fans: Norway will train its intrepid cameras on knitters, plying their craft for hours on end.
It could leave the audience in stitches, I’d imagine.
These sorts of shows have grown so popular in Norway that it now even has its own genre label: SlowTV. Says Rune Moklebust, a producer for Norway’s NRK national station:
SlowTV is very different from the way everybody—including myself to be honest—has always thought that TV should be made. TV has mostly been produced the same way everywhere with just changes in subjects and themes. This is a different way of telling a story. It is more strange. The more wrong it gets, the more right it is.
The folks at Time are as mystified by SlowTV as much as anyone. And they ultimately chalk it up to a certain Norwegian pride of zigging while the rest of the world zags, a lavish sense of irony, a wistful nostalgia of Norway’s simpler days.
But truth be told, I don’t know if Norway’s television tastes are that much different than those found in go-go-go America.
OK, admittedly, I have yet to see a show on knitting really take off in the ratings. And C-SPAN, as boring as that often is, has yet to mark itself as a crossover hit. Most American shows are filled with—well, loads of stuff designed to excite and titillate and horrify viewers (sometimes all at the same time). Every commercial break begins with a moment of tension; every season ends with a cliffhanger. Television execs do everything, short of duct-taping your hands to the couch, to keep you from changing the channel.
But when I think about my own television viewing habits, I wonder if the folks in Norway are simply more honest about why people really watch TV.
As I’ve confessed before, my wife and I are prone to flip on HGTV and watch a show called House Hunters and its companion, House Hunters International. The show consists of people looking at houses: They critique the kitchen counters, ooh and ahhh over the size of the master bedrooms, quibble over whether the backyard is big enough for their llamas.
And while every show is different—different couples, different houses, even different countries—I wonder if I’m attracted as much by the reliable sameness of the show as I am its diversity. The rhythm is, like the roll of the sea, strangely comforting. When I tune in, I know the program won’t be too taxing; it’ll be something I can talk through if the want and need arises, or grab a cookie if the stomach demands.
Now, not every show I enjoy (or would be prone to enjoy, if I had the time) does not fall under this heading: I was a fan of Lost, and there was very little predictable about that drama. Ditto Downton Abbey. Those shows are intended to be so engrossing that, if anyone dares to speak during them, they’ll be swiftly silenced with a slew of shushes.
But while most shows have an element of drama like Lost or Downton, most also have a certain reliable sameness to them. The characters grow familiar. The situations are different, but reliably so. Episodes of sitcoms and family dramedies can blend together so seamlessly as to be indistinguishable from one another.
Even many of our country’s most popular dramas have a rhythm to them. The CSI family of crime procedurals is utterly predictable in its episodic heartbeat—murders solved in 42 minutes, with the police work flavored by friendly banter and gallows humor.
Think of it in Gilligan’s Island terms. One episode might feature a visitation from a Chinese spy. Another might involve a mysterious message found in a bottle or a hurricane or a beauty pageant. But will the Skipper yell at Gilligan? Yep. Mr. Howell flaunt his money and laugh in that curiously endearing way? You bet. Ginger strut about in a sultry sequined gown (that really looks out of place on a deserted island)? Of course. It wouldn’t be Gilligan’s Island without those elements. Everything on the show—and most other shows—contains bountiful touchstones that are familiar and comforting and, frankly, rather repetitive. We know the Professor’s going to make a nifty gadget out of bamboo, just as Norwegians know that the fire’s going to pop. It’s just a question of when it’ll happen.
Truth is, we like predictability. We like reliability. We like, in a way, boring. Our lives are so frantic and weird at times that maybe we need a little boring in our lives. And we often find it in our television shows.
So scoff at the Norwegians and their gentle knitting shows if you want. We might not be all that different.
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