It seems to me like there's crossover between The Office and Friday Night Lights, but that might just be Cindy's fault. Do those more realistic shows also draw from the House and GA pools?

Sorry. I was just trying to understand media fannishness. I suddenly felt like I don't quite belong in the thread, when that term came up. The discussion for The Office works fine, in Natter. Please don't try to fit that into any plans on my account. Not that many people here are all that interested in discussing it, here. We talk in LJ and are good with that, as far as I can tell.

I'm not advocating this necessarily, but here are the patterns I see. I'm trying to take a Jeffersonian follow-the-paths-then-build-the-sidewalks approach.

Broadcast Genre shows
Heroes - Genre, Not Mediafanish, Broadcast
Supernatural - Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast
Smallville - Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast

Sci Fi Channel
Battlestar Galactica - Genre, Mediafanish, SciFi Channel, Basic Cable
The Dresden Files - Genre, Not Mediafanish, SciFi Channel, Basic Cable
Torchwood - Genre, Mediafanish, Sci-Fi Channel, Basic Cable
Dr. Who - Genre, Mediafanish, Sci-Fi Channel, Basic Cable
Stargate - Genre, Mediafanish, Sci-Fi Channel, Basic Cable
Stargate: Aquarium - Genre, Mediafanish, Sci-Fi Channel, Basic Cable
Eureka - Genre, not sure of its media fandom status, Sci-Fi Basic Cable.

Broadcast Non Genre Shows
The Office - Not Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast
Friday Night Lights - Not Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast
House - Not Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast
Grey's Anatomy - Not Genre, Mediafanish, Broadcast
Bones - Not Genre, Not Mediafanish, Broadcast

You could've put Lost in the Broadcast Genre, and VM in the Broadcast NonGenre groupings.

eta: Eureka is moved.

Yes, Eureka airs on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Hec, Eureka is a Sci-Fi Channel show.

We also have the basic issue: every time there's a new show, where will it be grouped? They come from all over the place -- including several on the list that are never aired in the US, and are DVD/ahem only -- and they are all different types, and there is no telling what will take hold and what won't. Intuitive grouping will have to be intuitive enough that everybody can, you know, intuit where new discussion should go, when it suddenly happens.

Realistically speaking, source is not a legit category for taxonomizing, because, e.g., Dr. Who and Torchwood go naturally together -- but one is aired in the US on basic cable, and the other is not and may never be, considering its content. I think it's possible to create simpatico groups, but I'm not sure how possible it is to create simpatico groups that can also be intuitive for new things.

I'm not looking for a perfect solution - just a better one.

This is key, I think. We've never been able to be perfect, and Tivoers or DVDers or tape-delayers (remember that??) have always had to find their own workarounds. It's one of the reasons we instituted NAFDA -- as a general-use workaround.

I'm ignoring mediafannishness. If you didn't need the term before, I don't think you need it now.

I think that, while the forum was low-traffic, you could have mediafannishness in there like -- a subtext. Vonnie and I would make eyes at each other*, and the mediafannish people would be pairing us off and writing porn about us, while the nonmediafannish would be like, "Nutty, do you have something in your eye?" Easy side-by-side parallel conversation, some overlap. It's only when we talk about blowing it up and tearing it to pieces that I worry about the mediafannishness being removed from it.

(* Sorry, Vonnie!)

As Hec says, it's only one sub-aspect of the multiplicity of Buffistaness, but it's one I want to preserve as we go forward. As many things as possible to as many people as possible (within reason)!

And to complicate things, Torchwood does not currently air in the U.S. And the new season of Dr. Who that's about to premiere is premiering in the UK, and who knows if/when it'll show up on Sci-Fi.

Honestly, without trying to sound snarky, I can't believe we're not just talking about having a general TV thread, we're talking about having several.

Personally, if given the choice between adding a Heroes thread and instead developing some kind of TV taxonomy for multiple threads, I say one narrow thread rather than several unwieldy ones with unnatural limitations.

I don't know - there definitely seems to be a good argument for a Sci-Fi Channel thread, at the very least. Or Genre-Basic Cable if you want to focus on Dr. Who running on BBC America or something. But those shows do seem to go together in a way that would provide useful cross-pollination.

I actually think the other groups kind of work too. I'm thinking about other shows which have had heavy discussion and most of them would slot in one of these categories: Due South in NonGenre, Farscape in Sci-Fi, Alias in Genre Broadcast (I'm counting it as a fantasy - maybe I shouldn't....But it ain't Spooks!)

I can't believe we're not just talking about having a general TV thread, we're talking about having several.

Well, I don't think a general TV thread would work. I think these could work. Premium works. Boxed Set used to work pretty well.

But I'm trying to think all Big Picture, and this might ultimately just come back around to having a Heroes thread.

Or Genre-Basic Cable if you want to focus on Dr. Who running on BBC America or something. But those shows do seem to go together in a way that would provide useful cross-pollination.

They do, though BBC America is not basic cable for most of us.

Due South in NonGenre, Farscape in Sci-Fi, Alias in Genre Broadcast (I'm counting it as a fantasy - maybe I shouldn't....But it ain't Spooks!)

due South is enough of a genre show to fit in the Boxed Set discussion parameters (magical realism, ghosts, mysterious snow, pretty much all of seasons 3-4). Whereas Alias was never discussed in Boxed Set.

I know it seems like I'm following you around to make piddling objections to your taxonomy, but a lot of this has been discussed in the thread before, so I'm trying to help. Also, discussions about TV make me tingly.