True Drama

By Sam Watermeier

Last week, I wrote about the intimate power of television, specifically how a talk show host can make you feel like he is sitting right next to you in your living room.

While "The Tonight Show" exhibited intimate power with its static shot of retiring host Jay Leno bidding farewell to his audience of 22 years, HBO's new series, "True Detective" has demonstrated another major power of television — its ability to make you feel like you are on a roller-coaster ride in your living room.

The crime drama did that quite literally last Sunday night with a six-minute, unbroken tracking shot following detective Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) amid a robbery gone awry. Acting undercover as a member of the Iron Crusaders biker gang, Cohle participates in the robbery in order to gain access to a meth cooker who may be involved in the murder he's investigating.



Tensions rise and bullets fly as the gang raids the stash house and Cohle runs all over the housing project with its leader as a hostage. This unbroken scene is an exhilarating fly-on-the-wall moment that pulsates with you-are-there immediacy. As the show's director, Cary Joji Fukunaga said, this kind of unbroken shot is “the most first-person experience you can get in a film.”

The shot is a visual embodiment of the show — a sustained surge into a world of crime.

Just as Jay Leno's farewell speech was poignant regardless of whether you watch "The Tonight Show," this sequence in "True Detective" works as a stand-alone adrenaline rush. Of course, it is all the more powerful when you are immersed in the show's history and world. 

Whether sitting you in front of a talk show host as he bids farewell to his audience or thrusting you into a crime world, television is immersive. You may watch it in your living room, but it takes you to another world.

A Heartfelt Goodnight

By Sam Watermeier

Thursday evening, Jay Leno bid his final good night to the crew and audience of the talk show he has hosted for 22 years. 

Of course, this was not the first time Leno has said goodbye to "The Tonight Show." In 2009, he moved to prime-time, passing the "Tonight Show" torch to Conan O'Brien, but then reclaiming the show, which NBC offered him after O'Brien's low ratings and time slot conflicts. (Watch Leno's explanation below.)

Thursday night, Leno's explanation behind reclaiming "The Tonight Show" dispelled the popular notion that he acted out of mere show biz selfishness.

"People say to me, 'Hey, why didn't you go to ABC or FOX?'"

"I didn't know anybody over there," Leno said, then describing his NBC crew as family.

It was a humble, selfless speech from a man often accused of being otherwise.

There is more to a show than what meets the eye, Leno illuminated, pointing to: the 64 children of his NBC crew that were born during his time on the air; the fact that his parents and brother died during his first years on the show and the NBC crew became his family, etc.

By getting personal and letting tears strip away his clown makeup, so to speak, Leno revealed the intimate power of television. He turned the auditorium into a living room, and when he said, "I want to thank you, the audience," I felt like he was talking directly to me.

Journalist Edward R. Murrow was right; television can illuminate and inspire. When Leno connected with his audience on a personal, emotional level Thursday night, he further proved Murrow's point that television is not merely wires and lights in a box.