With the release of every new HBO hit the question of whether TV has finally eclipsed cinema rears its familiar head. What shows like True Detective suggest, however, is that while TV and film are in competition for audiences attention, theyre really offering completely different things (or should be). On the silver screen, True Detective wouldnt have broken any new ground. In our living rooms, with four times as long for us to spend with Cohle and Hart, each episode was a weekly highlight. Movie-level production, like the much discussed six-minute tracking shot, certainly helped, but the biggie was simply the time we got to understand every facet of the detective's lives. It's long been known TV has a distinct advantage for slow developing character stories, but it's only recently that networks have been capitalising on it. George R. R. Martin shook things up recently by suggesting Game Of Thrones, a key force in the rise of quality television, should make the leap to the big screen as the effects required to bring the show to life will become ever more extensive. Really though, a run in a multiplex shouldn't be the aim of any series and Thrones would do right to stick to its home on the small screen. Just like these eight films, which should have been brought to life as a TV series.
Honourable Mention - The Shining
Who would even think of suggesting that Stanley Kubricks obsessively constructed The Shining could be improved upon? Well, as hes publicly made known countless times, Stephen King himself. Feeling Kubrick missed the point of his book, King eventually got a version closer to his own vision in the form of a three-part mini-series. And it was a slow, meandering mess. Worth watching for super-fans of the Kubrick film, it forfeits the advantage of being more faithful by not being scary. Clearly not everything can be made better by TV.