Question 1: I didn't really enjoy this article... Cavell seems sort of pretentious here and has a writing style that is (for me) hard to follow and seems to be directed at a narrow audience. Anyways, that being said, I am confused on his concepts of "genre as medium" and "genre as cycle". I understand the gist of his argument that television works as a serial-episode are more objective, have a projected sequence, and are not as monumental as movies, theater, and traditional works of art. However, I don't quite understand how a genre can be a medium... (the opposite seems more logical to me), and if that is so, what genre is the medium of television portraying? I also thought of television as covering a multitude of different genres and types of classifications.
Question 2: Cavell's idea of the spontaneity (or at least, the possibility of spontaneity) of "old" television is interesting and seems in some sense contradictory... This allure to improvisation does not translate to the same attraction and admiration for traditional forms of film and art -those forms do not have much improvisation in them. Is the spontaneity of television just a form of cheap entertainment and amusement (i.e. trashy reality tv)? Does having improvisation in an artistic medium shift who can be named the artist of the work? (i.e. actor vs. writer vs. directors?)
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