For the last few weeks I have been marathoning the TV series 'House' starring Hugh Laurie. For those who haven't seen it before and don't know what the programmes about, it is basically a hospital drama where Dr House and his team have to diagnose a unique patient with strange symptoms each week. There is more too it then that but that's the basic jist.
Having now watched several series of House, with all these doctors using all of this technical medical jargon, you start to pick up little things and feel like it is actually teaching you something, something that is factual and can be used in real world situations.
Second example, kind of similar to this but is to do with the TV series called 'Lie To Me'. The basic premise with this series is that the main protagonist is an expert at reading people and knows when people are lying. He is then called upon as a consultant sometime by lawyers, companies or the cops to help find the truth.
Similarly to house, in Lie To Me they often talk through the process of how they know people are lying, learning to read tells, body language, the language they say and many other aspects. Once again after you have watched quite a few of the episodes you feel like you could start to see if people are lying, like you have been taught the skills they are portraying on TV.
Last example and probably the easiest to see just how influential TV programmes can be, CSI. I'm sure most people have heard of this programme, however again if you haven't, the basic premise is each week one or several crimes have been committed and its the teams job to figure out what happened and who did what.
Again I'm almost 100% that anyone you has watched even just a few seasons of CSI will say that they now know how to commit a crime and get away with it, of at least have picked up tips on how to not get caught, because of what they have seen on that show.
Its kind of nice when you think about it, especially using these three examples. Its not particularly being influenced its more just being taught something, medical knowledge, psychological skills, forensic skills and how to kill someone and get away with it. Okay the last one might fall into the grey area of what people should be taught but you still puck things up when you don't mean to, just from watching a 45 minute programme.
I might start using this as a method of choosing TV programmes to watch in the future; I get yo watch to co series and learn something at the same time, best of both worlds.
Has anyone else watched a TV programme of film and come away feeling they have learnt a new skill or something along those lines?
