Talking Heads
Later in the first volume of the first volume of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, Ken Myers interviews Quentin Schultze about television programming. He asks Schultze what kinds of programs QTV (“Quentin Schultze Television”) would show, assuming someone were to bankroll such a television station.
Schultze’s answer astonished me. He said that he would get a plain backdrop and setting, like the one that William F. Buckley used, and have interviews with people who were making a difference by applying their Christian faith. After all, Schultze said, what TV does best is talking heads.
That statement continues to baffle me. Radio does interviews fairly well. Television is okay with interviews, provided the person being interviewed is interesting to watch. But surely interviews (“talking heads”) aren’t what television does best. It seems to me that television does very well at short stories (like most TV shows) or longer stories spread out over several weeks (such as Lost).
Would I watch QTV, with its (hours and hours, presumably) of “talking heads” interviews? I might watch an interview from time to time. I might watch if Schultze decided to have, say, a lecture by someone like James Jordan or N. T. Wright. But even then it would depend on one all-important question: What’s on the other channels?