2.197. TV as Social Influencer

Right now there are three Special Forces styled shows on TV. Two are purely military based and the third is SWAT. I’ve yet to watch SWAT but the other two are drastically different. One is focused on the lead up to and the action going through a military operation. The other focuses on the interplay of politically publicized operations, putting them in the fictional world and engaging in a sort of dialogue. Seal Team is more political. It comes from CBS, the channel that brought us Madam Secretary. It lives in the same vein if not the same universe. While it is action driven it is heavily primed on the front end with military language, drills, and stories of Navy Wives. The other show, The Brave, is about the pride of the military and the interpersonal relationships between soldiers and their handlers. For this reason you know all the members of the team and have been ‘read in’ on their backstories. Meanwhile on Seal Team I only know four of the eight members of the team–not including the support staff.

This is not conclusory. This is merely observation on a pair of shows I find interesting in the sense that they are both on air now and placed in prime spots at a time where those spots are about super heroes. I suppose we are making these guys into new versions of superheroes. Or just very old ones revisited.