Tuesday, January 12, 2016
WAR for TV shows
?WAR (wins above replacement) is a very simple concept. It's a question of how much quantity you would trade for quality. At its core, that's all it is. Would you rather have a 15-15 pitcher or a 10-5 pitcher? And if you are able to choose one over the other, then you keep changing the quality or quantity numbers until the choice, YOUR CHOICE, is indifference. Once you've got there, congratulations, you are about to create your own personal WAR.
We can apply it to TV shows. I gave a huge Twilight Zone fan, friend of the blog Alan, a choice: watch your #1 favorite episode, or watch ten episodes ranked #N through #N+9. All he had to do was give me that N. He said "100". I then went over to IMDB, and assuming that the distribution of voting would mirror Alan's (though not those particular episode order), I just solved a simple math equation:
(9.3 - replacementLevel) = 10 x (7.45 - replacementLevel)
The 9.3 is the highest rated episode. And 7.45 is the average rating of episodes 100 through 109. Replacement Level, or I should say, Alan's replacement level for Twilight Zone, is 7.24. Alan told us (or at least implied) that his favorite episode gives him as much enjoyment (2.06 units of enjoyment), as those ten episodes I noted (0.21 units x 10).
Being a huge Star Trek fan, and having seen the original run more times than I remember, I did the same thing. My replacement level for Star Trek is 7.45. So, what can you do with this? Well, Season 1 gave me 14 units of enjoyment. Season 2 gave me 10 units, and Season 3 gave me only 4 units. As you can see, there's a good reason Star Trek was cancelled: the quality was way down.
(I should note that I zero out any below-0 values. After all, I don't ever want to rewatch Spock's Brain.)
This came about because my kid is a huge The Flash fan and a big Arrow and Supergirl fan. And I figured, this all started with Smallville. But Smallville had 10 seasons, and I think I only watch 4 seasons sporadically. Which season should I make him watch? Taking a guess that replacement level for Smallville is 8.0, then I should definitely skip Season 1. This method suggests watching Seasons 3 and 4, then jumping to Seasons 8-10.
So, there you have it! WAR for TV. Go ahead, head over to IMDB, figure out your favorite show, and what your breakeven point according to the above and report your replacement level.
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