TV shows now include rapid-fire dialogue, scenes
Regular conversation and repartee on TV shows is happening faster and faster ("turbo fast" as Aaron Sorkin puts it) according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).
Interesting to see this article since a few days ago, when I happened to watch Dawson's Creek (Carolina's own Kevin Williamson's creation for the WB that's filmed in my old home town of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) for the first time in a year, I was struck by how fast and sophisticated the dialogue had become (or maybe I was just noticing it for the first time).
When "ER" premiered eight years ago on NBC, its dialogue was so rapid-fire that scripts ran 60 pages, about 10 pages longer than the typical one-hour drama. Viewers loved it, and the show was a huge hit.
Today, the show isn't a minute longer. But its scripts now run more than 80 pages.
...The chatter serves a deliberate purpose. Hollywood producers think people seem smarter if they talk faster, a strategy in use on "The West Wing." In "Gilmore Girls," a show about a mother and her teenage daughter, fast talk lends a hip feel to a small-town setting. In "American Dreams," a family drama set in the 1960s, characters talk quickly -- and over each other -- at the dinner table to appeal to teenagers whose own family lives are like that. Fast talk is also a way for broadcast networks to make shows seem edgy when they can't feature the sex, violence and bad language of HBO.