TV or film: which makes a better KINO puzzle?

I get asked why KINO leans towards films when telly is having such a good decade. The honest answer is that both work. They're just hard in different ways, and I go back and forth on which makes the better puzzle.

Films have a few things going for them. There's usually one clear image the whole thing hangs on, and a lead everyone recognises. The clues line up neatly around a year people can actually place. There are also more well-known films than well-known shows, so the pool is deeper, and when a film puzzle comes together it comes together cleanly.

Television fights back on familiarity. When people love a show, they really love it, and they'll name it from almost nothing. #0003 is a good example: for a lot of players that one barely needs the clues. It's just harder to build a fair puzzle around. Box office doesn't apply, so the nearest clue is number of seasons, which is vaguer. A show can run for years and change its cast and look along the way, so there isn't always one clean image to blur. And a cult favourite that half the audience adores is one the other half has genuinely never seen.

Films from the same era blur together, which is where the guessing gets interesting. Television tends to land as either an instant get or a total blank, with less of the middle ground where the good guessing happens.

So where do I land? Films more often than not, because they give me more to work with and a bigger pool to keep things fresh. But the game would be worse without television, and the best show puzzles, the ones like #0003 where you're grinning because you got it in one, hold up against anything the films produce. I need both, and the mix is half the point.