I fear we may be suffering some variation on the "two countries separated by a common language" thing. Though I can certainly be accused of being verbose, perhaps even overly so, I would argue against a charge of my speech patterns/word choice being antiquated or an example some kind of class based derision. Likewise I am not sure pretentious, if I can be called that and if we are using the same definition (it has fallen into the something of a similar problem to the irony and the definition thereof), is a negative.
The popular choice is not always the "right choice", though given earlier parts of this conversation I may wish to revise the phrasing there.
There are various concepts at play
Gahars and I both seem to have taken the time to learn about story structures, writing for entertainment and [insert long list of related fields]. There is something of a truism in life of the best something you ever have is when the someone making it is preparing/doing it for the entertainment of their peers. Related to this would be the "your trade will impart abilities to tell where somewhere else trying their hand has failed", or if you prefer it in webcomic form --
http://xkcd.com/1015/ . I will come back to it in a little while but I can not switch my head off in a lot of cases and such things will be glaringly obvious.
As making something to that kind of standard is hard then few bother with it, doubly so when a) most people can not tell why something is bad and b) most of those in a) would probably use phrases like "boring arthouse shit". I would say something like Walking Dead is a zombie show for someone that has never seen any zombie fiction before, however that would probably be being too generous.
Back on the switching my head off thing. Most of the time I do not get enough mental stimulation during the day, or at least I do not bog myself down with boring nonsense and burn myself out*, so my chosen entertainment usually skews towards the complex and involved. Others do not want this, and this is absolutely fine, and instead prefer to have a little story wrapped up with a bad guy getting shot at the 42 minute mark, just in time for a pithy remark, a scene at a bar to finish it all off and a fade to credits. I would maintain that walking dead is still poor by those standards but that might be a different discussion.
*see also "Why would I want to use a computer at home? I spend all day looking at one.".
On shoot em up I will have to look into the accounting for it. As a surface reading I guess you may say that but there is the term "Hollywood accounting" for a reason.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...make-a-450-million-movie-unprofitable/245134/ , to say nothing of DVD/video releases not getting bundled in with all that. Equally I am not sure how that fits the definition of obscure.
"There's a big difference between gawking at an accident and continuing to watch a TV show that sucks."
Perhaps, however it could be water cooler culture at some level. As a society we seem to have fractured our entertainment, which is no bad thing by me, but some will still partake just to talk about it at the office -- I see it all the for soap operas, talent contests (if you wanted another example of popular =/= quality then those would surely do), stuff like Lost* and choices of radio station.
Equally the sunk cost fallacy could be a thing. "They were awful but I have to know how it ends" being something I have heard more than once in my life.
Lack of options could be another -- in the US the show airs on Sunday nights, traditionally and presently not the most exiting point in the TV week and also the "I have work tomorrow" day for many.
*I had not considered Lost and Walking Dead together like this before... I might have to ponder this further.
In the end I think I will trot out the phrase I used when we were discussing the failure that was the N64
"Like what you want to like, however if you are going to try to convince me that I would like it too then bring ammo".
I have watched it so it is not like I am doing this without having experienced it myself (the last thing I remember seeing as part of a back to back thing was them messing around with a zombie in a well), I did also see later things like the video I link in a second that would appear to have confirmed my decision
I am willing to admit part of it might have been some bitterness over having the rug pulled out from underneath me -- the pilot did promise one thing and the show delivered another, not the first time such a thing has happened but it seldom gets any easier.