The Golden Age of TV

squonk · 03-03-2014 9:12am #1

I ended my TV watching week feeling pretty impressed last week. True Detective is shaping up nicely along with being one of the most impressive shows I've ever seen on TV. Chicago Fire had an absolutely standout episode this week. Vikings was coming back and, though I'm only up to epsiode 2 of House of Cards S2, it's turning into absolutely gripping TV. Add to that Banshee with it's no nonsense focus on sex, blood and guns and you have to be particularly insane to not realise we're currently in a golden age of Television. When you see actors of the quality of Martin Sheen, Sigourney Weaver, Mathew McConnaghey, Woody Harrelson, Kiefer Sutherland etc. foresaking the film set for the TV set, you know that they know it too.

I was thinking about this yesterday and was trying to pinpoint the moment when this upshot in quality started. For me, I think The West Wing kicked things off. I haven't watched but at the time I remember thinking I should seeing as Martin Sheen was starring. It was unusual to have an established large screen actor moving to the smaller screen. Then The Wire happened, however I knew nothing about it. What really kicked things off for me was 24. A ground breaking format and the appearance of Kiefer Sutherland was something special. Martin Sheen had broken through the divide between Film and TV already so it wasn't a surprise when Kiefer did so as well. I had no idea at the time however that any of these events was the beginning of something more long ranging and special. As more quality shows appeared in place of the fairly drab offerings available in the 90's, my interest picked up and I started to seek out more shows to watch as I started to realise that quality TV was still out there. As I type, I realise honourable mention has to go to George Peppard for the A-Team as Martin Sheen wasn't really breaking a mould, but that seems like such an outlier for the time, I'm not really counting it.

I'm just wondering what your opinions are? Where do you think things started to build to the stage we're at now? What was your wakeup call?

pickarooney · 03-03-2014 10:14am

The Sopranos and, by extension, HBO.

FloatingVoter · 03-03-2014 6:46pm

Twin Peaks -> ..West Wing -> Sopranos

The rest from there.

Pre Twin Peaks the good stuff stole in as 25 minute comedy. ...i.e MASH and Cheers have yet to be bettered. Frasier was not in the same league as the mothership.

There were exceptions...Hill Street Blues could be cutting edge when it wanted. Law and Order was not always formulaic and Law and Order SVU can still produce an episode or two that jars.

To go back further...watch B/W Fugitive from the 1960s. That can stand with anything afterwards.

hfallada · 03-03-2014 9:18pm

I think HBO set the industry standard which was quickly followed by Showtime and AMC. But I think the most important thing was premium cable like HBO and AMC. Networks allowed producers to make shows about where ever they want with whatever content. The networks relied on premium subscription payments and not advertising.

US companies were too conservative to advertise on some shows and therefore TV shows had to be plain and innocent. They were generally dry comedy about white, suburban families, with their simple life in some dull city. The show was harmless and good for advertisers. Most US tv shows are still this.

But shows like the sopranos, sex and the city, the wire, breaking bad etc. Explored the America that is there, but most networks choose to ignore. The soprano touched on the italian mafia but made the characters likeable and so humane. Even through you seen they brutally killing people, you still wanted them to be your friend.

TV shows allow stories that would condensed into a 90 min film to be spread out for several seasons. Watching house of cards season 2 blows you away in those 13 episode like no film has come close to

Queen-Mise · 02-05-2014 4:21pm

Hill Street Blues, Twin Peaks, ER, were all precursors to the now quality drama.

Sopranos, Wire, & West Wing - had they all started before ER finished.

02-05-2014 4:47pm

Hill Street Blues and Wiseguy are two shows which never really get the appreciation they deserve. They were pivital in popularising the idea of season long story arcs and Wiseguy really set in place that template that all Cable drama has followed.

FunLover18 · 02-05-2014 5:02pm

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Pre Twin Peaks the good stuff stole in as 25 minute comedy. ...i.e MASH and Cheers have yet to be bettered. Frasier was not in the same league as the mothership.

+1 it actually kind of annoys when I hear people praise Frasier (which I love) because I'm always like "Cheers is so much better!!"

Sitcom wise there hasn't been anything recently that I can see standing the test of time. Even Friends' popularity is dying down thanks to limitless repeats (I was never a huge fan myself anyway).

Community is easily the best sitcom on TV at the moment but it's so reliant on pop culture references I can't see it dating well.

evilivor · 02-05-2014 5:14pm

FunLover18 wrote: »

+1 it actually kind of annoys when I hear people praise Frasier (which I love) because I'm always like "Cheers is so much better!!"

Sitcom wise there hasn't been anything recently that I can see standing the test of time. Even Friends' popularity is dying down thanks to limitless repeats (I was never a huge fan myself anyway).

Community is easily the best sitcom on TV at the moment but it's so reliant on pop culture references I can't see it dating well.

Community is clever funny. Cheers is funny funny.

Funny funny wins every time.

Adamantium · 04-05-2014 1:38am

Lost and 24 and blew my mind at the time but but were put into the shadow by.....

The three most "real, honest, what would I do?" series to me....

Battlestar Galactica. Reminding us that science fiction is about ideas and the human condition/nature/endurance. PEOPLE

A 60 hour movie saga in every respect. On relatively tiny budget, yet you'd suspect the exact opposite in terms of CGI, music, sets, oscar nominated actors and it wasn't even on HBO!

Really hope HBO starts doing sci fi, TV is one of the few places where it doesn't lose its potency.

My favourite war/escape story ever. I've never seen a story on screen thatmake you feel its themes and characters/situations quite as heavily as this. The sheer gravitas. Told with sincerity, but not platitudes.
Has sort of ruined TV for me.

Intro trailer (no spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2x14ZhEc9k

Slightly spoilerific one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMGQ_pPCH74

Jericho (2006). A brave series, of people living in a small rural Kansas town after a barrage of nuclear attacks, leave the USA in the dark and cut off from the wider world

(Town, and state devolves into 19th century and civil war).

Loved it. In particular season 1. Like a more straightforward Lost.

Friday Night Lights is woefully underrated and is set in a part of the USA (Rural Texas), that is rarely seen on TV in anything less than backward manner (though the show does that too for what it is).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9buIAYnpUNM

don ramo · 04-05-2014 9:53am

i think the golden age of TV is only in its infancy, so far producing shows like sopranos, wire, west wing, breaking bad, game of thrones ETC ETC ETC, but with the dawn on online content and multiple distributors like netflix, amazon and now microsoft, i really think that in the next 5-10 years were gonna see some explosion of content available to us,

the biggest issue i think well have is trying to sift through it all

Reekwind · 04-05-2014 11:10am

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Twin Peaks -> ..West Wing -> Sopranos

Wouldn't entirely agree with that timeline. For two reasons:

The West Wing was a contemporary of The Sopranos, not a precursor. Both started in 1999.
Your chain is missing the key link. Oz, in 1997, was HBO's first 'quality' hour-long drama. It was the critical reception to that that convinced the channel that there was something in this 'long-form television'.

1999 was probably the breakthrough year (with both The Sopranos and The West Wing premièring) but the earlier impact of Oz can't be overstated. It really triggered the HBO revolution. You only need to look back at HBO's output prior to that: a fairly undistinguished list of comedies and documentaries.

diveout · 04-05-2014 4:49pm

We have a Golden Age of Television because Hollywood studios are down to about three now and independent film makers have moved into television.

TV is way better than the movies now,for example. Nothing I saw in the Academy Award nominations came close to what has been on television.

Yamanoto · 05-05-2014 11:59am

Reekwind wrote: »

...but the earlier impact of Oz can't be overstated. It really triggered the HBO revolution. You only need to look back at HBO's output prior to that: a fairly undistinguished list of comedies and documentaries.

In his book 'The HBO Effect', Prof. Dean DeFino credits 'The Larry Sanders Show' (1992-1998) as the series which really established the networks creative credentials within the industry. The caustic showbiz satire was met with unanimous acclaim by critics, network insiders and talent alike, becoming the first cable TV show to earn an Emmy nomination - winning three Primetime Emmy Awards, five CableACE Awards, a BAFTA, five Directors Guild of America nominations, six Writers' Guild of America nominations, six American Comedy Awards nominations, three Golden Globe nominations etc.

The guest appearances are testament to the buzz it created & to just how highly it was regarded at the time - Seinfeld, John Stewart, Jim Carrey, Letterman, Warren Beatty, Sharon Stone and too many others to mention. It's been cited as a profound influence by Larry David, Ricky Gervais, Ianucci, Mitchell Hurwitz and acted as a springboard for a hefty array of talent - Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk & Jeremy Piven amongst them.

Perhaps most importantly though, it marked out HBO as a place where talented & ambitious creatives were given the time and space to challenge convention, all the while endeavouring to create something both unique and exceptional in television programming.

catallus · 05-05-2014 12:04pm

David Duchovny in the Larry Sanders Show was brilliantly funny stuff. That show was brilliant.

JohnFalstaff · 05-05-2014 1:32pm

don ramo wrote: »

i think the golden age of TV is only in its infancy, so far producing shows like sopranos, wire, west wing, breaking bad, game of thrones ETC ETC ETC, but with the dawn on online content and multiple distributors like netflix, amazon and now microsoft, i really think that in the next 5-10 years were gonna see some explosion of content available to us,

the biggest issue i think well have is trying to sift through it all

David Simon (creator of The Wire) reckons the current Golden Age of TV could already be dead:

http://collider.com/david-simon-cia-tv-show/

Years ago, brilliant series like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad and Mad Men were led by either entirely unknown actors or character actors, but the writing is now so good that film actors are flocking to the small screen.

Simon fears that it could start resembling the Hollywood studio system if the networks start exclusively seeking out these bigger actors and more high-profile series, which then lead to bigger budgets, which inevitably leads to bigger risk. Networks might be less willing to greenlight more offbeat, small-scale, or original ideas in favor of ones that have a higher probability of breaking out, at which point they essentially start operating like the studio system where name actors and flashy concepts rule the airwaves.

05-05-2014 1:46pm

I agree with Simon and wrote an essay on it in college. It's getting to the point where the cable networks are partying ridiculous amounts of money to get or keep talent and it's affecting other shows and stopping them from taking risks v there is no way that a show such as Oz or the Wire would be picked up by HBO today unless there was major talent attached.

It's reaching that point where Networks are willing to spend more on attracting talent them they are on the show itself. Could you imagine how good Walking Dead could have been had the network not spent the budget on keeping the Mad Men cast and crew content.

The Golden Age of TV

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