The Golden age of TV?
“I used to think that I should watch TV,
I used to think that it was good for me
Wanted to know what folks were thinking,To understand the land I live in
And I would lose myself, and it would set me free” - David Byrne & St. Vincent
This post has been in draft for far too long and I still tend to have that same repeated conversation with friends about TV shows that I have watched or that I am currently watching. It normally ends up with me having to go back referring to a website like IMDB to try remember the different title names, so I decided to finally write a post on some of the more watchable series to help commit them to memory in the process and use this link as a pointer for other future conversations on “Great TV”. (If there is a recommended Letterboxd style app for TV, please let me know)
There are so many TV shows vying for our attention, I tend to use a quality filter. I use a combination of the series’ IMDB score (nothing less than 7 and a high audience score from Rotten Tomatoes) before contemplating to committing to a new series. Also, there is a very useful tool and a nice idea called TV chart where you can visualise episode-by-episode TV series ratings from Imdb data. For example, you can see clearly the trajectory of a show like Dexter, which did contain several darkly comedic moments before ending with a disappointing decline in the last season:
The Golden age of TV?
Back in the early noughties, before TV streaming services and the advent of social media, we used to binge on physical DVD box sets and the first series I remember being totally compelled to watch outside of waiting for the TV schedule to catch up, was the Wire. I remember reading a favourable review of it in Q magazine (yes, the physical magazine!) and I went ahead ordered the box set on the back of that.
The Thick of It’s scriptwriter Will Smith mentioned that, “We live in the era of the trinity of Davids — Chase, Simon and Milch — and their titanic achievements (The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood). That said, although this level of excellence is attainable, few apart from the US cable showrunners are allowed to reach for it”.
If you haven’t watched either The Wire or The Sopranos at this point, you really need to dig into what are widely considered the greatest TV Dramas of the Past 25 Years, The Wire vs. The Sopranos “David Simon would like people to watch his television shows, but he wouldn’t mind if they occasionally picked up a book.”
There is more from Simon on why TV isn’t journalism and I recently found myself re-reading an excellent interview from the Believer archive from 2007 with Nick Hornby on the writing and casting behind ‘The Wire’, Baltimore and so much more. Simon is also responsible for other TV shows worth watching including Homicide: Life on the Street, Generation Kill and the wonderful Treme, which also sadly came to an end:
“It’s a very different piece from The Wire. We’re not trying to do a crime story or a political story. This is a story about culture and how American urban culture defines how we live.” — David Simon on Treme
But I digress, Grantland told us way back in 2012 that “Mad Man stands alone as the last of its pedigreed breed”, while literature/arts/culture magazine The Believer argued that good TV “deserves to be taken as seriously as great films and even great Literature”. Peter Aspden posted that “TV as an art form” had grown up and that HBO had revolutionised TV. Mark Harris informed us that Hollywood films aren’t going to get better anytime soon, and on the death of the great American art form in a post called The Day the Movies Died.
“ There’s no room for mediocrity, It’s the end of ‘Who gives a shit?’ television. It all has to be great.” Patrick Moran, head of ABC Studios
Clive James wrote a little gem of a book called ‘Play All: A Bingewatcher’s Notebook’, where he explored TV shows and the streaming landscape, long-form TV serial being consumed via the box set and how it has done much to save us from “the kind of uplift that lowers the IQ”, he wrote, as it has more time to spend on the complexities of human psychology and can eschew the consoling simplicities of a two-hour film.
All these different pieces and opinions got me thinking back on conflicting articles about the apparent end of the Golden TV era over the last few years. But for me, one of the biggest changes in popular TV has been the rise of the anti-hero and gritty drama from right across the globe. If you are not averse to watching subtitled shows, there are a number of must watch crime shows include:
- Braquo
- Gomorrah
- Spiral
- Bordertown
Speaking of gritty tv, I recently finished watching Quarry which was co-created by Michael D. Fuller, directed by Greg Yaitanes . “A Marine returns home from Vietnam in 1972, only to find himself being shunned by those he loves and demonized by the public.” Gritty and while not always comfortable viewing, I have to say Quarry is gripping storytelling with a terrific cast and stellar music throughout. It was a shame only it only ran for a single season.
Sometimes however it feels as the pendulum has swung too far, as many popular shows feature truly despicable characters with no redeemable qualities whatsoever. (Thinking of shows like Succession, The Undoing, Ozarks, Bloodline and the truly awful House of Cards)
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want -Steve Jobs
I didn’t realise how much I missed having a real character to root for or was willing to invest time in, at least some character arc to hook into. Sometimes those hooks are in from the opening soundtrack of a show, how many of your favourite shows have a theme song you hum along with? That is the case with the Nordic Noir adventure ‘The Bridge’, with the haunting track ‘Hollow Talk’ where we catch up with the excellent fictional detective duo of Norén and Rohde.( Incidentally, if you dont like subtitles, there is an English crime drama called Tunnel which was adapted from the Bridge with the same detective pairing and dynamic.)
One of my favourite shows remains to be Patriot, which is available on Amazon. This dark comedy thriller has so many brilliantly funny and quirky moments with a terrific cast and so many great Beastie Boys references too.
Also, on Amazon, is one of the best sci-fi shows in The Expanse and the slow burner Detective show Bosch, the character from Michael Connelly book series. Titus Welliver is excellent in the lead role as Harry Bosch, as well as stellar performances from a supporting cast which include the always reliable Jamie Hector and Lance Reddick, both of whom appeared in The Wire. You got to dig his vinyl audio setup and I love Reddit for surfacing more details of that in this thread (If you are curious it consists of the following Speakers: Ohm Walsh 4, Turntable: Marantz 6300 turntable, Amp: McIntosh 240 tube amp, Preamp / tuner: McIntosh MX110). There are currently six seasons of great story telling available, with season 7 in production right now. If you want to try encourage Amazon to keep it going past a shortened season 7 there is a petition here created by Nancy L. Beloff to help.
I don’t really know why I so was hesitant about starting to watch Fargo the TV series, it was probably a misconception having already watched the excellent Fargo movie. But this comedy horror is splendid, each season is a different theme with different characters, mixed with a weaving storyline in each vignette which feels like a mini movie. The casting was impeccable with actors such as Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Kirsten Dunst, Ewan McGregor and David Thewlis all delivering stand out performances. You can read more in this companion binge watch guide from Wired. I am looking forward to season 4.
Honourable mentions
There are so many, including Sons of Anarchy which for me has still one of the most shocking curveball scenes in TV history, Katey Sagal was phenomenal. Others include Mr Robot, Peaky Blinders, Breaking Bad, Mindhunter, Newsroom, Manhattan featuring Ashley Zukerman who also stars in an Australian show called the Code. True Detective irritated me at times, I thought 6 episodes rather than 8 would have been better but I still watched it to completion.
Others available on Amazon include Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton and The Knick. A word of caution, watching the Knick, there are lots of eeeeewwe moments but Clive Owen excels and is especially terrific in the main role. Watching the show you begin to wonder what’s fact and what’s fiction in it’s take on medical history? Director Steven Soderbergh talks about the revolutionary approach to the show in this piece
As Clive James, who has sadly passed away last year, concludes in closing out his Play All book “What a festival they have given us, and how hard it is to leave.”
