Then cable came and changed everything, but the revolution to the current Golden Age of TV took another 25 years. The cable channels came up with a profitable business model, which allowed them to make money from a far, far smaller audience than the networks had. At first, the quality of the shows did not change much. The movie channels like HBO and Cinemax were wildly popular, but only relied on movies and no original programming.
Then, in the last 5 or 10 years, the cable networks made a shocking discovery: in a country of over 300 million people, there are enough highly intelligent ones to appreciate bold and complex shows. They realized they were able to make a profit with a niche audience. Seemingly out of nowhere came edgy shows, about edgy people, thinking edgy thoughts. Even better, all the great shows started showing the characters changing and developing over time...you know, like how real people do. Breaking Bad’s Walter White is just the latest example, although probably the most dramatic and bracing.
In a very short amount of time, the quality of the writing has come close to equaling movies, so that all of a sudden great actors are returning to the small screen. They’ve also realized the big advantage TV has over movies; time. You just can’t develop a character in 2 hours in the same way you can in 5 seasons of a TV show. If Tony Soprano would have been a character in a movie he would’ve been mainly forgotten. But over the course of 6 seasons he became etched in our memory.
Which brings me to Breaking Bad, and whether it is the best show in the history of TV. Some critics think so. I binge watched it, and came to work half-asleep too many mornings. It seems to have the most rabid fans of any show. Whenever anyone finds out I’m watching it, the next 5-10 minutes are always spent discussing how great it is, how unique it is, and how late we stayed up watching six shows in a row.
But the best show ever? My personal top four are the Sopranos, Lost, Battlestar Galactica (the 90's version), and Breaking Bad. Overall I’m partial to Battlestar Galactica, mainly because I never got over my eight year old’s intense love of science fiction. But Breaking Bad is the edgiest of all of them. If you rate a show by how many times you rewind the DVR to watch a scene over and over, it would win hands down. There’s just a ton of epic, stunning scenes that demand repeated viewings until you’re fully satisfied.
So at the end of the day I have to punt on what’s the best show of all time, mainly because I don’t have the time to watch a lot of TV, and when I do it’s usually after 11 PM (yet another reason I want to retire by 50). The huge majority of shows I haven’t seen. I’m sure Game of Thrones and Homeland are great, but I haven’t seen the former, and have only seen a few episodes of the latter. I’m also unfairly partial to fantasy, and I’m not exactly turned off by slightly more violent fare (for some reason my wife did not want to see a bunch of zombies graphically devouring the inside of a horse, while I’m enjoying The Walking Dead. Crazy, I know).
One thing I do know, though, is this is the Golden Age of TV and it will only get better. Now that the best and the brightest are writing the scripts, and society is telling them to bring us whatever their brave, brilliant, and bizarre minds can think of, you ain’t seen nothing yet
Have a good night everyone.
JR
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. If you like my blogs, put your e-mail address at
the top right and they'll be e-mailed to you as soon as they're posted. If you
don't like my blogs, I'm hurting inside. Thanks.
