A Golden Age of TV
It’s like Peggy Noonan was reading the League!
I feel gratitude to the largely unheralded network executives and producers who gave it to us. The first golden age can be summed up with one name: “Playhouse 90.” It was the 1950s and ‘60, when TV was busy being born. The second can be summed up with the words “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men,” “The Wire,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “ER,” “24,” “The West Wing,” “Law and Order,” “30 Rock.” These are classics. Some nonstars at a network made them possible. Good for them.
I’ll be honest, I think the last decade of TV absolutely crushes the 50s and the 60s. I don’t think it’s even all that close. The ascendancy of HBO and the way that it forced regular cable networks like FX to step up their game has ushered in a wonderful, wonderful time for TV-lovers. I’ll take “The Shield” and “Deadwood” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” over anything from decades prior.
Leaving that aside for a moment, I’d like to briefly touch on something she mentions:
I leave it to others to dilate on why TV now is so good and movies so bad, since both come from the same town, Hollywood, in the same era.
I question whether movies are “so bad” right now — some very good to great movies have been made in the last decade — but I think she’s right that TV is getting the better of it. This has happened, I think, because television has finally embraced its medium fully. Look at a show like “The Wire,” each season of which was essentially a 13-hour movie. That’s not quite right, but hopefully you see what I’m getting at…with 13 hours to play with, creators have far more time to carve out space for their characters and explore deeper themes. They can build up mysteries over the span of a decade (”Lost”) or carefully examine the soul-killing effects of corruption and living a life of lies (”The Shield”)* or examine the post-9/11 world through a sci-fi lens (”Battlestar Galactica”). To say nothing of “Mad Men.”
Anyway, we’re in THE golden age of television. Is there anyway to go back and strip that designation from past ages? Screw the 50s; live in the now.
*Seriously: The final scene in the final episode of the “The Shield” still gives me chills. Vic Mackey’s self-destruction over that seven season run was the single greatest character arc in the history of television. Better than Tony Soprano, by far.
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2 Comments - add your own
Mark Thompson — November 20, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I usually tend to think the 50’s and 60’s are consistently overrated in terms of the quality of television. I think we forget that at the time, television was a new medium but was also heavily censored. Because TV was so new, almost every program must have seemed like an original and creative idea. But in reality, most of those shows were just the precursors to the formulaic garbage that was the second and third tier set of programming in the abysmal 80s and 90s. There may have been one important difference, though – the quality of actors in the 50s and 60s shows may have been better.
It seems to me that you only started getting some truly creative programming around the time of MASH and All in the Family.
Lest we forget, Norman Minow’s famous quote came right in the middle of the supposedly Golden Age of the 50s and early 60s:
“When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.”
Thomas R — November 22, 2009 at 6:06 am
I’m a contrarian because I don’t think this or the fifties were particularly good decades for TV. If one particularly loves despair, angst, or continuing serials it’s good but if your tastes run toward something else it’s been pretty poor.
I like family series, comedies, episodic television, and things with likeable characters. For me this has been a moderately miserable decade of television.
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[...] surprising entries. I don’t think the list is particularly good, but it does lend support to the “golden age of television” thesis – the number of notable omissions really demonstrates just how great television has been over [...]