WaPo: "Are We at the End of TV's Golden Age?"

that's such a whiny article, and it ignores some major big dogs like the americans, breaking bad, better call saul (great so far), game of thrones, etc

you literally can't write an article about how tv quality has fallen while ignoring the top flight of television

Maybe. I think the amount of "pretty good shows" has increased while we are without, or soon to be, the greats (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire.)

However the author did not mention two shows that in my opinion point to a new direction of great TV, True Detective and Fargo. Difficult to judge because both only have one season of their anthology approach under their belts, I consider both as good as anything else done on TV.

ETA: forgot about GoT and BCS. Author is whiny douche and I hope he dies.

Just an awful sensationalist article.

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that's such a whiny article

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True.

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it ignores some major big dogs like the americans

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Yep. That's the main omission I thought of. But I haven't watched it yet, so I can't comment on it.

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breaking bad

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It mentioned BB as one of the greats, I think.

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better call saul

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Too early to call, but has potential and is good so far.

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game of thrones

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Classic "pretty good" show. Checks all the boxes. Not great.

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Waaaaat

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Game of Thrones, bro? C'mon.

We are in the middle of the greatest era of television ever imo.

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Hyperbole took over; every show became the best show ever.

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Totally agree. OMG,have you seen such and such? It's the best show ever!

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With an increase in expectations and a glut of new programming, we’ve become accustomed to shows that are, at their best, pretty good instead of brilliant.

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Very true.

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Take the case of Matthew Weiner’s partly cloudy, Emmy-winning “Mad Men.” The show, which returns Sunday on AMC with the first of its final seven episodes, is one of the last survivors of TV’s triumphant era. We have watched it slowly descend from its greatest seasons down a rung or two, to a state of being, well, pretty good.

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I'm glad someone in the media finally said it. Mad Men is a fricking shell of its early greatness.

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The Silver Age of TV defines itself by quantity rather than quality.

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I don't really agree with that.

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The hallmark of Silver Age TV viewing is the feeling that you are always behind.

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Very true and I'm already kind of tired of hearing about Bloodline.


As someone who reads a lot and is in school and likes documentaries a lot (and in no way am I'm saying I'm cooler or smarter than anyone) I don't have as much time to watch TV. So I have to really really get hooked into a show to binge watch and I've always been picky as shite about one hour dramas. When I watch TV, I like sitcoms like Reno 911, Modern Family, and the Office because it's about 19 mins at a time and I can watch and study or just laugh and kick back.

Dramas have gotten so dark like Hannibal and Season 2 of Homeland. Or long and drawn out like GoT or Mad Men. I'm just not a big binge watcher but with all the new dramas out lately, people do make me feel like I'm crazy or something for not being big into GoT or TWD or whatever new shows are out.

Bottom line is I just don't have the time for all of that TV, so I just am not going to watch ten episodes of some show because that's when it starts to really pick up or whatever. If I don't like the first 2 or 3 then I'm out and later on I'll maybe try again.

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Bottom line is I just don't have the time for all of that TV

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that doesn't mean that this era is inferior to the previous one. it actually means the opposite

there are just as many, if not more, great shows on tv now than in the past. there are exponentially more "really good" shows

that speaks to the overall quality of this era compared to the past. seriously sopranos is overrated in terms of objective quality. it's historical place is without question and very near the apex of modern television, but it's not the same quality of show as the top flight now. however, when it was on, it was by far the best thing around and people use all sorts of cognitive biases to lie about its quality compared to shows today. that's fine, but don't go say today is shite when all you have to fall back on is the sopranos.

as for the wire, nobody watched the wire when it was on. that's a show a hardcore niche audience got really annoying about and word spread.

as for mad men, (1) it should count as a modern show b/c it started in the mid 00s and (2) you can't criticize fading quality over time as some statement of its era. American shows drag on too long far too often and it sucks. even the wire did. mad men, like all other shows, should have wrapped up in 3-4 seasons. 5 at the absolute max (and that requires a short season or 2).

...unless you have a multi-generational epic like GOT that can basically completely change casts over a couple seasons. that's exceptionally rare. i even underrate GoT when it's on, but no television show ever has had the same quality of non-story elements. costume, acting, cinematography, aesthetics, etc are all so amazing that we have accepted it as a perceived reality, so that we don't give them all enough praise. while its story can meander in some places and refuses to follow typical narrative, it's still top notch.

in my list i didn't even add in shows that i love (or have loved) like justified. justified season 2 is one of the best seasons of tv. ever.

walking dead is not great. but if it came out in the sopranos era, it would be considered great (due to lack of competition) today

The Americans is the best show on tv, and i said that while BB was on and during a run of GoT

Fargo was great. i shite on True Detective but that's obviously an idiosyncratic thing. most people find it great

the BBC is putting out some great dramas, too

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I need to start watching The Americans and Better Call Saul.

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just know BCS isn't really related to BB. it's one of the better pilot seasons of any serial show i've ever seen. just really well done

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TV’s one-hour dramas now come one right after the other from a variety of sources, and they’re all high quality from a technical perspective, thanks mainly to groundbreaking programs that were on a decade or so ago, which raised the bar overall.

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I don't get this. High-quality programs come "one right after of the other," but because some shows from the previous generation raised the bar, that somehow negates or minimizes the consistently high-quality television?

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Speaking of rain, the Silver Age particularly favors long mysteries in which the murder case stretches a season or longer until resolution by its emotionally crippled sleuths — best exemplified by BBC America’s “Broadchurch,” HBO’s “True Detective,” Starz’s “The Missing” and AMC’s (eventually Netflix’s) “The Killing,” all of which reached for brilliance and wound up being, in the final analysis, pretty good.

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Some of these reached brilliance, some didn't. He seems to just want to lump them all (a common theme throughout this article) and end on "pretty good" as if his opinion makes an objective truth.

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After a while, nearly every show has a way of feeling like the same show.

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Sounds like somebody that has been drinking fine wine all day, then after a while, can't differentiate quality. Of course, the quality of the show doesn't matter, just that he can't differentiate it.

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The hallmark of Silver Age TV viewing is the feeling that you are always behind.

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O so because we have more choices, and he is unable to keep up with the choices (his job), this is a sign of the "Silver Age." Yeah, because fewer options for the consumer is a sign of greatness.

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There are a couple hundred dramas in production; had some of them aired in the Golden Age, they might have been heralded as influential works of art rather than getting lost:

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O that's right, quality shows being made is a sign of a lesser generation of shows.

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Tacking the word “American” onto NBC’s new terrorism/conspiracy drama “Odyssey” is a telltale Silver Age move.

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Now the names of shows is a sign of of the "Silver Age." That's weak.


In summary, we have more consistently high-quality shows, many more options, and many more viewing mediums. Yet, this is a sign of the "Silver Age." I think it's a sign that he can't handle the new era as a TV critic, and instead of self-reflecting, he finds it easier to attribute this to the era.