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Just watched the last episode of Shogun and it was one of the more gut wrenching hours of TV I’ve seen in a long long time.

Fallout is great. Bear is one of the best things in years. Gentlemen was one of the best spinoffs I’ve ever seen. Halo kinda righted itself. Succession had a great run.

White Lotus. Beef. Only Murders in the Building. Poker Face. Twisted Metal. Barry. Last of Us. Severance. Devs. The Old Man. Stranger Things. Witcher (S1&2.) 3 body problem. Peacemaker. Mare of Easttown. Yellowjackets. House of Dragon. Masters of the Air. What we do in the shadows. Could go on and on.

You named shows, some of which lots of people think suck. Very few that that the consensus is they're very good.

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but I’m to a point where I can’t catch up and there’s dozens of shows I haven’t even seen that I randomly stumble across or remember to watch

If it were a GREAT show, don't you think you'd have remembered to keep watching? I mean, seriously. If it's something I look forward to, I make a point of seeing it.

Now, on to some of the other issues with TV today; your list goes across several different services. Netflix, Prime, Max, Paramount, Apple, Peacock etc. That's not even counting the Disney+ shows, some of which (Mandalorian, Andor, Loki etc) are considered very good too. So you have shows spread across a multitude of services, some of which might be the only thing you will watch on that service. I'm not paying for all of them, I don't think it's a great experience to binge something in a week and then wait over a year for the next season.

And then we have length of season- 10 episodes, if you're lucky. Network TV would give you 25+ a season. Call it "filler" if you want, but if I love a show, I don't mind having a new episode every week. It's kinda like having cupcake games in college football; there's no drama when LSU plays Grambling, but I do get to watch LSU play, so that's better than no game.

Another thing I'd mention- the best currently to me right now is Shogun and Fallout. Shogun is a remake of a miniseries, Fallout is closely based on a game. There's nothing wrong with either show, but they're also not original concepts. Remaking a miniseries in particular- today's format IS miniseries, so they basically just dusted the old script off and reshot it. It doesn't go deeper, or do anything new (it can't if it is to stay true to the book). Again, it's done well, and I like it. But I've already seen it; and it's set in 16th Century Japan. There isn't something that happens that you couldn't portray back in 1980 or whenever the miniseries was made, that modern techniques show better. If anything, I would say some of the offshore scenes were better/more expensive in the original. The lighting was better in the original (the interior scenes are dark in this version).

I would say a "Golden Age" would have multiple shows EVERYONE watches, that are original in idea, that you don't forget about watching the next episode until the season is done.