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Is the golden age of TV over now?

JonArryn

By JonArryn,
in Entertainment

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WarGalley Council Member

WarGalley

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You guys make it sound like FX is an unknown channel (maybe because it doesn't get a bunch of Enmy nominations every year?). It's probably the second best channel outside of HBO these last 10 years and top 3 if not (2 good shows on AMC with nothing else in the arsenal doesn't quite tip the scales for me).

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David Selig Council Member

David Selig

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I agree with everything you said about the third season, which is my LEAST favorite season by far. I never understood the logistics of Rosetti apparently taking over an entire town in New Jersey with absolutely nobody noticing before almost entirely displacing Nucky's entire operation with a small detachment of New York gangsters. The whole thing was so simplistic it basically undercut the reality and drama of the rest of the show for me, at least insofar as Atlantic City-New York relations go. Of course, the only part more silly than how easy it was to displace Nucky was how easy it was to reinstate him thanks to the Richard-ex-machina single-handedly wiping out Rosetti's entire crew.

So it gets better in the later seasons? Good to hear, maybe I will give it another shot soon. Is the plot still centered on gangster wars or is there more political stuff?

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Nictarion Council Member

Nictarion

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So it gets better in the later seasons? Good to hear, maybe I will give it another shot soon. Is the plot still centered on gangster wars or is there more political stuff?

Season 4 was probably my favorite overall. I thought both 4 & 5 were really good tbh.

It was definitely still gangster centric. There was a line in one of the seasons about Nucky can't just be half a gangster anymore. And we saw that. Judging by your feelings regarding the show early on, I don't think you would care for the last couple seasons much. Just seems you're not into the genre.

Although the last season was really interesting with it's use of flashbacks to really show the choices Nucky made that set up the entire show.

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  • 2 months later...
dooog Council Member

dooog

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The article is from 2012 but considering that 2014 saw True Detective, Fargo and Red Road make their debuts while garbage such as True Blood and Sons of Anarchy died off, i'd say it was a pretty damn good year for television, as was 2013. We also had Boardwalk, Rectify, GoT, Vikings, Sherlock etc put in strong seasons as well as a return to form for Homeland. The article just looks like a pop at Walking Dead, which is fair enough, that show is awful stupid tripe.


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The Mother of The Others Council Member

The Mother of The Others

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Best TV Moments from the past:



  • Misfits of Science, when they teamed up their powers to mildly harass a helicopter. (NBC did not entrust them with a helicopter-explosion budget).
  • Knight Rider: the K.I.T.T. vs C.A.R.R. showdown when both sentient vehicles turbo jumped into each other and only 1 blew up.
  • Friday the 13th The Series. The two-parter in which "Ryan goes to France, kills a nun while demon possessed, then is transformed into a child by God to get him the hell off of the show."
  • Wonder Woman, the multi-part Skrull space invaders storyline in which she's incapacitated by an alien glitter bomb and then gets pawed at by huge alien apes.
  • Angel, Season 4. Best Apocalypse Ever. For real.
  • The X-Files in which the Cancer Man's alien conspiracy group finally got what they had coming to them.
  • The Mentalist: the one when Red John finally got what he had coming to him.
  • Jimmy Kimmel: the one when "Mike Tyson gets on his knees and sings to Ally Landry of his love for her right in front of a Wayans who can't believe what he's seeing and is exploding from laughter."
  • NBC Letterman era: Man of Velcro and Full Body Alka-Seltzer Suit, Dipped.
  • Craig Ferguson: his first couple years of Late Late Show Monologues where he told joke-stories instead of canned separate jokes. Oh my god. My favorite late night stuff. (Before the horse and the skeleton when he'd already checked out).
  • Buffy The Musical. Perhaps the finest hour that TV has ever known.
  • Community: the campus-wide paint ball battles (2) and the one when Ken Jeong took over the world.
  • Golden Girls: the one when Blanche finally got what she had coming to her.
  • Star Trek: Borg 2-parter, Species 8472 vs Borg, Janeway vs. Borg finale, Dominion War (DS9), Yesterday's Enterprise.
  • Seinfeld: the marble rye
  • Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi channel): finale, and opening mini-series. (the rest is optional viewing)
  • Babylon 5: The Coming of Shadows, Into the Fire
  • Game of Thrones: The Children, and the birth of dragons one. (the rest is optional)
  • Superbowl: Saints' year, and this year's when Richard Sherman was taught a lesson by God's direct interference in the game's outcome.
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Castel Council Member

Castel

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They say Game of Thrones has instant gratification? Good lord...

Honestly I think that Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are difficult mediums through which to judge television, given that they are both adapted from different material rather than being original creations in their own right.

I notice that over the last few years a number of long running shows have ended, and in many cases these endings came off somewhat... disappointing compared with the buildup and fan expectation (I'm looking at you Dexter). It can't all be like Breaking Bad though. Remember when Breaking Bad first aired? Everybody thought it was going to be a rip off of Weeds with Malcolm's dad, but it turned out to be maybe the greatest drama since The Sopranos. The next Breaking bad could very well start airing this year.

People said that TV would never be as good again after Seinfeld ended too. I think it's just a reaction that some people get when something good ends and there's nothing to replace it on the immediate horizon. I don't think the golden age of TV is over though. If anything Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead may very well be indicative of a new, grand age of televised entertainment. These programs have shown that books and comics can be astronomically successful as a TV series. Hopefully this will open the door to some other adaptations that people have been a waitin' for.

That's likely what the author was afraid of though (I cbf to retrace this comments), the Marvelisation of TV. I imagine he's afraid that what happened to Edgar Wright and Darabont would happen again; good directors with their own style muscled out for not fitting the style because the program was so successful that it didn't actually matter if the creator thought the changes would hurt it (and, in the case of Walking Dead, it almost indubitably did)

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  • 1 month later...
northernwarg Sellsword

northernwarg

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Peaky Blinders i(2013, 2014) is hands down the best television series -- new or already running -- I've seen this year. This reaction is based in its combination of conception, style, charismatic characters played by actors who are interesting to watch on screen, with some emotional depth and some substantial perspective on historic matters that tend to bleed in the present -- particularly the relationships of crime, bigotry and capitalism -- and most of all, its writing. Episode 6, the finale of the second season, is dynamite. Peaky Blinders comes closer to Boardwalk Empire in those aspects than anything else I've seen. Peaky Blinders is BBC though, without the budget. But with the help now of netflix, there's gonna be a season 3!

Got to agree. Best kept secret in TV.

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