http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/why-is-the-golden-age-of-tv-so-dark/277696/
http://acculturated.com/when-did-tv-get-so-dark-and-twisted/
http://sonyairyna.com/dark-tv-shows-modern-fairy-tales/
I think that these three articles are all pretty good reads. As a person for whom these shows have absolutely no interest or value, its depressing, because this seems to be the new normal, but its also insightful to try to understand it all as a confused outsider. Dark, brutal, shows without characters I can get behind and enjoy. Backstabbing instead of cooperation, misery and depression everywhere. Life just absolutely sucking for everyone.
People keep talking about a "Golden Age" of television, and I find myself with less to watch than ever before.
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yes yes, it's very disappointing that the stellar shows of the 90's such as the below list have gradually given way to what we have today. :shifty:
90210
Melrose Place
Party of Five
Dawson's Creek
The Real World
Baywatch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
Lois & Clark
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Highlander
Xena: Warrior Princess
Beastmaster
Tales From the Crypt
La Femme Nikita
Blossom
Felicity
Ellen
Ally McBeal
Murphy Brown
Sex and the City
Caroline in the City
Grace Under Fire
Dr Quinn Medicine Woman
Doogie Howser
Touched by an Angel
7th Heaven
COPS
Law & Order
NYPD Blue
JAG
Diagnosis Murder
Murder She Wrote
America's Most Wanted
Walker, Texas Ranger
MacGyver
Columbo
Nash Bridges
Roseanne
The Nanny
Friends
Frasier
Becker
Coach
Fresh Prince
Darma & Greg
Will & Grace
Martin
Mr Bean
Everybody Loves Raymond
Full House
Who's the Boss
3rd Rock From Sun
Just Shoot Me
America's Funniest Home Videos
Wings
Home Improvement
Spin City
Mad About You
Northern Exposure
ER
X Files
Millennium
Roswell
Twin Peaks
Married With Children
Seinfeld
Daria
This list should be titled "Ad Nauseam". There's more substance in Breaking Bad, Hannibal, The Wire, House of Cards, Suits, and Deadwood's little fingers than all the above combined. IMO you have to go back to Miami Vice to get something that rivals the average quality of today's stuff. How many of the above shows could be skipped for 4 weeks without worrying about missing part of the storyline and being lost?... all of them? This list of slop is the very reason viewers don't expect a network tv-produced Hannibal to be worth a darn. JMO.NaboCane likes this. -
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Go read some Freud.
I find it funny that three of the darkest shows on that list phinsational provided are probably three of the best: Twin Peaks, X Files, and Seinfeld. Seinfeld was darker than people realize. About as dark as it gets for a sitcom. Lots of suffering and absurd hopelessness and cynicism and twisted irony. That's what made it funny...and that's why people still love it today. -
Dramas on the other hand, well, I know I'm in the absolute minority, at least on this board, but I don't get why a show can't be well written, acted, filmed and not be about mobsters, drug dealers or zombies. Everyone gets their opinion, but I think that mine is equally valid.
Am I truely the only person who doesn't want to watch shows with a constant dark theme? -
https://soundcloud.com/crackedpod/depressing-entertainment
Funny, cracked had a podcast about this last week.Unlucky 13 likes this. -
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Seinfeld is widely considered a top 5 sitcom of all time.
Buffy and X Files are two if the great genre shows of all time.
Terrible terrible listPagan likes this. -
One of the people in the discussion was like you. He was really liking it at first, however it started to wear on him.
They also pointed out that right now our big movies and pop songs are mostly happy fluff.
It is interesting. I love Game of Thrones. I read the book. Watching the TV show does leave me with the question why did they take two sex scenes that were pretty out there, Dany's first time with the guy she has been sold too and incest next to a corpse, and decided that both of them needed more rape.Unlucky 13 likes this. -
NaboCane likes this.
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:lol: There really was a lot—a LOT—of crap on that list. But there were also shows that are (to me) top-ten of all time.
'NYPD Blue' is top-five for me, always, as is 'Law & Order'; 'Ally McBeal,' 'Murphy Brown,' and 'Ellen,' while not for everyone, were each seminal in advancing their genres and pushing boundaries; particularly 'Ally.'
'Buffy,' 'Xena' and 'X-Files,' while not for me, were immensely popular and well-written, well-produced.
'Frasier,' 'Coach,' 'Raymond,' 'Wings,' 'Mad About You,' 'Northern Exposure,' 'ER,' 'Friends,' 'Twin Peaks' were all either pioneering or iconic, either of which is a distinction not to be taken lightly.
I think that, barring genius-level stuff like 'Frasier,' we're in the midst of a golden age of television. I say that without irony. The fact that you have Laurence Fishburne and Anthony mother****ing Hopkins signing on to TV series says that in and of itself.
The one thing I do wish would resolve itself is the explosion of post-apocalyptic horror. Enough with that ****, already. I mean, the fact that absolute horse manure like 'Revolution' got the air time it did before finally, mercifully being cancelled is telling.Pagan likes this. -
Also, go back and watch Felicity season 1.
It was a great show. Touching, funny, well acted. -
Now since you desire to point out Seinfeld and X-Files as if they make the rest of that period all hunky dory, why don't you make a case for how amazing TV was at that time compared to what we have now. Tic-toc tic-toc. And LOL at your defensiveness of Buffy the friggin Vampire Slayer as if that teenybopper show is worthy of even standing in the shadow of one of today's movie turned TV series, Hannibal. -
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There is some really good television right now, however there is also a lot of really ****ty television. Especially all the Lost ripoffs.Pagan likes this. -
the current trend is for everything to be dark and gritty. It'll probably swing back the other way eventually.
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Not sure what dramas you were accustomed to watching that were more impressive, better written, acted, and filmed than much of the recent stuff like:
House of Cards
Breaking Bad
Suits
Deadwood
The Newsroom
Rectify
Terriers
Satisfaction [the new USA Network drama]
Top of the Lake
The Fall
The Americans
The Bridge
Halt and Catch Fire
Utopia
Orange is the New Black
Rake {Australian}
The Killing
Broadchurch
House of Lies
Hell on Wheels
Californication
Weeds
The Big C
Homeland
.... and other well regarded stuff that I haven't gotten around to yet like:
Downton Abbey
Orphan Black
Justified
Tyrant
Sons of Anarchy
Davinci's Demons
Awake
Rubicon
Bosch
Turn
Nurse Jackie
Shameless
Out of curiosity, what from the above have you attempted to watch?
what about:
Misfits
The Inbetweeners
Party Down
Banshee
Sherlock
Game of Thrones
Hannibal
Fargo
The Wire
True Detective
Luther -
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It was not a teenybopper show any more than Up is solely a children's movie. -
I couldn't care less about Two & Half and Big Bang. Personally, I'd take the collective of Californication, Impractical Jokers, Misfits, The Inbetweeners, Archer, The League, Party Down, It's Always Sunny, Arrested Development, Weeds, Blue Mountain State, Key & Peele, Eastbound & Down, Modern Family, House of Lies, Veep, Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, Orange is New Black, Legit, Family Guy, Nurse Jackie, The Office, and My Name is Earl any day of the week over that ad-nauseum stuff of 20+ years ago. Seinfeld, Cheers, and Married with Children aren't enough to carry that generation compared to what today has to offer IMO. -
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Lay off Buffy Todd. Half of what TV today is thanks to Buffy. Most of the show runners of today got their start as writers/producers on Buffy/Angel. Hush and The Body episodes hold up against anything out there today. Luckily Firefly was one of the first shows to be filmed for widescreen so it holds up today (although that also made it's budget that much more expensive which helped in cancellation ;p). The real big change between tv now and then is the change to digital and cgi. Remember most of those old shows were filmed on 35mm back when 27" box tv's were still the thing.
Shows that Buffy's/Angel's writers/producers went on to also produce/write/show run: Lost, 24, Fringe, Mad Men, Glee (sadly), Grimm, Spartacus, The upcoming Netflix Daredevil series, Smallville, Once Upon A Time, BSG/Caprica, Warehouse 13, Torchwood (Final Season), Alias, Arrow and more. -
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Demographically speaking, of the 81,000 IMDb votes Buffy received, the show's highest average rating was from Females under 18 [9.1], followed by Males under 18 and Females 18-29 [both at 8.6]. Noticeably lowest is Males 30-44 [7.8]. Meanwhile Males 45+ saw a slight bump [8.0], which I'm guessing speaks more to the fantasizing aspect it presents to older men.
And let's not forget we're talking about the WB here, not AMC, FX, USA, Showtime, or HBO. Their indisputable target audience at the time was teenagers, especially females, courting them with Buffy, Dawson's Creek, Smallville, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Popular [about 2 high school girls], 7th Heaven, High School Reunion, and Beauty and the Geek.
I understand it has its place in history, but some of you are talking about it as if it would rival The Wire, Breaking Bad, GoT, or House of Cards in quality and overall enjoyability. The fact is, Buffy's 7.8 rating from Males 30-44 is so far behind the top rated shows of today that I'd have to scan through a dozen pages on IMDb's top-rated list just to reach it, falling roughly on par with the BBC's Being Human that comes in at 7.6 for Males 30-44 but places below GoT [9.4], The Walking Dead [8.6], Fringe [8.3], The Strain [8.2], Misfits [8.2], American Horror Story [8.1], Orphan Black [8.1], Almost Human [8.0], Bates Motel [7.9], Jericho [7.9], and tied with True Blood [7.8], and just ahead of Arrow [7.7], Heroes [7.6], and Once Upon a Time [7.6]. -
House of Cards is rated 9.1.
Sherlock is at 9.3 from 285,000 users.
Rectify is one of the best dramas around and rates an impressive 8.4, but I gave it a 9.
Newsroom rates an 8.7; I gave it a 9.
Halt & Catch Fire is at 8.2.
Deadwood rates 8.9, but if you watched it from the beginning and couldn't get into it, then I guess you scratch it from the list.
Try FX's lone season of Terriers, rated 8.6... and if you like the sci-fi/supernatual stuff then check out Misfits [rated 8.4] and Utopia [8.4]. -
ToddPhin and cuchulainn like this.
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Seriously since you've barely watched it you really have no grounds to speak about it like you do. Hence your reliance on IMDB ratings for a show that ended before IMDB was a popular site (A lot of those ratings are now coming from teens whose parents grew up on Buffy). You have no idea of it's relevance at the time and what it did for TV moving forward. In fact you can't even bring up network shows around it's time. The best you could do was hit the start of the cable renaissance that happened at the end of Buffy's run (circa 2002 with the debut of The Wire and The Shield)
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/joss-wh...ire-slayer-predicted-joss-whedons-marvel-work
http://io9.com/5913850/10-tv-episodes-that-changed-television
10 episodes that show how Buffy The Vampire Slayer blew up genre TV
http://www.avclub.com/article/10-episodes-that-show-how-ibuffy-the-vampire-slaye-89781
Also made #41 in TV's guides 50 best shows of ALL time (3rd in their all time genre shows). #2 on Empire's 50 greatest all time tv shows. It's in Time's 100 best shows of all time.schmolioot likes this. -
TV is better today, not necessarily because of the particular quality of one particular show, but because the audience is so fragmented, and viewing patterns so diffuse, that it has allowed smaller and more niche networks to cater to smaller core audiences.
In the 90's you couldn't do that. All network shows had to appeal to a mass audience.
You keep bringing up Hannibal. It might be great. I've never seen it, but you are about the only person watching it. It barely even has genre appeal. NBC banished it to Friday nights. It doesn't even have a core loyal audience that might allow it to flourish elsewhere. Community is a great example of this. It was a failure by NBC standards but Yahoo Screen is more than happy to bring a million and half loyal viewers to its service.
Enjoy what you enjoy, but there is no reason to denigrate the great shows of the past. -
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I'm not a Netflix guy and don't do pay channels like HBO or Showtime, but I might check out the shows on channels like FX or USA. I tend to watch a lot of movies on FX and see commercials for their shows, and those have never "spoken" to me as something that would be my style, but I'm willing to give things a shot.
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