I try not to get worked up even into a small lather about most things involving television these days. Oh, but a state-of-the-industry hot take — that still gets me, even when it shouldn’t.
There’s a very popular and extremely expensive Substack dedicated to the television industry and I got a free six month pass to that not long ago. Well, let’s just say it didn’t take me more than six days to see the faults. The dire predictions. The negativity. But look, people in the television industry — particularly executives — seem incapable of resisting negative coverage and especially negative hot takes about their industry, no matter how poorly written and dead-horse beaten they are.
As one of the few — the very few — critics who, alongside personal reviews actually simultaneously covered the industry as a beat with real sources, I can tell you that industry trend stories gone wrong are the kinds of things I need to learn to ignore if I want to live longer, especially because there are so many of them and so few of them — so very few — are any good or have any merit.
Ah, but it’s not THAT unnamed ‘Stack that got me annoyed on Tuesday. It was instead the New York Times, which, I must admit, has become quite adroit at generalized annoyance the last few years, even if I still believe in it as one of the last bastions of journalism, flaws and all.
New York Times entertainment writers were busy writing about the Emmys — an event that I did not watch nor care to watch Monday night, but I certainly wasn’t against a little light Tuesday morning reading about who won, just so that I could note it for posterity (and doing that of course made me realize the series and actors that didn’t win, which shouldn’t have surprised or rankled me but, largely because of the unholy exclusion of “Better Call Saul,” it did).
But I digress.
And while digressing during my reading I came across a hot take — writer and link not mentioned or given — about how the Emmys felt like the end of the Peak TV Era and the the end of something else and then something else after that.
Look, I’ve been there, people. You’re on a deadline. The vague outlines of a theme emerge and you go with it. Maybe in time you’ll regret it but there are very few regrets in daily journalism — you write your piece, you make it great or mediocre or sadly regrettable and then you forget it about it because tomorrow there is something else you’ll need to write, hopefully with more clarity and quality.
So I do not begrudge this person his theories, made up seemingly on the fly, about the end of things.
Is it the end of the Peak TV Era? Probably. Until it isn’t. Maybe it’s a pause, not an ending. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’ve said it was over and dead myself. Did it feel like a lot of shows that had their final seasons — namely “Succession,” “Atlanta,” “Barry,” “Better Call Saul,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and some I’m forgetting (“Reservation Dogs”?)— were in the running for their last chances?
Yeah? I mean, if you’re paying attention to the dead and departed and not all the new things, or shows like “The Bear” that appear to be unstoppable for another season or two. Yeah, you could get a “this feels over” vibe.
But I wasn’t buying that. I don’t feel like an era has ended. Back when “The Wire” or “The Sopranos” or “Breaking Bad” were wrapping I never felt like there wouldn’t be replacements, because of course there were, with “The Americans” and “Better Call Saul” and then “Succession” and “Barry” and “Atlanta” and scores of others.
Cycles come and go, but quality doesn’t. It’s always out there. It may not get an Emmy. It might not even get nominated for any categories in the Emmys. But quality television is there — across the globe. Even your hot take on trends can’t kill that.
As a full-time television critic, I had a strict rule about making my Top 5 (or 10, if you had to stretch it) Greatest Dramas of All Time — they had to run a minimum of five seasons. There are good reasons for that which no longer interest me and I won’t bore you with them, but I certainly stand by them, as far as cultural assessment goes.
But guess what? “Patriot” ran for exactly two seasons (on Amazon Prime); almost nobody watched it then (it’s arguably a cult classic now?), but this much remains true about that series: I can make a great case for it being one of the top five shows of the last 25 years.
Easy. I can do that in my sleep. In fact, I already did it.
“Patriot” never got shit, awards-wise. It got almost no attention outside of me and like a handful of others early on (and fewer, later). But it was and is unmistakably brilliant, every episode, for two seasons (and it’s a crime there wasn’t more). The point isn’t about that, however, it’s that there are a ton of “Patriot” like shows that keep getting made, regardless of era, regardless of awards, regardless of how many fellow “great” shows in the same span bowed out together.
I was getting, as I said, some deeply felt “this is the end” vibes from that NYT column — especially when the piece very accurately talked about not only a reduction of shows, thus at least temporarily slowing the Peak TV era, but the worrisome implosion of spending, of contraction, of the writers strike, etc. Bleak times, for sure.
Tossed in for on-trend fodder for hot takes was the suggestion that limited series may be a thing of the past, and soon. I read that and winced.
“Some television genres seem to be in some degree of peril,” was the very amorphous, hedge-your-bets intro to that part.
I’m sure SOME of them are, yes. Good guess.
And limited series, in the era of cutting back on irrationally exuberant spending, just might be a victim for a year or two. But in support of this “boy are THOSE days gone” theme was this paragraph:
“At the 2021 Emmys, the statue for best limited series was the final awards presented. This had long been a designation for best drama, and it signaled an admission by organizers that the category had become television’s most prestigious prize.”
Uh, nope.
Not then, not just before then, not any time in Emmy history.
Limited series are expensive high gloss, yes, but they are not anywhere near the best drama series or best comedy series level, no matter if they randomly close out a telecast or not.
The writer did accurately say the current mood for limited series seems diminished —right now the mood seems to be that it’s not worth all that money for a handful of episodes and then your big event is lost in the ether.
Maybe so. Streaming is a complicated commercial beast. But don’t underestimate television’s ability to throw money at Nicole Kidman or Reese Witherspoon to make a limited series. It’s cyclical. The cash will come back around and so will that kind of glossy Emmy bait.
And then there was this:
“Once again, investing in series with lots of seasons is a much bigger priority. And there is a good chance that television may start to look a lot like television from a couple of decades ago.”
No. Go home. You are drunk.
Television “from a couple of decades ago” was produced within an economic environment and established structure that allowed everyone to essentially print money. That world has been nearly erased by technology via streaming — there is no going back to it now.
To justify this take? The outlier buzz of “Suits” after “millions of people began watching reruns of the show on Netflix” this past summer.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
Never mind that Netflix ratings are about as well understood and transparent as bitcoin, or that bored people watching one mediocre but entertainingly old-school multi-episode catalog show is not a new thing, but the reversal of a colossal retraining of how people watch television will not hinge on “Suits” or, for that matter, “Friends.”
Do people, especially younger people, like to discover easily digestible shows that seem to have an endless amount of episodes? They sure seem to!
But go ahead — try to recreate “Friends.” I’ll wait.
Hell, try to recreate “Suits” or any number of “blue sky” USA shows if you want. I’m down for a new “Burn Notice” while you’re at it.
They were a product of a different time — when you could build seven or nine or so seasons of content while not being notably popular because 1) printing money allows you to do that and 2) see No. 1.
Also, look: good, entertaining shows that stick around are hard to make. There is no recipe.
Did something end, or “feel” like it ended, on Monday night when the Emmys, the delayed Emmys, feted a bunch of really good shows, some of which have ended their esteemed runs? Maybe. An era? Doubtful. A way of doing business? Absolutely not.
I brought up “Patriot” earlier because this New York Times hot take column — whether it intended to or not — seemed to suggest (at least to me as I read it) that not only was Peak TV over, but by association so were really high quality shows, because the Peak TV Era arguably churned out our Platinum Age of Television.
I was grumbling in my coffee — and I hadn’t even watched the damned Emmys. And then this little deft, ass-covering detour of a sentence:
“Of course, Peak TV-era quality television is not going away.”
Oh, well that’s good to hear.
I was getting the impression that it was the end. You know, of something.
It certainly wasn’t the end of the deadline-driven hot take, now was it?
Great television was there yesterday. It’s here today. It will be around tomorrow and after that. Maybe less of it? Who knows? Possibly. But what if there’s more of it, just in unexpected places? Also possible! It’s a big world.
Here’s my hot take: Awards shows are dumb and they don’t mean anything.
Very well put. Ebb and flows. And good shows and well as bad ones will always be there. But then who knows about “formats”. I read an article years ago that predicted the end of soap operas. I thought “no way”, but they are indeed on their last legs. Sure, they resurrect in other forms, still...
Since we're talking about competition, I feel that it's incumbent on me to mention that George Kittle has already beaten Packers TE Tyler Craft — over the summer at the Beer Olympics.
That is all.