As the internet squeals over Game of Thrones and the end of Mad Men, going wild on Thursday nights for Scandal and quivering with delight over upfronts, many are carrying on about how U.S. television is in a ‘golden age.’ I’m not as convinced, however—there’s a great deal to suggest, in fact, that we’ve passed our golden age and moved on to a dubious and somewhat sad decline, listlessly flopping along the airwaves while we wait for a revival.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t some good television on air—or recently off-air, in the case of Mad Men and Breaking Bad—but this is most definitely not the heyday of television. It’s a period in which the occasional gem is treated like a sign of the entire industry. A handful of good shows sprinkled across a veritable cascade of mediocre television does not a golden age make. Instead, it simply means that a few creators are doing something innovative and bold, while the rest sit in the middle of the pack.
Arguably, the golden age of television fell in the early 2000s, when a number of fantastic shows were airing across network and cable, but five really stood out: The Wire, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, and Arrested Development. All stood out for entirely different reasons, but they share something in common in their excellent writing and structure, smart decisions about filming and staging, and well-coordinated, thoughtful long-term plots. Moreover, many brought something entirely new to television, pushing the boundaries of the medium.
The Wire was rough and gritty—a not unusual framing for a police procedural—but it was also a highly personal view of class struggle, the streets of Baltimore, and corruption on the force. Unlike other procedurals, it was also aesthetically stunning, with brilliant cinematography to counteract the usual flat, dull filming of the genre. Notably, shows following in its footsteps attempted to emulate it, illustrating how seminal The Wire was when it came to procedurals.
Meanwhile, The Sopranos is often cited on top-ten lists because it represented a complex programme with character arcs spanning multiple seasons. The critically acclaimed series explored and humanised an experience that’s long been a pop culture trope in the U.S., but in an entirely new way. While viewers have long been fascinated by the Mob, this was a drama in which leaders of crime families sought psychological counseling and had a complex dynamic with their families.
More critically for modern television viewers and critics, The Sopranos represented a dramatic and key departure from traditional television narratives and storytelling narratives. It marked the first time an episodic drama was actually envisioned as a more complex series of interconnected stories with arcs reaching not just through entire seasons, but the programme as a whole. The Sopranos created the entire ethos of television as art film, and television as a long form craft.
Similarly, Six Feet Under provided a tight, intense multigenerational family drama with the background of a family-run funeral home to create a setting for drawing viewers in and keeping them engaged from episode to episode. The programme’s stark, sensitive portrayal of social issues paired with brilliant narrative, exquisite scripting, and highly dynamic, meticulous cinematography. Fans of the series benefited immensely from the earlier Sopranos, which set a new bar for episodic television and creators.
In turn, the series drove a narrative-focused version of television, illustrating that it was possible to tell long, complicated, elegant stories without losing viewers. Six Feet Under was immensely popular and continues to be a huge influence on television—and while Alan Ball may later have stumbled with True Blood, the show displays a very similar aesthetic and attention to detail, illustrating Ball’s lessons from Six Feet Under.
While The West Wing wasn’t as elegantly filmed, it was tightly scripted, and over the course of seven seasons, it provided a striking and intimate view of life in the White House and politics in general. As a programme that seemed at times strikingly naïve, with a belief in politics as a genuine force for change rather than a corrupt and complicated tangle of nepotism and capitalist power grabbing, The West Wing still managed to be a compelling example of television could be.
That was due in no small part to the women of the show, who were sharp, driven, and powerful. Each played a very different role in the enrichment of the narrative, and while it was troubling to see most leadership roles occupied by men, that began to shift over the course of seasons. While it was a fundamentally episodic programme, it also created opportunities for larger and more complex conversations about television and politics alike. Sorkin’s snappy dialogue, reminiscent in many ways of Joss Whedon’s, also played a critical role by establishing a striking standard for television: Even when serious, it had to be assertively funny, with the ability to cut to the core when needed.
Meanwhile, Arrested Development offered something completely different, with a programme dedicated to sheer ridiculousness that somehow managed, in its absurdity, to include sharp, sometimes poignant, comments on humanity. The show’s three broadcast seasons—alas, its revival is better left undiscussed—also shaped broadcast television and half hour comedies. While comedies are often set aside as a lesser genre in comparison to dramas like The Sopranos, they’re a key component of the golden age, illustrating a dramatic range in the medium.
To qualify as a golden age, an artistic era must be characterised by a plethora of work of a rich depth and breadth. The current television landscape simply doesn’t meet those requirements. There’s a tendency to crown any current era as the ‘golden age’—of music, art, medicine, or anything else—and it’s mistaken. The question is not what motivates and feels powerful now, but what will remain stunning when reflected upon in the future. The television of the early 2000s represents an incredible era in U.S. television, with countless stellar offerings that forever changed the shape and structure of television, rather than a mere handful of shows building on work already done—Breaking Bad, for example, might as well be Six Feet Under with meth instead of dead bodies, while Mad Men was a pale shadow of The Sopranos and its mix of business and family drama.
Television is past its golden age, but that doesn’t mean it won’t circle back again. To do that, however, creators need to be prepared to commit to working outside the box, and they need the backing of their studios, which is a bit of a challenge in an era when fear is a powerful motivator behind the distribution of development dollars. A show that pushes the envelope is one that could alienate advertisers, which worries networks.
Some might argue that the growth of online-only programming is evidence of a new age of television, but while it provides innovation in content distribution, the programmes themselves are not necessarily unique. Something has to give if the 2010s want to seize the ‘golden age’ crown from the 2000s. Until then, we’ll have to relive the golden age on Netflix.