I haven't had cable TV in many years, and the last time I had it, it was only because it was in a low-cost bundle with Internet. I think I used it to get weather coverage during Irma, until I realized I was better off just looking at the NHC/NOAA site every six hours (no morons standing outside in the wind). I say that to mean that there's very little to get excited about on old school network TV, and the cable networks seem to only make reality shows now. But streaming turned out to be something more important.
Netflix started streaming a long time ago, but for the longest time, most of what they had was ancient movies and some old TV shows. In 2013, House of Cards was I believe the first Internet-only show to win an Emmy, and they've had one or two big shows every year. Hulu initially had all of the big network shows other than CBS, and that made it a good transition service for cord cutting. Amazon started making their own stuff, none of it very good at first, but if you were already a Prime subscriber, it didn't matter. They finally started producing some original stuff, and in 2017 they scored their first Emmy for The Handmaid's Tale. HBO was already playing the hybrid game there, and they largely took the flagship show approach and translated it online. Disney finally got into it under the brand name (they have always owned some or most of Hulu) in 2019. Amazingly, they were recognized for shows like The Mandalorian right away, and the service I thought was just going to lean on its huge catalog made some really great new stuff for the Star Wars and Marvel universes. They've had some great documentaries under their National Geographic imprint as well. Apple came in swinging with a bunch of great shows, while Discovery Networks put their catalogs online for cheap (they're now combining with HBO), and NBC and CBS put up services that are, well, they have shows.
When you remove the scarcity problem, meaning a limited number of television networks, there are more opportunities for stuff to get made. And with all of these services competing, they needed to make new things that would really attract an audience. It was a perfect storm to make a ton of great shows. This week, we said goodbye to two of the best: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Ted Lasso.
Maisel started in 2017, but I think we didn't start watching until the year after. The third season was released at the end of 2019, and I know we didn't start watching until the pandemic started. By then, we were totally sucked in. The imagery of New York in the late 50's, glamorous as it appeared, with "Midge" dressed in arguably the best costumes of any period show, was magnetic enough, but the entire cast was stellar in every way. The feminist themes were anywhere from subtle to obvious, but never preachy, and as relevant as ever (unfortunately). They managed to tie up the loose ends and end it with a very satisfying final season. Every episode just ended with a "wow."
Ted Lasso was the show that was perfect for its timing. Apple came out strong with show runner Bill Lawrence (Spin City, Scrubs, Cougar Town) and paired him with insanely good writers that included Jason Sudeikis to bring what started as an NBC promo gag to life as a story. There's really only one bad guy in the whole show, and it's insanely positive. Maybe it's even idealistic, but I feel like it's something we all needed in 2000, and even today. This one also had a brilliant cast, and the writing is so, so good.
These two shows are the biggest standouts for me, but they sit in a crowded field of shows that I've really loved, including some of those Star Wars and Marvel shows. Ten years ago I was mostly watching The Voice and a lot of home improvement shows (still doing the latter) more as time wasters or background than anything else. I would watch a few network shows, but it was hard to stay into those long, 20+ episode seasons. I remember eventually tiring of things like This Is Us and The Blacklist. Heck, when they brought back 24, it wasn't even 24 episodes!
But I do have a running list of favorite shows, and Maisel and Ted Lasso join a short list that include The Newsroom, Sports Night and a few others. I think this era may be ending, as it seems everyone is pulling back right now on production as the streamers try to get to profitability. Hopefully we'll still see surprise hits, including some of the single run things like The Queen's Gambit. And hey, it's worth noting that even YouTube provides a distribution mechanism for some great things out there in terms of the science stuff that Discovery used to have, and it's where we watch all of the late-night shows, only during the day and only the segments we want to see.
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