The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

i haven’t seen anyone compare ‘emily in Paris’ to Henry James

xps All the best shows lately have been comedies.

flops, i disagree? the market has changed where there is less reason for networks to invest millions in a complex, brainy, blockbuster violent-intrigue heavy-and/or-dour prestige drama but they are still very much being made and discussed! Better Call Saul, Fargo, Ozark, Power, For All Mankind, The New Pope, Morning Show, I May Destroy You, Unorthodox... and that's just a few of the non-genre ones (you might also incude Devs, Legion, Kingdom, Expanse, His Dark Materials, Westworld). if anything, the public's willingness (i think after the bridge?) to allow for non-usa shows to crack rotation has presented a lot more options for this sort of show.

Mid range tv shows are better for the investment and interest and talent now given to tv, top class tv shows id agree arent as good, the worst stuff is worse than ever because of the talent and investment thrown at horrific fan service

But its only a few years since twin peaks the return so...?

there's basically more good stuff available to watch right now (both new releases and classics) than anyone has time to see but it's not readily available from a single source unless you're willing to devote a fair amount of money and effort to organize it, is how i break it down to an extent. I could spend six hours a day for the next three months just getting caught up on backlog.

that's kind of my problem now is there's too much content to watch and I don't like to be confined to my house watching tv all day (which is why the pandemic has been a challenge). takes a lot for me to even decide what show to give a chance to next, esp since usually the stuff my friends are hyping is shit I don't like

A legal source u mean

i stand very much corrected

i'm surprised nobody at Netflix has done an edgy reimagination of Judy Blume's Fudge series

(waits for someone to tell me they already have)

you're thinking of Stranger Things

xp though honestly even if you go via torr3nts and who would do that not me, it is a LOT of work to use that network for discovery and regular updates.

WHICH IS WHY I WAS PUSHING ILPLEX AS A CURATOR ENGINE but it didn't quite catch on here. maybe because i put it in 77 out of an abundance of caution

Ozarks and Better Call Saul and etc. are a pretty big step down from Sopranos and The Wire.

flops, i disagree? the market has changed where there is less reason for networks to invest millions in a complex, brainy, blockbuster violent-intrigue heavy-and/or-dour prestige drama but they are still very much being made and discussed! Better Call Saul, Fargo, Ozark, Power, For All Mankind, The New Pope, Morning Show, I May Destroy You, Unorthodox... and that's just a few of the non-genre ones (you might also incude Devs, Legion, Kingdom, Expanse, His Dark Materials, Westworld). if anything, the public's willingness (i think after the bridge?) to allow for non-usa shows to crack rotation has presented a lot more options for this sort of show.

― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Friday, January 22, 2021 3:28 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is all a really generous way of saying that the combo of A) people feeling flattered when their middle-brow tastes are justified and B) Episodic TV giving writers 13 pieces of content a year instead of a movie's one funds the internet churn, so now we have to have 8 billion 12-paragraph articles comparing every episode of Brooklyn 99 to Dostoevsky

i'm arguing objectively (grim and gritty hour long dramas in the mold of the 2000's heights are being regularly produced) which i think can be absolutely asserted.

I think there's a non "insane" argument that the collective Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul epic can comfortably stand up quality-wise against, say Mad Men, but then we're arguing subjectively and i don't wanna be called a diaper drinker.

flops, i disagree? the market has changed where there is less reason for networks to invest millions in a complex, brainy, blockbuster violent-intrigue heavy-and/or-dour prestige drama but they are still very much being made and discussed! Better Call Saul, Fargo, Ozark, Power, For All Mankind, The New Pope, Morning Show, I May Destroy You, Unorthodox... and that's just a few of the non-genre ones (you might also incude Devs, Legion, Kingdom, Expanse, His Dark Materials, Westworld). if anything, the public's willingness (i think after the bridge?) to allow for non-usa shows to crack rotation has presented a lot more options for this sort of show.

― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Friday, January 22, 2021 3:28 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this proves my point tho. they stopped making new shows like this about 5 years ago

these are the ones you name that i would consider sopranos/the wire style (and similar budget/quality)

Better call Saul - 2015
Fargo - 2014
Westworld - 2016
The Young Pope - 2016

I’ve never heard of Power but it started in 2014. same for Kingdom. the most recent ones that kinda fit are Legion and Ozark are 2017. id personally say Ozark is a distinct level below golden age/prestige tv but ymmv. devs is absolute gutter m night shamyalan level of writing

it hasn’t completely died (hbo watchmen being one season is an exception that proves the rule) but it’s slowed to a trickle. I’m not the only person to have noticed this btw, there’s an article in TIME titled “Netflix’s Marvelous The Queen’s Gambit Is the Kind of Prestige Drama TV Doesn’t Make Anymore” (nb: i havent watched that show)

Forks ive availed of a not-entirely-undubious iptv service here that gives me p much everything going

Doesnt track where you are with series etc alright but thats life

what is that called, in cryptic googleproof code of course

anyways whiney raging against self congratulatory middlebrow tastes for prestige tv is like if he was still ranting abt chillwave; the world has moved on. the trend in tv has moved to something way trashier and closer to network tv pre-netflix disruption in quality of writing and acting. i wasn’t crazy about that much prestige tv but like compare ‘the crown’ to like ‘downtown abbey’ (which for all the criticism you can make of it had p sharp writing and was a hit during the peak of prestige tv) the attitude of the viewer is more “fuck it ill watch 16 hours of this” than “heh i am so smart i am like reading Jane Austen”

xxp

Oh never mind you already did!

I didnt, but its not an app so much as a subscription i pay a dodge provider for, not sure its offered overseas (but im sure theres local versions)

there is a torrent site I'm a member of that will give me a few months IPTV package for a small donation, but it seems like too much choice to me - you could be channel surfing for hours without seeing anything worth a shit!

anyways whiney raging against self congratulatory middlebrow tastes for prestige tv is like if he was still ranting abt chillwave; the world has moved on. the trend in tv has moved to something way trashier and closer to network tv pre-netflix disruption in quality of writing and acting. i wasn’t crazy about that much prestige tv but like compare ‘the crown’ to like ‘downtown abbey’ (which for all the criticism you can make of it had p sharp writing and was a hit during the peak of prestige tv) the attitude of the viewer is more “fuck it ill watch 16 hours of this” than “heh i am so smart i am like reading Jane Austen”

― flopson, Friday, January 22, 2021 4:11 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This may very well be true, but you would never know it by the IMPORTANCE that media/Twitter still put on TV shows

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-bad

ya the This Is Important And Here’s Why framing for every conceivable culturaL product seems here to stay

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-bad

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, January 22, 2021 4:22 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

my guess is sites like av club are full of nostalgia for golden age prestige tv. like this (also: lol)

As we approach the 10th anniversary of Mad Men’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday

flops, all those shows are currently running! if you're arguing that there's not a rush to make more of them, I'll concede that again but I thought i noted as much with "the market has changed." I may have misunderstood your point.

I may transfer to an IPTV package in the next year or so; this is all new stuff for me!

As we approach the 10th anniversary of Mad Men’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday

xp- yeah my arg is they’re not making new ones to replace em. once a show is proven successful it can run its course but they aren’t taking risks on new projects of that kind

fair enough.

A counterpoint though: the sudden entry of disney/apple/peacock; the renewed push by CBS as Paramount; the flop of Quibi and (fuck, please) the passing of COVID in the coming year means that the common wisdom of "bigger isn't necessarily better" and "passive watching rules" may rapidly flip flop back to the Mad Men stratagem as stations try to carve out space in Netflix's living room.

also hbo is DEFINITELY pumping out hour long dramas but they're all in collaboration with European partners and generally run six episodes.

I think Beforeigners has the potential to be the new Wire ...

The second story of The Killing (seasons 3 & 4) were up there with The Wire for me as well

was that the Sarsgaard era?

I remember really liking that one season anyway

Succession seems to me like the most obv omission from flopson's list

Self-consciously prestige, also much much more shakespearean than Wire or Sopranos

it's the one with the homeless kids ... and Joel Kinnaman made me want to marry him

Beforeigners is the Norwegian time travelling cop thing, right?

lol Succession is prob great for folks that like the Sopranos and can stomach watching such horrible people which ... I couldn't. Maybe if we hadn't spent 4 years with Trump as President I would be able to, but no.

oh yeah that was good. kinnaman adorable throughout xps

Yes, the Norwegian one with the Viking cop and the transtime community and the bougie porridge cafe

lol I have never heard of this show and it sounds unpossible

"Television Programs without Horrible People" sounds like a good thread to start and pretty challenging to name.

Sesame Street = Oscar the Grouch
Mr Rogers = I heard Daniel Striped Tiger killed some guy down by the bus depot

i will give beforeigners a look. there's too much stuff!

Succession rules

is Succession... a comedy? I kinda feel like it is?

it’s more like Arrested Development than Sopranos tho. milo was correct when he said all the good shows are comedies now

yeah I think it's best appreciated as a bone-dry black comedy