[Closed] Improvement in TV

TV was excellent in the 70s, maybe you didn't get the good stuff. Have a google for "Play for Today" and take a peek at the cast list for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.

Sopranos.

If I have to pick a single show that signposted the turning point then I'd go for Hill Street Blues.

Ah. I forgot the Sopranos. I think there is a connection between some writers on the Sopranos and those on Mad Men, incidentally.

For me it was shows like Oz and Six Feet Under that started the 'box set' revolution.

Six Feet Under

Good call.
First aired at stupid'o'clock on C4?,I felt like I was the only one watching it.

Yes, Hill Street Blues was a milestone. It's hard to watch now, but back in the day it was revolutionary. Sopranos changed tv forever, incredible casting and scriptwriting. The Wire, Deadwood, and Breaking Bad were amazing too, but Sopranos did it first.

Its the way that TV can be consumed thats changed.

Back in the 70's/80's even though you had a series with returning lead characters all the episodes needed to be self contained as with a week between episodes you had to allow for the fact that the viewer would miss stuff. So the A Team / The Hulk /David Hasslehoff / Starky and Hutch/Scooby Doo would turn up in a situation with its own cast of characters - play their part - the story would resolve and they'd move on. Next week they'd enter a new situation, take nothing they'd learned in the past episode with them into it, meet new strangers and leave them again, with all the main characters pretty much unchanged, un-aged by everything they've just encountered, they didn't even get a change of clothes or a haircut from one story to the next. With a series from that era you could watch the episodes in any order as the cast all return to exactly where they started at the end of each story.

With TV now a series has a life as a 'box set' either physically or digitally'. Which means rather than move from world to world and gather nothing along the way the story can sit in one world and grow and grow in it. So you get lovely TV like the Wire which starts on a bench on a street corner and grows to envelope the whole city- you get to know people, they get to know each other and the can grow, learn, and be changed by their experiences instead of being the weird ageless, immutable and amnesiacs they had to be in the 80s.

You still get stuff thats a throw back - the various CSI franchises are pretty old fashioned in still having each episode being self contained. The characters do have their own evolving story life but theres very, very little of it and its very much in the background of each episodes stand alone story line.

I remember an interview with Peter David (I think) talking about the difference between writing for Star Trek and writing for Babylon 5. Star Trek usually followed an A-B-A format: Everything starts in a known state, something happens to upset that balance, then it's resolved back to the known state. Babylon 5 aimed for an A-B-C format: Everything starts in one state, something happens and once it's stopped happening everything is in a new state.

Babylon 5 and other shows had strong ongoing narratives while still maintaining a weekly format so I'm not sure that the advent of "box set TV" is really the thing that inspired this change. It's possibly something to do with the increasing number of options available - you need to put more effort hooking people into coming back to your show if there's a lot of other shows competing for their attention.

While I realise that a lot of TV from my earlier years was pretty rubbish, and I recognised the quality of many of these shows with ongoing stories, I find that I'm quite a light watcher of TV these days. I rarely feel like I want to put in the commitment to watch a show for an extended period of time to get the best out of it. That means when I do dip into TV these days I tend to end up watching quite a lot of sitcoms or cartoons as there aren't so many dramatic shows that are worth watching if you haven't seen all preceding episodes and plan to watch all those that follow.

Dexter?

Some mothers do 'av 'em?

Open all hours?

In the 70s Timker tailor, house of cards then smileys people all great shows, telling epic tales but

Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Godfather, spielberg epics like ET etc etc etc movies were king

I think it was [b]Twin Peaks[/b] that really put out something bold enough to challenge cinema's dominance

Star Trek, next gen did have some ABC stories, by the time Ronald Moore was doing it it was pretty good, and he aced it wth DS9 (and then paramount ruined things with Voyager)

Buffy
X-files -both long term story arcs as well as 'monster of the week'

B5 was very impressive, from the get go

Oz, was where it got grown up

Sopranos, it is what it is

Since then its just got better

while cinema has become afraid to take risks- remakes, reboots, adaptations and sequels only

The whole boxset thing is great for watching the characters grow and building on all the historical storylines,but there was something exciting about when you had to wait a week for the next episode. 🙂

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I agree with The Sopranos in '99 being the turning point, it wasn't night and day, it took a good few years before anyone was brave enough to spend that sort of money on TV and really invest in writers, directors, cast, crew etc.

I think it's great, when Sky came around TV went rubbish, choice up, quality through the floor - I'd rather binge on a series of 'The Wire' over a few nights than watch a good film even. After Game of Thrones, Star Wars 7 all seems a bit rushed.

for me it seemed the box set watch em all in a day binging began with '24' and Kiefer Sutherland running around never going to the toilet or sleeping. The first series of that was 2001. Seems about right.

Hill St. Blues had story lines that extended past one episode and wasn't alone. There were good and bad programs in the 70's as there is now. It's not all great stuff now.

I think it was Twin Peaks

+1

Just watching it again now, hasn't aged nearly as much as I expected - possibly because it was more '50s than '90s anyway.

There were quite a few shows that set the tone really, most have been mentioned.

I recently re-watched most of X-Files and I think this was an important series. I've read before that TV and Cinema switched roles somewhere 2000 ish - all the really good stuff was on TV and films became shite.

It's taking off even more now with Netflix etc - distribution cost is so low that they don't have financiers and studios trying to reduce risk by sticking to the usual formula and bastardising the plots.

I rarely feel like I want to put in the commitment to watch a show for an extended period of time to get the best out of it.

Don't need to. You can polish off Man in the High Castle in a week. We didn't though, we wanted to savour it 🙂

Incidentally, some of the best telly I've ever seen is Daredevil series 2. I was amazed how a TV show could be that deep and that good.

You can polish off Man in the High Castle in a week. We didn't though, we wanted to savour it

I did two series of Game of Thrones over a weekend. it felt dirty, like eating all your easter eggs before lunch.

I do that too 🙂

I don't think there has been one "golden era" of TV. For me, the 70s were great, because of MASH and Porridge, and the 90s highlight was the X-Files. I don't really remember anything as good about the 80s, although Moonlighting and Miami Vice were probably the pick of the bunch.

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/thread.

St Elsewhere?

Mark Frost was a writer on [b]Hill St Blues[/b] and later put together Twin Peaks with David Lynch. Still one of the strangest and most unsettling pieces of network television I have ever seen. Ok, the second season largely sucked because Lynch had gone (till the final episodes) but still.....

Noseybonk was also quite unsettling, I might add, but nothing to do with this. 🙂

Agree with ChrisL's synopsis. Very accurate.

TV programs with films budget due to a "smaller" world allowing a larger market.

and

Now films more like big budget TV programs ... Marvel series of films or Star Wars with its new spin offs.

It good until you flick on the TV, on a saturday evening and there's absolutely nothing to watch on "normal" Tele.... Casualty vs X factor

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How about the West Wing for an ongoing story, or even earlier Edge of Darkness.

Like almost everything, there is very rarely a huge jump, more incremental changes from year to year as quality of the best stuff improves and challenges others to step up to the mark.

The West Wing has 7 series. First thing I ever binge watched.

Also, I think TV wasn't considered "worthy" for actors for a long time.

Now you've got some of the greatest actors of their generation really pushing the format (Spacey, West etc).

Didn't make it past series one of The West Wing, saw it as an infuriatingly self-satisfied liberal soap-opera/fantasy.

Did anyone watch "Homicide: Life on The Street"?

Written by David Simon who went on to do The Wire. Was on at 1130 on a Tuesday night or something. Channel 4 naturally.

Oz was brutally compelling TV too.

It's thought that we're currently enjoying "The Golden Age of TV", I think that might have passed as now there is too much TV to watch everything!

Hill Street Blues had a lot of serialized story arcs, it moved away from a purely episodic format. It also used hand held cameras, which made it feel very different to the average tv show back then. Most major characters had serious character flaws: alcoholism, drug use, gambling, racism, etc. Many of the criminals were somewhat sympathetic characters, especially the gang members. Nowadays, we take all those things for granted, but back then, it was revolutionary.

But surely the pinnacle of TV *was* Knight Rider? 😀

To be honest, most TV I watch is old stuff. Only Game of Thrones of modern era peaks my interest and even then I've got bored of it for some reason. Well, there is Doctor Who of course. Always good, well mostly.

But surely the pinnacle of TV *was* Knight Rider?

Knight Rider had nothing on The Dukes of Hazzard. BJ and the Bear was pretty awesome too.

Did anyone watch "Homicide: Life on The Street"?

Written by David Simon who went on to do The Wire. Was on at 1130 on a Tuesday night or something. Channel 4 naturally.

I watched it after 'The Wire' ended and they refused to make any more, it's pretty good.

For me, really great TV series need a central core story with a begin and an end. There will always be little sub-plots and stuff, but without a core story it's loses meaning for me.

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Yeah it was shit but modern TV is awful with only a few exceptions.

BillOddie - Member
Did anyone watch "Homicide: Life on The Street"?

Written by David Simon who went on to do The Wire. Was on at 1130 on a Tuesday night or something. Channel 4 naturally.

Oz was brutally compelling TV too.

It's thought that we're currently enjoying "The Golden Age of TV", I think that might have passed as now there is too much TV to watch everything!

POSTED 27 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST
holst - Member
Hill Street Blues had a lot of serialized story arcs, it moved away from a purely episodic format. It also used hand held cameras, which made it feel very different to the average tv show back then. Most major characters had serious character flaws: alcoholism, drug use, gambling, racism, etc. Many of the criminals were somewhat sympathetic characters, especially the gang members. Nowadays, we take all those things for granted, but back then, it was revolutionary.

Tom Fontana created (wrote/produced) Oz and then Homicide,

For me, really great TV series need a central core story with a begin and an end. There will always be little sub-plots and stuff, but without a core story it's loses meaning for me.

You're totally right, but one of the very best shows of the last decade (Deadwood) didn't get an ending. Tragic when so much dross gets recommissioned now.

fear not chkaping !!

http://collider.com/deadwood-movie-update/

A lot of stuff that seemed lightweight as a kid wasn't so fluffy- I remember watching Cagney and Lacey as a throwaway silly US cop show, I don't remember the whole alcoholism arc thing...

chakaping - Member

Didn't make it past series one of The West Wing, saw it as an infuriatingly self-satisfied liberal soap-opera/fantasy.

Did you not even make it to episode 3, "A Proportional Response"? Not any sort of liberal fantasy. That's one of the things that made it so good, Sorkin was obviously in love with his characters but that doesn't stop him making them screw up, be arseholes, and generally fail to get the job done, often because they're self-satisfied liberals. And a lot of that is prescience; Bartlett is basically foiled by stalemate in congress and much of it is about dealing with that, or not- the west wing had a fiscal cliff before fiscal cliffs were cool.

Hate to say it...

But it was Buffy.
Studios quickly realised that investment in plot arcs, decent sets & good writing would "sell" to content providers internationally.

Funny since BBC were dumbing down Dr Who & Blakes 7 etc.around the same time !!

The early 80s was a great time to be a kid, telly-wise. Not sure there was all that much for the oldies. You had Edge of Darkness, which needs to be repeated, and then you had to wait for the 90s for the likes of GBH, Our Friends in the North etc.

Turning point in terms of bigger budget US 'box sets' has to be 24.

Hate to say it...

But it was Buffy

Nah. Buffy was naff lightweight cheesy soap with vampires in it. No different to Charmed really.

Jeremy Kyle

molgrips - Member
Hate to say it...
But it was Buffy

Nah. Buffy was naff lightweight cheesy soap with vampires in it. No different to Charmed really.

incorrect!

It had decent writing for a start, the characters developed throughout and accross the series, each with their own well defined story, it tackled some adult themes, had some great dark & comedy moments and it was hugely popular, showing networks that you could tell a long story to completion and people will buy it. (even if the network thought they were getting a teen soap vehicle for SMG when they started it)

Decent writing my arse.

First series or two maybe, but it was trite as hell after a while.

Might've been popular but that doesn't mean it was quality 🙂

It wandered a bit in the middle (anti-monster army stuff) but later series where willow went gay and evil were very good
It also had a defined ending and relied on prior knowledge to get the best of individual episodes, unlike soaps

you need a refresher 😀

http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/buffy-the-vampire-slayer/249835/the-25-best-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-episodes

It doesn't compare to X files in any way.

Oh - anyone remember Taken?

Boys from the Blackstuff from the 1980's

Never got the appeal of Buffy. Popcorn teen sci fi. Russell Davies modelled New Who on it and that had a bit of that element at times and some ridiculous series finales. I was just relieved they didn't Jump The Shark and do a musical episode! Moffat changed the style and improved it massively.

Anyway, there are all kinds of turning points in TV. Robin of Sherwood for example. Still holds up well today. BBC's later effort went with the popcorn angle again.

Go back further, The Prisoner was ground breaking. Again it's a fantastic watch today, and again far superior to the remake even if at first glance you think it's dated.

Watched the musical episode again, recently it's brilliant, characters reveal loads of things in song that they otherwise wouldn't have done that have lasting repercussions.
Again long-term story arcs that you just didn't see in other stuff at the time

It also had a female lead who was the most powerful person in the series and she didn't have to wear a princess Leia bikini or wonder woman hotpants

I think you all need to go back and boxset the hell(mouth) out of buffy, there's silly stuff but some amazingly well done bits too,
The Body is a brutal episode for

Popcorn teen sci fi

There were plenty of other dark moments, GOT wasnt the first show to kill off major characters and buffy was great at showing the legacy of that
A proper gay relationship, good people doing bad things making mistakess and dealing with the fallout, Faith, Dawn, Anya, Willow, Xander, Christopher all had done very dark storylines

I contend that Buffy was the first 'box set', multi season show that allowed characters to evolve and even die coming to a definite conclusion after 7 great seasons.

Without it we might not have had GOT or even the wire

(Tho Twin Peaks just as important)

fear not chkaping !!

http://collider.com/deadwood-movie-update/

My wife mentioned this, good to hear it's still on track.

Would have preferred another full series obvs.

TV peaked at M*A*S*H with Royale Family getting an honourable mention imo ... hardly watch anything now, Great British Bake Off and Andrew Marr is about it. Nature stuff and even Panorama / Dispatches has been dumbed down, news available from different sources, sit-coms seem to be rehashes of what we've seen before.

Buffy
X-files -both long term story arcs as well as 'monster of the week'

I'm pretty sure that the X-Files and BtVS are the origin of the terms "monster of the week" and "big bad" respectively. By the by.

They were the first shows I thought about (and two of my all-time favourite shows). They were - if not absolutely the first then certainly amongst the first - non-soapy shows to move away from what someone earlier called an A-B-A format and what I've always known as the Big Red Reset switch.

The problem with story arc shows is that if you miss the early shows you were broadly screwed. These days you've got catch-up TV and box sets and the like (and rampant piracy via torrent sites) which dodges that bullet. That and you've got the elephant in the room which is US syndication; in order to be syndicated you need at least a certain number of episodes and they have to stand up to being shown / viewed out of sequence; whether this is still the case I don't know.

What they did with the X-Files was to make the overall story arc a secondary concern; so regular viewers were rewarded, but occasional viewers weren't left bamboozled. It used to annoy me that there wasn't [i]more[/i] continuity; like, they'd have an episode around Scully's mother being gravely ill, then the next episode there'd be nothing. A throw-away "how's your mom?" in passing would've scratched that itch and not caused problems, so I'm not sure why they never did that.

BtVS employed a different trick. It started out as monster-of-the-week fluff with the story arc being a "blink and you'll miss it" rumbling of a "big bad" culminating in a finale kind of like Doctor Who's "bad wolf" story arc. Missing earlier shows wasn't terribly important. However, what they did which was revolutionary was to gradually switch to an arc-driven show as the serieseses progressed. The final season was entirely story arc; they got away with it because after six seasons had past the "casual viewers" were few. By S7 you were either hooked or you were never going to be watching it.

Other shows have since done the same thing to great effect. Deep Space 9 leaps to mind. The first couple of series were classic reset-switch Trek (and arguably dreadful). By the end the last series - if not the last two, my memory is hazy - the show is one long sprawling story (and IMHO the best thing ever to come out of the Star Trek franchise).

Without The X-Files and BtVS pioneering the arc format, there'd be no Breaking Bad. And you can believe that as fact because I've written it on the Internet.

hardly watch anything now

It's not often that you're right, but you're wrong this time.

Frasier?

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story? (Never actuall watched the box set I bought tho!)

Regarding Buffy - the episode that always sticks in my mind is Hush where the bad guys stole everyone's voices. Hardly any dialogue for a whole episode - pretty brave TV

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story?

It is, yes.

the episode that always sticks in my mind is Hush

Hush is quite brilliant, and one of the creepiest episodes they made.

If you want brave, that's Once More With Feeling.

Thinking the remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty big arc driven story?

It was great, right up until (I think?) about half way into the last series when it jumped the shark in a huge way by trying to wrap up all the loose ends. I'm not sure if it was intended to be this way or if it was compromised by not getting recommissiond and trying to do something meaningful with the time they had left but the last few episodes in particular were a mess which was a real shame as the rest of it was very good.

If you want brave, that's Once More With Feeling.

Yup - it's a shame most things these days are too dark, serious & po-faced to have fun like that.

HBO has an awful lot to do with this.
Lots of notable earlier programs mentioned, but it was HBO that invested in, and drove, quality programming especially in the 'box set' season arcs that we're used to now..

Did you not even make it to episode 3, "A Proportional Response"? Not any sort of liberal fantasy. That's one of the things that made it so good, Sorkin was obviously in love with his characters but that doesn't stop him making them screw up, be arseholes, and generally fail to get the job done, often because they're self-satisfied liberals. And a lot of that is prescience; Bartlett is basically foiled by stalemate in congress and much of it is about dealing with that, or not- the west wing had a fiscal cliff before fiscal cliffs were cool.

The characters were the liberal fantasy IMO, not the plots (which were fine).

Veep is a far more accurate depiction of US politics, I reckon. Or even Parks & Rec.

Didn't Invaders do the whole large, arcing storyline thing, in the 60s? I only saw the re-runs, but loved that show.

+1 for Buffy: That show pretty much had everything, and was very well written.

I'm sticking with Twin Peaks, but would like to give an honourable mention to...
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I know it's a product of its time, but could they look any less threatening? John Thaw looks like someone's swapped a gun with his cup of tea.

I know it's a product of its time, but could they look any less threatening? John Thaw looks like someone's swapped a gun with his cup of tea.

It was for the kids' annual.

And considering the adult themes in the show, it's a bit odd that they did one of them - when you think about it.

there are all kinds of turning points in TV. Robin of Sherwood for example.

I meant to say,

Did you know Big Finish have recently commissioned a full cast audio drama of RoS?

ROS The Hounds of Lucifer was on youtube, still stands up very well

just seen its no longer on there 🙁

And considering the adult themes in the show, it's a bit odd that they did one of them - when you think about it.

I used to be allowed to stay up late just so that I could watch the Sweeney. I just checked the transmission dates and I would have been between 8 and 11 when it was on the telly. That's some bad parenting right there.

Come to think of it, Bored to Death with Ted Danson and Jason Schwartzman was superb, and quite unlike anything else. Another good example of what I think of as 'new tv'.

But it was Buffy.
Studios quickly realised that investment in plot arcs, decent sets & good writing would "sell" to content providers internationally.

As said, later on, yes. Earlier stuff - not so much (the first series is hilariously bad).

Shame Firefly and Dollhouse got canned, they both had great potential. As did Life.

Glad someone mentioned The Prisoner!

What I miss is the westerns.
Growing up in the 70's it was none stop.
Alias Smith and Jones, Casey Jones, The High Chaparral, The Virginian just the ones I remember.
I'm sure not the best TV but still great fun.

kimbers - Member 
Watched the musical episode again, recently it's brilliant, characters reveal loads of things in song that they otherwise wouldn't have done that have lasting repercussions.

I've seen loads saying that it's one of the best episodes and sure it may be a very well made musical episode, but it doesn't belong in it. It takes you right out of the show and turns fiction into farce. Even if it's good farce, it doesn't belong.

I thought that when I first watched it years ago deadkenny
Redid the whole boxset last year and I've changed my mind

It's basically the counterpoint to Hush, the premises are almost exactly the same, so you can't say it doesn't fit with the show.
In Hush demons prevent everyone from talking so they have to communicate in other ways to show how they feel and what they will do,
In Once More a demon makes them sing what they feel and they can't hold back. I'm no fan of musicals which is why it took me q while to get it,

but it was a pivotal plot device that changed every relationship in the show, Tara realised Dawn was changing her menories and decides to dump her, Giles realises dying changed buffy and that she's outgrown him, Xander and Anya realise they don't want to get married, and Spike and Buffy air their feelings.

It actually sets up every story thread for the next season, the fall of willow, death of Tara, the death of Anya and the breaking of Xander.

Not to mention that it was technically very impressive, the songs brilliantly written and pretty much unparalleled in TV, (used effectively in family guy and south park, but it's easier animated)

Wheddon had Danny hart sized balls to pull that off

It no better today than it was, just more international hype now. This Life was 20 years ago and class, and then Brideshead Revisted was 35 years ago.

So what this thread proves, is that there's been no turning point where TV "improved", there's always been quality stuff amongst the dross, probably since the 60s/70s. Now there are more channels, there are more decent programmes, as you'd expect really. There's also a million times more dross and it's worse than it ever was.

I'm no fan of musicals which is why it took me q while to get it,

but it was a pivotal plot device that changed every relationship in the show,

+lots.

This is why it was so very very clever. When it was announced everyone went, "oh god, they've jumped the shark." But it was done to a high standard as musicals go, is so far as the songs were as catchy and diverse as any mainstream musical (you can buy the soundtrack CD and everything), but moreover it was as you say a hugely pivotal episode where everything that had been building all season came to a head. Everyone's plotline changes as it's revelation after relentless revelation.

A standalone "monster of the week" musical episode would've been a throw-away puff piece, something we'd look back at and cringe. The story itself should've been massively dark high drama. Throw them together and you've got... it shouldn't work. It couldn't work. It's can't work. And yet, somehow, it ended up being one of the stand-out episodes of the show. Go to any sci-fi / fantasy convention to this day and there will probably be a session were they've organised a OMWF sing-along (and no lyrics needed because everyone knows the words).

To take an episode which is life-changing for pretty much every main character in the ensemble cast and bundle it up in what by any other name would be a trashy and forgettable novelty episode, that's not just brave, it's insane genius.

So what this thread proves, is that there's been no turning point where TV "improved", there's always been quality stuff amongst the dross,

It's improved because there is way more quality stuff on now. And with more variety with the quality.

You couldn't watch a really deep high brow superhero show 30 years ago.

Early leaders for me; The (60s) Prisoner (hey, I watched it on video), Twin Peaks, B5, X Files, Buffy, 24, Sopranos. Where longer plots started to stand out as the thing that drove the show. That's what started attracting the top talent in acting away from cinema. As Kiefer Sutherland said, for the last ten years, if you want to act in quality drama, you don't do cinema any more. Cinema now is [s]all[/s] more CGI action explosions. Sure, there's drama and plot thrown in, but its not so much An Officer and a Gentleman type stuff getting regular big releases, is it Marvel?

BTW did I miss the post where someone mentioned The Simpsons? A prime time cartoon, with adult humour thrown in, and it was good and [s]ran for [i]ages[/i][/s] is still running. And it had people queuing up to get cameos.