If you haven’t been paying attention, the TV takeover is in
full swing, and it might even be on its last legs.
Last week I posted a piece about the recent lack of
cinematic masterpieces. But, while Sept. 21 could potentially mark the end of a
nearly five-year drought of great films, the downtime has provided ample
opportunity for television to establish itself as the most relevant medium.
The wide release of There
Will Be Blood, considered by many, including myself, to be the last great
film, took place on Jan. 25, 2008. Five days earlier, America was introduced to
Walter White and his terminal lung cancer.
“I would like to think this was a matter of chance.”*
In the four and a half years since, The Wire has ended and a Harvard Law School class on The Wire began, Dick Whitman and the
gang have received seven Emmys, Shane and Rick have dome-blasted somewhere in
the neighborhood of 2,500 zombies and some midget has tricked every person in
an entire kingdom (or something like that. I don’t watch that one.)
If we’re dead set on calling the 1950s and early-1960s the
Golden Age of Television, then I must propose that we call this current phenomenon
the Platinum Age of Television. Wikipedia describes the Golden Age as “…a time when
many hour-long anthology drama series received critical acclaim.” Remove the
word “anthology” and that’s the exact description of the current era, beginning
when those ducks waddled into Tony Soprano’s yard.
In hindsight, the reasons for America’s gravitation away from
film and towards television are clearer than a batch of Walt’s 99.1 percent pure
brew. We have become a generation of multi-taskers, and, while smartphones have
made all those tasks available no matter where we are, we have also become a
generation reliant on our comfort zones.
It’s the same reason the Rays and Orioles can’t even come
close to selling out their home games, despite being square in the middle of a
divisional championship race. It’s easier, cheaper and more comfortable to stay
home and watch from your couch. Your 60-inch HD TV displays just as good of a
picture as 90 percent of the seats in the stadium. A hot dog in your living
room doesn’t cost $5. The time you would spend sitting in your car waiting to
exit the parking lot can better be spent watching one of 1,000 other games on
one of your 10,000 other channels.
The same principle applies directly to television watchers,
even more so when you consider the fact that cellphone use is frowned upon in
movie theaters. On a Sunday night, would you rather spend $12 on a movie ticket,
spend $10 more on popcorn and soda, listen to the idiotic laughs and gasps of
200 strangers and stare at a screen almost too large to comprehend showing another
plotless sequel/remake or pop your own corn, nestle into the butt groove in
your couch (infinitely more comfortable than a theater seat) and scan Twitter
during commercial breaks of a superior program?
Ten years ago, you might still have answered with the former.
But it just so happens that as technology was advancing to the point that your
home experience is equal to or greater than a trip to the theater, a generation
of unbelievable writers, cinematographers and showrunners were taking their
talents to the small screen.
It’s not as if the film industry was Dan Marino and,
following his retirement, we were talking ourselves into the potential of Jay
Fiedler. No, we were replacing Brett Favre with Aaron Rodgers, and soon he was
winning MVPs and we were realizing that the successor might be even better than
the original.
Premium television now transcends the idea of procedurals. This
season of Breaking Bad was the
equivalent of a 362-minute film that I guarantee I could watch beginning to end
without a hint of boredom, something I can rarely say about any newly released
two-hour film.
But all of that could be changing.
When ASAC Schrader sat down to take a number two and finally
realized the identity of public enemy number one, it wasn’t what many of us
expected and it signifies a reality nearly as harrowing as the Godfather-esque
10-man murder montage. It truly is the beginning of the end of something that
can non-hyperbolically be called the best piece of media of the past half-decade.
With a mere eight episodes remaining of the best show on
television (Yes, I’m calling it that, and there’s nothing you can do about it)
and potential big screen greatness on the horizon (The Master, Lincoln, Django Unchained), it’s tempting to think we
may have come full circle.
I don’t buy it.
Breaking Bad is
not an outlier. In fact, less than a year ago, it was pretty much a consensus
that Mad Men was the superior AMC
drama. From The Sopranos to Six Feet Under to The Wire to Dexter to Game of Thrones to Homeland, there has been a steady stream of amazing television
shows pumping out of the ol’ boob tube for nearly 15 years.
Not to overuse Malcom Gladwell book titles, but Breaking Bad seems to be the tipping
point; the show that has finally brought premium television fully into the
mainstream. College kids are watching it. Twitter explodes during every
episode. And it’s nearly impossible to navigate the internet the following Monday
without stumbling over a recap. But the point is that it’s not alone. Its
success may even inspire an exponential growth in shows of the same ilk.
So, while Walt, Dex and Don may be calling it quits sooner
rather than later, I see no reason to believe they won’t be replaced by different
but equally mesmerizing characters soon enough. And, even though this Oscar
season looks to be a renaissance of original screenplays, it may be no more
than a flash in the pan.
The Paul Thomas Andersons and Quentin Tarantinos and Coen
Brothers of the world each make one movie every five years if we’re lucky. It
just so happens that two of them, along with Steven Spielberg, are releasing
films within four months of each other this fall.
I look forward to the upcoming peak, but I’m fully aware of
the drop off on the other side and the bottomless gulch that lies beneath,
lined with Hangover sequels and the
remake of Point Break.
In all honesty, I’d rather not think about those things
until I find out what exactly Walt’s going to do with that gun.
*One more thing. Then I have to go. First person to name the
reference from the fourth paragraph wins a prize.
Magnolia
ReplyDelete~Willy G~