NYT: The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV
NYT: The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV
This NYT article makes some good points, but without a good conclusion. Many TV shows are good, but not great. It is suggested that actors who were in great shows are used to make new, uninspired shows.
In February, Glover and Erskine returned in the action thriller “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” on Amazon Prime Video. It’s … fine? A takeoff on the 2005 film, it updates the story of a married duo of spies by imagining the espionage business as gig work.
People who are fans of Glover and Erskine from their previous work, will find the TV show to be engaging. The writing and directing are too weak to make this a great show.
They are not alone — far from it. Keri Russell, a ruthless and complicated Russian spy in “The Americans,” is now in “The Diplomat,” a forgettably fun dramedy. Natasha Lyonne, of the provocative “Orange Is the New Black” and the psychotropic “Russian Doll,” now plays a retro-revamped Columbo figure in “Poker Face.”
The author makes a great point. Keri Russell is fantastic in The Americans. Natasha Lyonne is impressive in a supporting role in Orange is the New Black and makes Russian Doll a stand-out TV show. Lyonne is fun to watch in Poker Face, but the writing isn’t as good as Columbo.
A New York Times critic heralded “The Sopranos” as possibly the greatest work of pop culture in a quarter century. “Deadwood” was likened to Shakespeare, “The Wire” to Dickens, “Mad Men” to Cheever.
Deadwood did introduce a bunch of new words, so I guess that’s like Shakespeare. The cursing was inspired. Mad Men captured an era in America. I don’t know who Cheever is, so maybe he did to. Those are all great shows that are worth a viewers full attention.
For a good two decades now, it’s been bien-pensant wisdom that TV could be good — no, not just good. Original. Provocative. Important.
TV was so highly acclaimed for so long that we were like the frog in boiling water, but in reverse. The medium became lukewarm so gradually that you might not even have noticed.
There are still great TV shows. Shogun and Fallout prove that. There are many others, but there are so many shows available and so many streaming companies, it would be easy to miss the best work.
Disney+’s Marvel Cinematic Universe series are too polished to be awful or tacky — just compare them to the threadbare comic-book dramas of the ’70s and ’80s — but they are too bound by the rules and needs of the larger megaproperty to take creative leaps.
The MCU showed that it’s possible to take a solid IP and make a mediocre product. Inject a message, and the show can become garbage. The production values may be fine, but bad writing and directing make bad story telling. Watching an episode of Echo was like being stuck in traffic. She-Hulk, Attorney at Law was like reading a letter from an old friend telling you to fuck off.
A New Yorker profile last year quoted a Netflix executive describing the platform’s ideal show as a “gourmet cheeseburger.”
Nothing wrong with a good cheeseburger. If a tofu burger is substituted for the hamburger, it disappoints like the worst MCU shows.
One thing the author misses, is that new TV shows give more options. The old options are still out there. I haven’t watched The Sopranos or The Wire or scads of great shows from before last years. I recently watched Lost for the first time. Hey, you know, it was actually a good show.
That reminds me of my students talking about the books they had to read for AP English.
“Over the summer, I read East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. It was actually good.”
Who would have thought that classic literature could be worthwhile reading? If you want something to watch, Deadwood or Mad Men will not disappoint.