Here are a few things that did not exist in American television 10 years ago:
Binge-watching; recapping; scripted series on networks devoted to old movies, science and history; zombies; streaming services; popular series that end just because the story is done; film-franchise adjacency; shows that begin as miniseries and then continue indefinitely; multiplatform viewing; two concurrent versions of Sherlock Holmes; A-list film directors; television shows devoted to talking about television shows; live tweeting; micro-audiences; immediate remakes of British series; any remakes of European series; European series; subtitles; cord-cutting; horrific violence; series in which the cast stays the same but the story changes; series in which the title stays the same but the story and cast change; really good computer graphics; comedies more dark than funny; amazing international locations; an overabundance of stories characterizing the many ways in which television has changed in the past 10 years.
Here's the most important thing that did not exist in the television universe 10 years ago: ownership.
Technically, the citizens of these United States have always been the proprietors of the airwaves over which television was broadcast, but it didn't feel that way. We watched what the network executives offered us when they offered it. Good television was like good weather, fleet and ephemeral; you enjoyed it while it lasted. Maybe you watched it again in reruns while you were sick or sad or trying to get ahead on the ironing. (...)
"When television became archivable, everything changed."
That's what veteran television writer Glen Mazzara said to me a couple of years ago during a conversation about the "new golden age" everyone was talking about with wearisome regularity at the time.
The show runner for "The Walking Dead" at the time, Mazzara had called me to say in the nicest way possible that it would be really great if television critics would stop comparing television to film and novels as if the comparison in itself were some huge compliment. Television was an independent art form, he said, and should be judged on its own terms.
But those terms were changing. Technology had granted the medium both a flexibility and a permanence it had lacked before. The idea that people could now watch a show in its entirety, that they could take entire seasons with them when they traveled and collect their favorites for further viewing, offered television writers a shot at something historically reserved for an anointed few: legacy.
An unexpected turn of events when you consider the dire predictions of less than 10 years ago, when many people assumed that reality would soon control almost every time slot on every network and that the television set itself would vanish, replaced by a forest of laptops and mobile phones. The scripted drama was dead, the sitcom was dead, the family hour was dead. Despairing critics and viewers imagined a world in which the broadcast networks were overrun with singing competitions, "Two and a Half Men" and the increasingly brutalized victims of "NCIS" and "CSI" while the Young People watched webisodically told narratives and YouTube.
Which, of course, they do. But they also watch television, perhaps less than previous generations and certainly on their laptops and mobile devices, but also on their flat screens; they watch it whenever they want to but also in real live-tweeting time (hello, "Pretty Little Liars.")
Binge-watching; recapping; scripted series on networks devoted to old movies, science and history; zombies; streaming services; popular series that end just because the story is done; film-franchise adjacency; shows that begin as miniseries and then continue indefinitely; multiplatform viewing; two concurrent versions of Sherlock Holmes; A-list film directors; television shows devoted to talking about television shows; live tweeting; micro-audiences; immediate remakes of British series; any remakes of European series; European series; subtitles; cord-cutting; horrific violence; series in which the cast stays the same but the story changes; series in which the title stays the same but the story and cast change; really good computer graphics; comedies more dark than funny; amazing international locations; an overabundance of stories characterizing the many ways in which television has changed in the past 10 years.Here's the most important thing that did not exist in the television universe 10 years ago: ownership.
Technically, the citizens of these United States have always been the proprietors of the airwaves over which television was broadcast, but it didn't feel that way. We watched what the network executives offered us when they offered it. Good television was like good weather, fleet and ephemeral; you enjoyed it while it lasted. Maybe you watched it again in reruns while you were sick or sad or trying to get ahead on the ironing. (...)
"When television became archivable, everything changed."
That's what veteran television writer Glen Mazzara said to me a couple of years ago during a conversation about the "new golden age" everyone was talking about with wearisome regularity at the time.
The show runner for "The Walking Dead" at the time, Mazzara had called me to say in the nicest way possible that it would be really great if television critics would stop comparing television to film and novels as if the comparison in itself were some huge compliment. Television was an independent art form, he said, and should be judged on its own terms.
But those terms were changing. Technology had granted the medium both a flexibility and a permanence it had lacked before. The idea that people could now watch a show in its entirety, that they could take entire seasons with them when they traveled and collect their favorites for further viewing, offered television writers a shot at something historically reserved for an anointed few: legacy.
An unexpected turn of events when you consider the dire predictions of less than 10 years ago, when many people assumed that reality would soon control almost every time slot on every network and that the television set itself would vanish, replaced by a forest of laptops and mobile phones. The scripted drama was dead, the sitcom was dead, the family hour was dead. Despairing critics and viewers imagined a world in which the broadcast networks were overrun with singing competitions, "Two and a Half Men" and the increasingly brutalized victims of "NCIS" and "CSI" while the Young People watched webisodically told narratives and YouTube.
Which, of course, they do. But they also watch television, perhaps less than previous generations and certainly on their laptops and mobile devices, but also on their flat screens; they watch it whenever they want to but also in real live-tweeting time (hello, "Pretty Little Liars.")
by Mary McNamara, LA Times | Read more:
Image: Emiliano Ponzi 
