If you've been following my posts for the last few years, nothing in this article in the Guardian about the decline of quality television will be new to you. It's getting some play because the comments are coming from David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, but really it's been blindingly obvious for many, many years. (BTW, Chase's follow up to the Sopranos, Many Saints of Newark, was an epic disaster so…)
I try really hard to avoid falling into the trap of reminiscing about times past and griping about degradation. It's a hole virtually everyone steps in, and it's usually wrong. I still believe the world is improving as surely as I still acknowledge that it is a ten-step-forward, nine-step-back , jagged, and uphill path. Often things are worse before they get better. Often things aren't really worse, just different. Often things that you think are worse are actually better. As Tyler Cowen noted, these are times of change and you will hate living through times of change.
But with respect to television, I think I can safely say that things are objectively worse. Everything (well not everything, but almost everything) being produced now seems to come from a bottle, a formula. One show gets some eyeballs and everyone rushes to do some variation. Modern writers can't seem to generate consistent quality. It's like anything they do that works must be because they lucked into it. Cases in point:
True Detective: The first season was groundbreaking, with Matthew McConaughey spouting existential pessimism while riding around with a pissed off Woody Harrelson trying to solve the case of a serial killer. Remember the Yellow King? Season two floundered but at least it was original. Season three succeeded by essentially remaking the first season with enough variation that it seemed fresh. Season four we are now in the middle of and while they've ramped up the spookiness, I haven't seen a return to quality. It attempts to remake the season one formula yet again, with mismatched cops who hate each other and spooky quasi-mystical imagery, but it is weak on character and long on cop show banality and cultural stereotypes. I should withhold final judgment until it's over but it's looking like a degradation.
Fargo: I think this is the fourth season and it's bad enough that I abandoned it. It's another attempt to leverage the original movie plot of evil cadres on the Northern Plains fighting it out over a macguffin with a cloy and clever innocent stuck in the middle. The first season was sharp but the trajectory has been downhill ever since. Not only does it break no new ground, the writing has degraded into online political debate level inanity.
Consider: Both of these shows can't muster a decent fourth season. The Sopranos, Mad Men, Better Call Saul, et. al. kept quality high and content fresh through five or six seasons. The general degradation simply cannot be denied. Allow me to pretentiously quote John Stuart Mill:
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
There is one active show that I would classify as eccentric: The Bear. Prior to that the last show I can remember that I would classify that way was Lodge 49. Nobody watched it and it only lasted two seasons. I miss it. You might suggest Ted Lasso, but despite its delightful first season, it descended into banal sweetness and woke tropery after that. I'd be more open to Barry as an example, but as clever as it was, anything about crime or crime adjacent can't really be eccentric. Here's a question: What shows today don't feature character journeys that have them learn societally approved lessons? What shows are about individuals confronting personal conflicts that may or may not resolve in the way the zeitgeist would guide them, or even resolve at all?
All of this ranting has all been prompted by the fact that, for the first time ever, Northern Exposure has started streaming in its entirety. I have fallen for this show even harder than I did in its first run.
You see, my friends, quality TV such as The Sopranos didn't emerge from nothing. There were hints and indications that things were improving through the decade of the 90's prior to its inaugural season in 1999. Twin Peaks was truly out of this world and remains a cult favorite to this day. I have written before about the X-files, specifically episodes written by Darin Morgan. Buffy the Vampire Slayer foreshadowed all the hyper-irony that has since worn thin, but it was fresh and clever at the time and, like, the X-files, the best episodes were magnificent works of drama. But the one that stands above them all is Northern Exposure.
As I rewatch it I am reminded of the quality of the writing which reached almost poetic heights. Characters are, on occasion, given outright soliloquies. The town DJ -- Chris in the Morning -- acted as a combination spiritual guide and Greek chorus. There are constant references to great literature and the vocabulary alone would get the show shot down in our world of sixth-grade reading level normalization.
A second viewing of Rob Morrow's performance in the lead role makes me think it's an all time great. It's no wonder the show promptly died when he left. But the whole ensemble is tight and well cast.
The thing that stands out most to me is the humanity of it. Look, there is no doubt where the writers stood on social issues, but rarely was anything purely motivated by social issues, and when it was, it was usually a smoke screen for something personal. Let's take the treatment of race. There is one character who is portrayed as an outright, unrepentant racist and homophobe. But he is never treated as a person with anything less than sympathy and understanding. He is treated both by the other characters and by the writers as a human being. He is not detested, not portrayed as evil, not given poetic beatdowns; He is given a character arc that allows him to be human and in fact have aspects to his personality that are quite positive. All the characters are like that. They all have terrible flaws that, in the current year, would require them to go through symbolic or actual punishment and suffering and either be removed or appropriately re-educated. The contrast with today is truly stunning.
But in the end, it's the writing that does it. I have discovered three TV shows in my life that use the written word in something other than an utilitarian manner, for exposition or to move the plot along. Writing that aspires to artistic merit. Deadwood, Justified, and now Northern Exposure. Even though I have seen them all before many years ago, I find myself looking forward to the end of the day when I can sit back and enjoy a couple of episodes. I doubt this will be the last time I rewatch the series. It belongs in the Pantheon.
How far we have fallen.
