Time on Your Hands?

The Golden Age of U.S. Television

This is actually the ‘golden’ age of U.S. television, hackneyed as that phrase is.  Never thought it would happen.  I’ve always revered Bruce Springsteen’s lyric about "57 channels and nothin's on…”  But now, not all channels have 'nothin on.'  Though the modern equivalent could be '500 channels and nothin's on... '

TV - KGB  Handles Washington, D.C.

It all started with the thug show, “The Sopranos.”  No one I knew watched it.  I didn’t, as I have no love for the Mafia. Then “The Wire” came out, and I didn’t watch it until much later, as others were recommending it.  It was too much focused on black crime in Baltimore to convince me.  Then the advertising soap opera “Mad Men.”  Only one couple I knew watched it.  I didn’t for obvious reasons.  But then came “Game of Thrones” and something changed.  The high school teacher and his drug business -  "Breaking Bad" - was also in the mix, though I didn't watch that either.  I also found a cheap way to view all these shows…as there is a price barrier to this kind of television.

What changed is that the depth of television has just vastly increased.  Series that last years begin to resemble fictional novels.  Novels are a superior form of fiction over film because of their depth, their detail, the world’s they create that do not appear and disappear in 2 hours.  I’m a novelist, so that is my first understanding. The serialization of novels, as Dickens or Balzac practiced, has now been replicated in a visual form.  This has created a new depth.  The stories, unlike PBS productions, have broken out of their conventional British straight-jacket.

Like bad beer, bad TV is not worth it.  Stop watching the junk.  Here are some of my long form TV recommendations, which lean to popular history.  Are they all historically accurate?  Of course not, but you can uncover what is true and what is not yourself.

The Americans – Undercover Russian KGB in U.S.

Babylon Berlin – Events in Wiemar Germany.

Black Mirror – Surreal stories of modern tech England.

Black Sails – Caribbean pirates fight colonial powers and ally with ex-slaves.

Britannia – Roman invasion of England versus Celts and Druids.
Damnation - Farmer revolution in Iowa and a mining town in the Appalachians in 1930s.

Deadwood – The creation of a western mining town.

Fargo - Evil comes to Minnesota.

Game of Thrones – Fantasy which reads more like medieval and modern fact.

Handmaid’s Tale – American theocratic dystopia, centering on the oppression of women.

Mayans - Social rebels fight a Mexican drug cartel with a motorcycle gang in the middle.

Outlander – Romantic fight against English oppression in Scotland, leading to Culloden.
Rebellion - 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland.

Rome – Friendship between two soldiers, Julius Caesar, his assassination and the power struggle in its aftermath.

Treme – Musicians, food and politics in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Vikings – Ragnar Lothbrok and sons roam the world.

The Wire – Crime, dysfunction and corruption in 1980s Baltimore.

The Last Kingdom - The Kingdom of Wessex fights the Danes, with help from a godless Saxon raised by Vikings.

The Americans is the latest series we’re watching.  It is about a secret Russian KGB cell in Washington D.C, a deep cover family who work to defend the ‘motherland’ during the Reagan years.  Season One is focused on the U.S. escalation of the nuclear arms race by Reagan through the ‘Star Wars’ space shield.  Bodies pile up, mostly the work of the KGB agents, which makes you think they are the most bloodthirsty.  But they are also smarter than the FBI, at least in fiction.  Given the couple are excellent fighters and masters of disguise, the KGB agents survive.  Agents and double-agents are recruited.  Yet right now the political subtext is that hysteria over improbably good 'sleeper' Russian agents feeds into the Democrat's Russian-gate conspiracy mongering and war plans.  

We feel sympathy for the Russian couple, who live in a suburban house with two kids.  Yet the series has almost no politics.  The only motivation for the KGB officers is to ‘defend their country.’ A black ally of theirs is shown without the motivation of systemic institutional racism in the U.S.  The show hides the actual aggressive nuclear strategy of the U.S. during this time -  somewhat similar to Trump's present "Space Force" plans. 

You are not supposed to feel much sympathy for the Russian agents while watching this series, but I do.  It does humanize them a bit, but then ignores 'why' there was a cold war in the first place.  (tvonline.cc)

Prior reviews on long-form television:  “Game of Thrones,” “Deadwood,” "Black Sails," "Who is Lester Nygaard?" and “Vikings” are below.  Use blog search box, upper left.

Red Frog

August 18, 2018