cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/television/t/761868
David Chase says 25-year golden period was a ‘blip’ and he is being told to ‘dumb down’ productions.
Gonna have to disagree. We’re in the era of massive story arcs that can be binged. You need to be riveting to get an audience.
He has a script rejected and is crying that the industry is too stupid to understand his vision.
Case in point? What’s the big compelling show right now?
Being riveting isn’t the same as being good. People are addicted to Instagram as well. Yet that isn’t exactly Shakespeare
To be honest, Sopranos wasn’t anything complex.
For the time it told a relatively interesting story
it was really well written though, and the characters were deep and complex and resembled actual people. At least in the first seasons… Most series (in the past and nowadays) are written like garbage to appeal to the most common denominator as quick and cheap as possible
I feel most shows have been pretty good, severance, the bear, for all mankind, chernobyl, sharp objects, at least with HBO and apple shows
I absolutely hated the ending.
don’t stop.
I didn’t like the ending upon first watch, but found myself thinking about it afterwards and contemplating what may have happened after the screen went black. Had they wrapped it up cleanly it would have been more satisfying at the time but I would not have given it much thought after.
I tried to get into it because of all the praise it has received and was confused about why it received said praise. It tells a story of a bunch of sleaze bags, with king sleaze bag emotionally wounded because of all his sleaze bag actions. Okay… That was already done a dozen times before The Sopranos came along. What’s the big deal?
Youre missing the point if that’s what you got from it
It’s a metaphor about the decline of America. The mob stuff is just window dressing used to tell that story. Just as how the tortoise and the hare isn’t actually a story about two animals
I quit watching after about 4 episodes, so I guess I did miss all of that. How long does it take for that to become apparent?
Dude. It’s the consensus best show ever for a reason. 4 episodes is ridiculous.
This article is based on a single script he’s failed to get green lit. For all we know it actually is too complex.
The quality and complexity of shows varies greatly between the various networks and services.
Most of us can think of at least one current show that has both quality and complexity.
Yeah this smells a lot like “old man angry things aren’t the same any more”.
I just came up with 9 expansive and complex shows off the top of my head in a period of about 20 seconds. He’s definitely making baseless accusations about the industry because he was rejected.
Hmm… Severence, The Expanse, The Boys, Invincible, The Last of Us, Narcos, Narcos Mexico, The Wheel of Time, and Game of Thrones seem to disagree with him. I would mention all the new Star Trek getting made too, but that actually does seem to be getting dumbed down.
All of those shows are dumbed down - except for early season game of thrones, though clearly that show became comically dumbed down by the end to such an extent that it tanked the franchise
The Expanse covers 5 separate factions, all vying for power, across twice as many storylines. How is that dumbed down?
Biggest disappointment of my life. I grew up loving star wars and it still has a special place in my heart that only it can fill but if I got to choose between GoT never losing quality or star wars getting fixed I would choose GoT without a second thought. Every star wars trilogy is bad in its own special way but the first 4 seasons of GoT were absolute masterpieces that are forever tainted from the following seasons
The Wheel of Time
One of these things is not like the others.
Hehe. Right? It wasn’t good. But it’s a complex story.
Have you even seen The Bear, Fargo, Scavengers Reign, Atlanta, Our Flag Means Death, Lodge 49, Barry, or The Marvelous Misses Maisel?
I saw a few episodes of Our Flag Means Death, but I stopped watching it for some reason. I guess I found it to be just okay. I haven’t seen any of the others. Are they great?
The Bear swept the golden globes for starters, and completely deserved it. I recommend it more highly than any other show right now.
Scavengers Reign… you mentioned Star Trek. This is really good original sci-fi.
Atlanta is Donald Glover’s. It’s as brilliant as he is, and a rare example of modern surrealism.
Lodge 49 is produced by Paul Giamatti and is another example of modern surrealism. Watch this one like Firefly, it was cancelled too soon but still worth watching.
Thanks for the great recommendations! I’ll check them out soon. That should keep me busy for a long time.
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I’d even add Star Wars to that list. Andor and The Mandolorian are pretty complex interwoven stories. Andor alone is some of the best television I’ve seen since The Sopranos.
Fargo sorta negates that argument.
I love Fargo but it’s ten years old now.
It’s literally airing it’s current season finale this week. It’s ongoing and has remained fantastic all the way through.
When I got to the first few episodes of season 2 I thought it was all downhill but it picked up and on to season 3 now, was happy to see the recent episode released so I know there’s more for me to get to
Legion wasn’t perfect but it was certainly complex and ambitious. Made by the same guy too.
That was released seven years ago. Point I’m making is Noah Hawley was able to make a name for himself writing these complex series before the current crunch caused a situation where a first time showrunner wouldn’t be allowed to.
You might see a parallel to the New Hollywood movement that started in the late sixties and ended in the late seventies.
Noah Hawley is creating an Alien show. I’m cautiously excited.
I didn’t know that. I’ll definitely watch it.
lol I just finished I’m a Virgo today. Name another era of tv that this show would have made it past its first meeting.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The creator of The Sopranos has decried what he views as the death of quality TV, blaming risk-averse executives and distracted audiences.
David Chase, who wrote the HBO series about the New Jersey mafia that many credit with starting a golden age of television, said that era was now over.
Talking to the Times 25 years after The Sopranos first aired, Chase said the last quarter-century of ambitious and complex drama was “a blip”.
He believes the type of show that was synonymous with The Sopranos – such as The Wire, Breaking Bad and Mad Men – would not be commissioned now.
He told the Times about a show he has been trying to make with the young screenwriter Hannah Fidell, about a high-end sex worker forced into witness protection.
Chase recalled the climate in the late 1990s, when The Sopranos was commissioned by HBO, having first been turned down by many other networks, including Fox.
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I buy it.
It struck me (and I’m speculating here) that TV now is produced/green-lit mostly on a season to season basis with each season being produced like a Lord of the Rings Trilogy … ~10 hrs of screen time, all written at once and then filmed at once.
Under such constraints, I don’t think there is any room for the show, its story and its characters to breath, and I think I’ve been feeling this.
Some may say that we’re getting longer arc now and that that its better. But I’m not sure I’m convinced. I think we’re getting longer arcs in an MCU sense where the characters aren’t invested in as much compared to the broader “universe” (eg, how many decent villains has the MCU actually had … Endgame’s success being a clue as to when they got the villain right). We’re also getting shorter screen times and less organic/chaotic episodic writing (because so much screen time used to be produced) … that allowed characters to be understood and filled out.
It feels like everything is trying to be a hit and more like a film and the feeling of organically getting to know a world and its character has been lost.
I can’t help but think of season 8 of Game of Thrones. It had twists and drama and “subverted expectations” but felt dumb and unearned compared to the foundation of the fandom developed in the more meandering and character developing early seasons.
It really depends on the producers. On one hand netflix is greenlighting everything it can hoping to get a new Squid Game, killing everything that does not become viral in the first season. But then you have series like Fargo, not even producing a season per year, while maintaining the quality constantly stellar over 10 years.
Has the amount of disposable tv series increased? Absolutely. Has the number of overall series increased? Also yes. I cannot tell you the ratio between shallow/complex, but saying that “nothing new is made anymore” is just wrong.
