Me and the old man were talking about this the other day.
There was a sort of line that I think one of the primary drivers you could point to that changed the game was ultimately the Sopranos.
The sopranos showed that TV could be cinematic quality in every aspect, cinematography, acting and writing, you name it.
Things like Battlestar Galactica showed you could take a genre like science fiction and add a very distinct level of maturity that hadn’t really been done before.
Now that’s not to say that, there weren’t good shows prior to the TV Renaissance that began in the 90s, I mean I’m a massive Star Trek fan and I know it’s weird but I’ve decided to actually sit and watch the entire of DS9 my favourite which I haven’t done before and a lot of those guys would go on to write Carnivale and Battlestar Galactica and while they touched on things that were As mature, if not more, it’s still held back by that level of corn pone you referred to, especially the Hand to hand combat and how much they weren’t actually able to show, even at that time, everything that happened on screen always seemed rather tame compared to the mass murder, rape and violence that people often talked about on Deep Space Nine.
Some of the shows you mentioned were especially camp, like holy, but I think it’s just, audiences tastes evolved, they demanded higher quality programming, smarter stories and characters, I mean not always as the rise of Reality TV which generally I can’t stand suggests but ultimately it has allowed to see some pretty cracking content which is grand.
I mean, at least initially, such amazing series such as Sopranos, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The West Wing, House of Cards or Walking Dead just to name a few, I know there’s a absolute metric ton more out there but TVs general rise in quality is undeniable and thank god for that, while many older TV shows hold a ton of nostalgia and many still hold up today in certain aspects such as DS9 in terms of stories, something like Knight Rider would be pretty hard to watch these days unless you really liked it.
By the way grip, Boston Legal was awesome but brings back painful memories