A different book for me, another work of non fiction, about the great TV series over the past fifteen years, all on cable TV. I have seen all of them except for The Shield, so it was fun to read about the struggles to get each series made initially on HBO, later on AMC or FX, the politics that go into it, the risk that each network takes when it green lights a show. Cable networks were not restricted like regular TV, thus language, sex, violence were all fair game for Cable TV and they took advantage of it. The public seemed to love it, so a whole new world of 'realistic shows' were available to Cable viewers. Unlike Rob and Laura on the Dick Van Dyke Show, who slept in separate beds, we actually get to go in the bedrooms, watch them undress, and commingle! And violence...wow...Tony Soprano blows away a snitch on the second episode, shocking a nation and a chemistry teacher becomes a crystal meth king pin to pay for his hospital bills. It's a long way from Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver.
What stands out as I followed the creation and eventual airing of each series is the amount of work that went into them, the conflicts, angst, wars, behind the scenes, as each episode was written. And the head honcho, now the lead writer, was also in charge of everything...the writer, not director as King. And David Chase for The Sopranos, David Milch for Deadwood, David Simon in The Wire, to a lesser degree Alan Ball for Six Feet Under, all took advantage of this absolute power, and all were ego manics, screamers, 'my way or the highway' people, almost impossible to work with unless you bent to their ways. And those who did were convinced that they were working for a genius. Perhaps they were. And all these 'geniuses' had their moment in the sun, when their series was winning Emmy's, but they also rarely repeated it, eating the 'proverbial crow' as a humble David Milch mentioned late in his career, forced to kowtow to the cable networks, commercial interests, and CFO's. worrying about the bottom line. He did say something I think all of us can identify with: "Learning to live with the given is the great humbling educational process of life. And I've had a sufficiency of education the past year."
Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Man, a writer for The Soprano's, says it best about the Golden Age: "The ambition and achievement of these shows went beyond the simple notion of "television getting good." The open ended, twelve or thirteen episode serialized drama was maturing into its own, distinct form. What's more, it had become the signature American art form of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the equivalent of what the films of Scorsese, Altman, Coppola, and others had been to the 1970's or the novels of Updike, Roth, and Mailer had been to the 1960's. High praise for a Television series, equating them to great films and novels.
Finally, much of their success depended on a literate, hip audience, ready to watch and talk about the episode each week, like groupies. It started with Hill Street Blues, the predecessor of all these great TV series which I remember watching with friends every Thursday in the early 1980's, and we would dissect the program the rest of the week. Then along came Cable TV, HBO, the freedom from censorship, DVD's, then DVR's, and now iPads, which allow viewers to watch a program at any time, in any place, all contributing to the making of high quality television. I have to admit I am hooked on these series, look forward to the ending of old one's like Mad Men, the new one's like Homeland and House of Cards, even Orange Is The New Black, the latest quality series.
By the way, I came across this book because it was recommended by Kevin Spacey during a interview with Charlie Rose. He said it was a great book, especially since he was well into making of the third season of House of Cards. His character of Frank Underwood, now Vice President of the United States, aptly follows in the footsteps of other Difficult Men like Tony Soprano and Walter White!
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