I’ve written about it extensively both on this blog and for Indiewire: we’re in an era of breakthroughs for TV. Not only are startups like Amazon and Pivot producing radical forms of storytelling for the small-screen, but established networks are re-orienting in focus to stay relevant and unique in these rapidly-shifting times.
This summer, this brave new world is revealing itself at its most thrillingly surprising. Abound are the under-appreciated (and -watched) continuing dramas, from Sundance’s Rectify to AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire. HBO’s working with a historically disappointing lineup, but it’s still heavy on movie-star charisma and prestige gloss. (Looking at you, True Detective.) And there’s plenty of gore and camp to keep any summer traditionalist satisfied.
But who would have thought that the season’s most promising new series -- as in challenging, original, creative, smart and prescient -- would come from, respectively, USA and Lifetime?
Lifetime, a purveyor of predominantly unscripted (and undemanding) fare, has staked its claim in this Age of TV with UnREAL, a dark, blistering reality show satire that could easily be mistaken as a sobering meditation on the network itself. USA, meanwhile, has ditched a programming slate notoriously heavy on soapy mysteries and blue skies for Mr. Robot, a dense, enthralling and visually remarkable hacker-political thriller. Again, the series feels like a direct rebuke to its channel’s typical offerings, not only in style and tone but also quality and ambition.
Andrew and I will formally review both when their seasons conclude (UnREAL has three episodes left after tonight; Mr. Robot isn’t halfway done yet), but there’s something to be said for their very existence, and for how together they’re nicely encapsulating this fascinating time for TV.
If it seems like unassuming networks are leaving their mark with new series by the month, that’s not entirely far off. Earlier this year for Indiewire, I made this the entire subject of an article: “5 TV Shows That Are Reshaping Their Networks Image.” I talked about Transparent for Amazon; The Knick for Cinemax; Rectify for Sundance; Fortitude for Pivot; and Manhattan for WGN. Nearly all of those networks are, or were, pretty much brand-new to original programming. Moreover, these shows are predominantly excellent, or at the very least bold and different.
Coinciding with this proliferation of new outlets is an array of networks that, after experiencing similar qualitative booms anywhere from 5-10 years ago, are trying to chart out their own future. We’re seeing AMC struggling, commercially and creatively, in the post Mad Men-Breaking Bad era. (Halt and Catch Fire is a critical success but a bust with viewers; in that department, the network is relying on an upcoming Walking Dead spinoff.) Netflix, after its powerful one-two punch of House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, launched a slew of series in a compressed time period -- most notably, Bloodline and Sense8 -- that cumulatively lacked in impact. Even Amazon, with Transparent less than a year old, has come back with batches of mostly disappointing potential series.
Everything is in flux, which -- if you’re a TV viewer -- has its pros and cons. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of everything. If everyone’s telling you to check out “Best shows you’re not watching” Rectify and Halt and Catch Fire, are you really going to put time into shows airing on Lifetime and USA instead? Put simply, it’s too much to juggle, even if, on occasion, a show is good or broad enough to really break out (see Transparent). Again, I could lament critics’ own complicity in this problem, dedicating heavy amounts of space and time to something as inessential and vacuous as True Detective (thanks, Slate critic Willa Paskin, for joining the party!), but in truth this kind of problem is far more complex.
Artistically, this climate is invigorating. Mr. Robot and UnREAL are flawed series that might never come to be as good as the sum of their parts, but even still they’re wild, fascinating creations. The voices and perspectives being littered so frequently, and so quietly, across this expansive TV landscape can seem overwhelming. But never has the medium felt more diverse or audacious. Just a few years ago, we were clawing our way out of the “antihero age,” contending with borderline-awful copies of Breaking Bad. Now there’s feminist fantasy on Starz, cycle of poverty-themed humanism on Netflix, cyberpunk political thrills on USA, compelling LGBT leads on AMC and Amazon -- and down the list I could go.
This whole “There’s something for everyone” idea might neglect the value of quality; indeed, that problem is the very focus of a recent piece by the Washington Post’s Hank Stuever, opining that we’ve shifted into a “Silver Age” of TV. To his credit, there's no network with a Sopranos-Deadwood-Wire-Six Feet Under lineup out there right now.
But I'd say that we’re in a crucial age of experimentation. Right now, we’re not in the aftermath of the revelation that a special, immense kind of quality is possible on the once-maligned small-screen. (That already happened.) Rather, we’re in an age where conversations around representation and specificity and difference are happening, and not just for creative reasons. There’s an urgent need for networks to stand out; it’s why USA’s sunny-soapy combo has given way to an inversion of the formula, and how Lifetime’s trademark feminine pandering has created a powerful confrontation to that very notion. There are new possibilities out there, and we’re seeing writers get new chances and ideas get new life.
Last week, Josef Adalian interviewed Starz CEO Chris Albrecht, the man who oversaw programming at HBO from The Larry Sanders Show all the way to Game of Thrones. When he joined Starz, his initial strategy was clear: “Prestige,” or more specifically the male-driven antihero aesthetic he’d helped to revolutionize, and that would hopefully bring his network a pay cable audience and plenty of awards attention. He picked up Boss, a fair show with Kelsey Grammer in the lead that failed with viewers, and Magic City, a cliched period drama that failed with critics and viewers. Neither earned Emmy attention, and both died quick deaths. The old formula wasn’t working, and Starz was drowning.
The network had to change its approach: “I looked around and … it seemed as if there were audiences that were being underserved -- that were still paying money but that were probably not getting the value that they would hope to get off of a premium subscription,” Albrecht said. “And we said, ‘Let’s target those audiences, and let’s back shows that we think can drive a real fervent fan base that then becomes the kind of advocacy group for the shows themselves.’” In light of this thinking, Starz picked up Power, a salacious crime drama with a predominantly African American cast from Courtney Kemp Agboh (The Good Wife), and Outlander, a feminist fantasy series from Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) based on the eponymous series of novels. Neither of those premises are what we typically think of as traditional for pay cable, territory which we’ve been conditioned to accept as male-driven and very white.
How has Power done? I’ll let Adalian explain: “Its June 2014 debut averaged less than 500,000 same-day viewers for its initial linear play. But by the end of its first eight-episode season, the show’s same-day audience more than doubled, to just over 1 million viewers. Last month’s sophomore-season opener continued the growth story, with viewership jumping another 40 percent, to 1.4 million same-day viewers. Once DVR replays and VOD are counted, Power is doing even better: Starz estimates more than 6 million viewers are catching every episode.” Though not as big a hit, Outlander has witnessed similar success -- and both continue to receive healthy, albeit not rapturous, praise.
They fly under the radar, as many of these shows do. It’s been a good few weeks for Mr. Robot, building in the ratings as its mystery has unfurled. UnREAL, on the other hand, has been a critical darling without the numbers to back it up. But Lifetime has granted it a quick renewal even still, an immense show of faith in their new brand. Here are two networks you’d never expect to so fully embrace and encourage quality and risk, but here we are.
These shows may not be the shakers; they, like Power or Outlander, may not be the Emmy juggernauts or the cultural phenomenons of our time. But they’re contributing to where we are, and more importantly to where we’re headed. Shows like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent are already demonstrating the cultural potential of “niche” programming; others, like Rectify and The Americans, have reached a level of astonishing quality without the corresponding viewership. No matter. It’s a confounding, massive world of TV we’re living in. It’s a time of experiment and change. It can be hard to know what to make of it all.
There’s a whole lot good -- and a whole lot of new -- scattered, popping up in quick succession. What we’re seeing is a storytelling breakthrough for the medium, themed by inclusivity and idiosyncrasy. It’s exciting, then, to consider what this breakthrough will soon yield.