The one that surprises me is TV. It has objectively improved in quality so much, it’s basically on par with movies at this point. Writing, acting, costuming, all of it. I’d never claim that TV from the 90s was superior to now, even though I was a teen back then.
TV now is kind of garbage because every show will have like 2 8 episode “seasons” with a 3 year gap in the middle. I appreciate the variety but it’s clear to me the industry hasn’t really recovered from the streaming era destroying the cash flow into the TV industry. The 90’s and early 2000’s are absolutely the peak of network TV IMO when it comes to big syndicated network shows like Star Trek Buffy stargate etc. but there are a much wider variety of shows today so it’s kind of a mixed bag
I will absolutely argue that TV was better between 2006-2016 than 2016-2026. I think the detailed ratings (especially on streaming) ended up feeding studio decisionmaking into shallower works that their algorithms suggested audiences would like, and that we lost something in the process. The collapse of mid budget basic cable original programming also has hurt the genre as a whole.
Also, there’s nothing quite like a high budget but mediocre show, that looks visually stunning but just doesn’t resonate with you.
The one that surprises me is TV. It has objectively improved in quality so much, it’s basically on par with movies at this point. Writing, acting, costuming, all of it. I’d never claim that TV from the 90s was superior to now, even though I was a teen back then.
TV now is kind of garbage because every show will have like 2 8 episode “seasons” with a 3 year gap in the middle. I appreciate the variety but it’s clear to me the industry hasn’t really recovered from the streaming era destroying the cash flow into the TV industry. The 90’s and early 2000’s are absolutely the peak of network TV IMO when it comes to big syndicated network shows like Star Trek Buffy stargate etc. but there are a much wider variety of shows today so it’s kind of a mixed bag
I will absolutely argue that TV was better between 2006-2016 than 2016-2026. I think the detailed ratings (especially on streaming) ended up feeding studio decisionmaking into shallower works that their algorithms suggested audiences would like, and that we lost something in the process. The collapse of mid budget basic cable original programming also has hurt the genre as a whole.
Also, there’s nothing quite like a high budget but mediocre show, that looks visually stunning but just doesn’t resonate with you.