Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[Willie the Duck]

Sopranos definitely marked a stark dividing line for sure. And I would say it is maybe my favorite show after I, Claudius. But I also do like Babylon 5 and can see its influence on these shows.

Maybe it is my tendency to prefer things in their proto-phase, but while I love Sopranos and enjoyed Breaking Bad well enough, I miss shows that had really great stand alone episodes and monster of the week. The more the long form story trend on TV went on, the more I found I wasn't as into it.

The Sopranos is less a dividing line and more of a cornerstone of a building project. The thing that it is didn't start with it (I, Claudius being a good example of an example that came before. Roots as well). What the Sopranos did was suggest that maybe they should always have one or more of these going, because being known for them was profitable. So instead of having the field dotted with the occasional stone, you have a continuous line of them which you can have as a foundation (for your network I guess, this analogy is rapidly getting away from me).
*they being HBO at first, then others wanting to get on board.

Overall, I think it's trying to put categories around things that are really a spectrum or maybe trend or even just method. There's something that Breaking Bad did that The A-Team didn't that you can see bits of in Babylon 5, but also in ER, but not as much in either as you can in the Sopranos and Game of Thrones.

Weirdly, I always think about Andromeda and Earth:Final Conflict, two shows that started out great, only to turn into utter and total crud.

(For different reasons. E:FC ditched the lead actor and the good writing and most of the interesting serialization to chase "Derp Action" after the first season, while Andromeda got totally Sorboed.)

There were a huge number of*... late 90s/early 00s action/adventure (often sci fi or fantasy) shows --usually in first-run syndication-- that I think were trying to catch the wave that Hercules/Xena/Baywatch were riding. A number of them were straight forward 'put scantily clad pretty people and wire fu action in front of viewers as cheaply as possible' shows, but a number had interesting premises. Earth: Final Conflict and Total Recall 2070 were personal favorites (as was the Beastmaster series, but because I liked the movie, not because the series was especially well written/interesting premise) that I think could have gone farther with some better attention. I don't recall even early Andromeda being notably... notable, although I certainly think it had more promise before Sorbo started making demands.
*ugh, how to categorize these...

 

[Guest 85555]

The Sopranos is less a dividing line and more of a cornerstone of a building project. The thing that it is didn't start with it (I, Claudius being a good example of an example that came before. Roots as well). What the Sopranos did was suggest that maybe they should always have one or more of these going, because being known for them was profitable. So instead of having the field dotted with the occasional stone, you have a continuous line of them which you can have as a foundation (for your network I guess, this analogy is rapidly getting away from me).
*they being HBO at first, then others wanting to get on board.

I get that Sopranos didn't start it. But the television world was different after it. There were longford stories before. But things like I, Claudius Shogun or Roots, Jesus of Nazareth were miniseries. These were not multi-season shows, and they were specials (each one was released as a large event). And other shows cropped up, someone mentioned Dallas. Every once in a while you had a show with ongoing stories. But it wasn't the dominant form television like things became after Sopranos. I also think there was an emphasis on a certain kind of quality that not all long form shows had before (soap operas come to mind). After Sopranos it was like every show was a miniseries (good stories, good actors, etc).

 

[Guest 85555]

Overall, I think it's trying to put categories around things that are really a spectrum or maybe trend or even just method. There's something that Breaking Bad did that The A-Team didn't that you can see bits of in Babylon 5, but also in ER, but not as much in either as you can in the Sopranos and Game of Thrones.

In my view, Babylon 5 got it right. It is the happy medium where there is still a story to be told across the seasons of the show but each individual episode remains interesting on its own

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In my view, Babylon 5 got it right. It is the happy medium where there is still a story to be told across the seasons of the show but each individual episode remains interesting on its own

This is the point where I usually say, But what about Fringe, which I think is one of the stone-cold classics of sci-fi television shows, and yet somehow always seems to get missed in the discussion.

Until someone mentions it, and then everyone is like, "Oh yeah."


The one thing that kinda sorta sucks about peak TV is that there are so many amazing shows that it's hard to keep up with everything. There is, quite literally, too much great TV out there.

 

[Staffan]

@Staffan
Babylon5 is not prestige TV. In addition to the fact that they had to do a lot of "monster of the week" episodes early on, it also lacked a few of the the hallmarks that we think about today in addition to the complete serialization (high budget etc.).

Prestige, perhaps not – at least not budget-wise. But it definitely brought more of a continuous storyline to sci-fi TV than had been seen before (at least outside of limited series, like Twin Peaks before it got too successful for its own good). The first season had a lot of "problem of the week", but that was primarily in service of the world-building.

Personally, I prefer the Babylon 5/Buffy approach to serialization to the one we usually see in TV made for streaming. Even when it's at its most frantic, B5 is still a series of episodes where each has its own arc, whereas many streaming shows feel like a really really long movie cut into episode-length parts. I mean, I remember a lot of the plot elements from, say, season 1 Loki, but I couldn't say which episode they're from. That's not the case with B5 or Buffy.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Speaking of Fringe, I just went back and looked on this list from 2021-

Science Fiction: Greatest TV Shows Part III

Part I (Dramas): https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-greatest-tv-shows-of-all-time-kinda-the-top-10.680555/ Part II (Comedies): https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-greatest-tv-shows-of-all-time-part-2-ha-ha-comedy-illustrated.680581/ What are the top 10 SCIENCE FICTION shows of all time? Why...

www.enworld.org

Given the parameters, I'd say it holds up pretty well.

 

[Staffan]

This is the point where I usually say, But what about Fringe, which I think is one of the stone-cold classics of sci-fi television shows, and yet somehow always seems to get missed in the discussion.

Until someone mentions it, and then everyone is like, "Oh yeah."

I liked Fringe a lot until one of the later revamps where the world had been taken over by Men In Black, or something like that. At that point it lost me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is the point where I usually say, But what about Fringe, which I think is one of the stone-cold classics of sci-fi television shows, and yet somehow always seems to get missed in the discussion.

Until someone mentions it, and then everyone is like, "Oh yeah."


The one thing that kinda sorta sucks about peak TV is that there are so many amazing shows that it's hard to keep up with everything. There is, quite literally, too much great TV out there.

One of the challenges with Fringe is that its story and quality varied so widely between seasons. The first season was absolutely not peak TV. Seasons two and three almost certainly were. After that, though?

See also: Moonlighting, which I'm currently binging.

 

[Ryujin]

This is the point where I usually say, But what about Fringe, which I think is one of the stone-cold classics of sci-fi television shows, and yet somehow always seems to get missed in the discussion.

Until someone mentions it, and then everyone is like, "Oh yeah."


The one thing that kinda sorta sucks about peak TV is that there are so many amazing shows that it's hard to keep up with everything. There is, quite literally, too much great TV out there.

I have the boxed set, of both of those series, sitting on the shelf above my desk as I type this. I don't usually mention "Fringe" because no one seems to remember it. Makes me wonder how many people actually saw it given that it never hit syndication, as far as I know. The world needs more Anna Torv, regardless of her family ties.

 

[Thourne]

One of the challenges with Fringe is that its story and quality varied so widely between seasons. The first season was absolutely not peak TV. Seasons two and three almost certainly were. After that, though?

See also: Moonlighting, which I'm currently binging.

In an odd way this brings us full circle back to Billy Shakes!