Critics keep saying that we’re in a Golden Age of quality TV, and, who knows, maybe we are. But don’t you wonder how we got here? What happened? What changed? As 2015 closes, it’s time for some insight into the year’s biggest media story:
by Joshua Gans
When we think of Golden Ages it is looking back and realising that things were better during some period of time; we just never realised it at the time. But we are currently living in a Golden Age of Television. It is better than at any point in its history. And what is more, we know it. That is simply a remarkable state of affairs.
When did the Golden Age begin? Many will mark 2008 as a turning point with Breaking Bad (or maybe a year earlier with Mad Men). Others will go back to 2002 and 2003 with The Wire, Battlestar Galactica and Lost. In reality, the Golden Age, as we know it, is really a phenomenon of the last five or six years as knowledge of great alternative programming became widespread. And there is no end in sight.