I have a hard time agreeing that these new series fall under the category of Television. TV _is_ explicitly the format in which the content is delivered (device and delivery). It used to be broadcast live, whether over the air or by cable, and those formats required payment for said delivery.

Now actual televisions aren't necessarily part of the equation. Plenty of people are watching these series on their phones and laptops and tablets, and sometimes televisions, but not in the way they used to be delivered to said screens.

I agree that we're in something of a golden age for episodic story-telling. I agree that this story-telling was born from broadcast television. I don't agree that it, in its current incantation, can be plainly categorized as "TV".

In the same way that a mobile device is no longer a telephone, though we may still call it one from time to time, and a TV remote is no longer a "clicker", no matter how many times my parents call it one.

Names of formats have a way of sticking around. The novel hasn't been new for a long time. Films are distributed with disks, and solid state disk drives have neither disks nor drives.

Language moves on. We already have a retronym[1] called "broadcast television" that incorporates what you're describing, while the definition of television will probably change with our devices.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym

While I've been a huge fan of this 'golden age of TV', I can't help but wonder to which degree I'm fooling myself by spending hours on 'extremely high quality' television that ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way.

The Wire felt like it actually taught me something and made me think about society and my role in it. But to what extent are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Westworld basically same as daytime soap operas dressed up so they're palatable to 'discerning' consumers?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I do find that many people, myself included, justify their TV habits by arguing that we're watching 'quality' TV instead of the usual daytime garbage.

(I've been reading Infinite Jest and recently read Wallace' "E Unibus Pluram"[1], so this has been on my mind.)

[1]: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

A long time ago I came to the conclusion :

One day I will be old and unoccupied, work will be behind me, my capacity to produce will be reduced, I will be more inclined to consume. If TV programmes and films of today are any good they will still be around. I shall watch them then.

You know, this is exactly what my Dad did. He's in his late 80's now, and retired back in '92. He job kept him busy 24/7 for most of his career, and he never had the time to watch TV, when there were so many other, more important things to do.

Nowadays, he uses my Netflix account waaaay more than I do. And he's catching up on decades of shows, and quite enjoying himself. He just finished Season 3 of ST:TNG. It's been fun talking to him about episodes I watched back in the day, too.

Does something have to have a pecuniary reward to be worthwhile? Stories have been told since the beginning of humanity, and I'm sorry if you see them as a waste of time.

Many soaps could probably be radio programs. They're visually simple and the stories are told in a straightforward way. Ditto for many sitcoms, which I generally enjoy, so this isn't as harsh an indictment as it sounds.

TV and movies are visual mediums, you can tell stories in more interesting ways. People might flatter themselves a little bit but that's not why these shows are popular IMHO.

>> "ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way."

How is entertaining you not improving your life?

I love getting junk food every once in a while. It 'improves' my life because I enjoy it. Eating a lot of it regularly would not.

I'm not judging anyone and I'm by no means saying that it's easy to discern how 'junk' a form of entertainment is. I'm just saying that I started wondering whether this quality food I'm having a lot of might just be cleverly dressed up junk food. Specifically in regards to 'quality' shows like GoT and Westworld.

I really don't mean that in a pretentious way. I watch stuff that most people would probably consider junk, so that would be hypocritical of me.

True. And it's easier to watch these on the internet (legally or illegally) than on "TV".

Whether you watch it on TV or pay HBO (or Netflix or whoever) to stream it they're still TV shows, produced by TV networks. It's the format, not the delivery that matters. The parent comment was obviously about the quality of the content. Nobody cares whether it comes over coax or TCP.

The on demand nature of modern TV show delivery has allowed for a huge shift to serialized storytelling. Previously, there was a real drive for standalone episodes as there was significant money to be made by syndicating shows post their original air date. And, of course the conventional wisdom of "if someone misses an episode they'll quit watching".

The presence or absence of commercials is a huge element in the "format". It's possible to never see commercials online -- which isn't possible on TV. Also, Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".

>Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".

There are higher quality TV shows than ever before. To say TV "had its heyday" is outrageous. TV, not movies, is where the magic is happening these days.

I know people who have paid for HBO accounts to watch shows as soon as they come out (instead of pirating them or binging them a few years later), ditto for cable subs and commercials. The average consumer is not bothered by this stuff IME.

Those are great, but those are all HBO, if I recall, which is decidedly not TV in my opinion (I have HBO Now).

You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash or available somewhere else without obnoxious ads (loudness mitigation is a lie) and cheaper.

>those are all HBO

>You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash

Breaking Bad and Mad Men were both on AMC.

If you're picking up Breaking Bad right now, you'd watch it on Netflix. The only reason you'd watch it on TV is if you're catching it the first time it's airing. I only joined on the last season so I don't have much context, but everyone I knew in college would wait for it to air and immediately torrent the commercial-free episode. For something huge like the ending I know some people that hosted small viewing parties to watch it live, but many were fine with waiting.

Also, Breaking Bad ended in 2013, and Mad Men in 2015. That list only has two entries. Maybe not literally everything on live cable TV is trash, but I think it highlights that there's a clear decline.

The obvious example is The Americans, and... nothing else comes to mind. Everything else worth watching is created by Netflix or HBO (or maybe Amazon).

Ah, my mistake. I could have sworn I saw them listed on HBO.

While this might disprove my statement, I don't think it's entirely without merit, still.

Well, I think Breaking Bad is also on Netflix.

All of those programs are available on demand on the internet. When people talk about TV in this context they are talking about cable not the content.

The parent comment was discussing the quality of the content.

Of those five you listed, three are no longer running.