Soaring

Emily Nussbaum's New York piece about how television became art in this decade is, predictably wonderful.  But I wish she'd spent a little bit more time on the structural issues that allowed shows ranging from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Sopranos to The Wire to Dexter to Mad Men to survive and thrive.  One point she makes that I think is critically important is that technology both allowed audiences to exist beyond the rigid time slot when shows originally aired and the time they were released on DVD, and provided supportive communities that deepened fans' analysis of and attachment to complex shows.  She writes:

In fact, a series like The Wire might not have found that audience were it not for galloping advances in technology: DVDs that allowed viewers to watch a whole season in a gulp and, later, DVRs that let viewers curate, pause, and reflect. By opening up TV to deeper analysis, these technologies emboldened a community of TV-philes, fans and academics who defended the medium as worthy of critical respect. Online, writers were forced to reckon with their most passionate viewers (and some loopy new critical forms: the recap, fan fiction, “filk”). A show like Lost, with its recursive symbol-games, couldn’t exist without the Internet’s mob-think. But this was true as well for The Sopranos and Mad Men, allusive dramas that rewarded rumination, causing nationwide waves of appreciation and backlash for months after each new episode.

But I would be particularly interested to learn more about the financing issues that allowed shows like this to survive.  Did premium cable subscriptions rise in price such that smaller audiences could finance shows than they had previously?  How much of a role did alternative distribution systems like iTunes help finance shows that might have done poorly at attracting advertiser revenue or drawing large audiences?  Nussbaum said the WB's obscurity saved Buffy--was that because the network had more limited expectations for audiences, allowing Buffy to clear a threshold that Dollhouse clearly missed on FOX years later? 

And some more questions.  She also points out that Matthew Weiner was trained by David Chase--The Sopranos spawning, to a certain extent, Mad Men.  And The Corner made The Wire possible.  Is it possible that the aughts were simply a time when a small group of auters accumulated enough clout to get done what they wanted?  And I'm curious as to what happened that said crew of auters is so male-dominated.  The only woman who Nussbaum namechecks is Ilene Chaiken, and The L Word, in my humble opinion, simply isn't in a class with the great shows that are at the heart of this piece.  And I wish she'd discussed a little bit more the extent to which the success of cable and premium-access shows is encouraging the networks to up their game.  But it's a very interesting piece and a good point.  Like Nussbaum, I'm curious where web-only models will go, and as of this moment, optimistic.