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Jereel Hunter on 10 January 2012
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JEMC said:
Jereel Hunter said:
JEMC said:
Dark_Lord_2008 said:

MacGyver, M*A*S*H, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Dad's Army, Fawlty Towers, Family Ties, Diff'rent Strokes and Family Matters.

I have found TV shows were a lot better in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s. Modern TV has stunk for a while with the endless not so funny comedies, too many reality TV shows and lots of clones of CSI and Law Order. Modern TV shows have huge budgets but they are not as memorable as the classic old TV series.

I agree with you. Today TV shows usually have better scripts than Hollywood movies, but they often lack personality.

Also new comedies tend to be either too stupid or too pretentious to be really funny.

I disagree. Nowadays there are more shows. And lots of chaff. But those eras were all the same - the difference is, you remember the classics, and discard the rest.

20 Years from now, when there is still an endless stream of shows, ranging from terrible to great, you'll make a similar list, but you'll say how they don't make shows like Firefly, Arrested Development, Justified, Mad Men etc, anymore. But they will. There are so many shows, it's hard to latch on to the quality ones. Half of my favorite shows from the last decade I never watched a single episode of until after they were cancelled, or were in syndication, or on Netflix streaming, etc. Nowadays, top tier shows are as good as ever. And there are plenty just loaded with personality. But it's easy to miss them when there's 100 shows ranging from terrible to mediocre for every 1 or 2 good shows.

Maybe.

But, as you say, many shows today are crap, so the ones that stand out of the rest aren't automatically great shows, just better than the rest of the crap.

(Note: I'm not denying that there are great shows today, it's just there aren't as many as we think).

Well no, there aren't many that would qualify as great... but I'd put today's # of great shows up against prior eras, easily. I mean, even looking at his list above, a few were great shows, and some were just good, despite being considered classics. And not all of them aged well. Some jumped the shark (literally). Nostalgia has a powerful effect on memory... when it comes right down to it though, our era produces a lot more shows that will be worth watching 30 years from now than prior eras. But we have a lot more volume which is likely to effect the place of these shows in public memory.