Medium Cool is here once a week on Sundays at 7pm Eastern to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.
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They don’t make ’em like they used to.
I was listening to a random episode of Suits this week, trying to get to sleep. In just one episode, Jessica made Harvey a parter, Daniel Hardman made Louis a partner and then took over the firm as managing partner. Mike bought a fancy apartment for his beloved grandmother to live in so she didn’t have to stay in the nursing home. Rachel tells Mike that his beloved grandmother has just died. Oh, and someone, probably Donna, is pissed at Harvey because he’s at work even, engaged in the fight with Daniel Hardman, even though his mom has died.
On some shows, that would be an entire season’s action. But on Suits, it was all in a single episode.
USA came out with Suits, White Collar and Burn Notice, all in the same time period. Each show was different but they were all great shows.
They don’t make ’em like they used to. Or do they?
That’s our topic for tonight.
Note: for those new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.
Balloon Juice 2025 Pet Calendar!
Layer8Problem
Always good to see you, WaterGirl.
Baud
USA used to be amazing. I don’t even know what they have on anymore.
Dangerman
So, they done been MTV’d?
ETA: “YouTube killed the video star?”
Chris
My two cents on how “season arcs” have changed:
A couple days ago, I reread a twelve year old blog post by a friend of mine commenting on “The Conspiracy” story arc that had become ubiquitous in television and especially in police procedurals. His examples were Castle, White Collar, and Eureka, IIRC; you could also have included Elementary, Burn Notice, The Blacklist, and a bunch of others. (Nor is this just a 2010s things, the modern version of this arguably started with The X-Files all the way back in the early nineties). All of them would introduce some big conspiracy important to the main characters, and unraveling it would remain as a background element of at least the early seasons, as the show slowly dribbled out more information but mostly just enough to keep you on the hook.
Anyways, I sent my friend a link to his post and commented that this trope was now almost completely extinct, a victim of streaming services and the new TV norms that come with them. “The Conspiracy” trope (a better word would be “the mytharc,” but most of them did revolve around some conspiracy or other) made sense in the nineties, 2000s, and 2010s media environment: it was a way to get viewers hooked, give them something to focus on while the show was still figuring itself out, and provide some long-term continuity in an environment when “television,” despite all the move towards serialization, still meant “twenty mostly self-contained episodes a year.” Nowadays, television seasons last six or eight episodes, and the episodes usually aren’t self-contained, just one really long movie, so what in the old days would’ve been “the mytharc” is now simply “the plot.” There’s no more need for a mytharc to balance out the self-contained episodes, because there are no more self-contained episodes.
(Also, we’ve got an absolute plague of streaming services canceling shows after only two seasons, so the idea of starting a long-term story arc that’s going to span several seasons is even more risky today than it was ten years ago).
WaterGirl
@Baud: I had the same thought earlier today. I have no idea whether they have original shows now or not.
Suzanne
I really liked that show Boston Legal. Spader is one of my celebrity crushes, and Shatner is entertaining.
HeleninEire
I am so sad about what is going on in the US. I have 2 options. I can leave once again or stay here and fight. I am 62 and exhausted.
I am the primary caretaker of my Dad.
Once he’s gone so am I. I am tired of fighting.
Come visit!
NotMax
European and Korean shows often pack a helluva lot into an episode. Also too, on this side of the Atlantic, the Prime original Patriot. comes to mind
Have been watching — check that — 95% listening, 5% watching what has to be the most generic police show I’ve ever come across. Water Rats, from Australia. Even the theme music is so generic it may as well have been churned out by AI on an off day.
Not a recommendation. More like something to accompany while puttering around the kitchen and suchlike that I only have to pay intermittent attention to. It’s not terrible, it’s just … there. Well over 100 episodes available at present on Prime.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Boston Legal was a great show! I even bought some glasses that looked like the ones they would drink out of at the end of the day on the balcony.
KatKapCC
The post title could be applied to Law and Order alone, because the latter seasons were garbage compared to the earlier ones. It was such a killer show (no pun intended) and they had incredible casting. Early on, the writing wasn’t over the top and actually had effort in it. But in the last few seasons, they got so lazy and cringey. Even Alana de la Garza couldn’t save most of those episodes.
BellaPea
I have been re-watching the entire seasons of Game of Thrones. I’m coming up on the last few episodes, and hoping to make sense of the crappy ending again. It just really pisses me off that they did such a beautiful job for so long–perfect casting, incredible details, gorgeous scenery, amazingCGI–and then just rushed the last episodes. And also boo to George RR Martin for not getting off his ass and writing a concluding book that could have provided a better ending.
KatKapCC
@BellaPea: Yeah, it’s a tiny bit aggravating to have invested all the time in reading the books only for the series to be left unfinished. (I know he claims he’s still working on TWOW but even if he ever gets it done, there’s still supposed to be one more after that, so like…ell oh ell.)
WaterGirl
@KatKapCC: Yeah, it felt like even the basic cable networks took pride in the shows, lots of great actors as guest starts in a single episode. Now it’s all about the benjamins.
They cancel a better show in order to keep a cheaper one.
Sad to see it, even if there are good shows streaming. So many streaming channels now, and it’s not cheap.
Chris
@Suzanne:
I really liked that show when it was originally airing, but it’s one that’s been hit hard by the Trump era. It’s a lot harder today to ignore the fact that Denny Crane basically is Donald Trump: a rich white man who’s able to go through his entire life unscathed by a truly stunning amount of misbehavior, partly through good luck, but mostly through sheer privilege.
The rationalizations for his behavior – “well, we have to put up with him because he’s just so good at his job” and “well, he’s an old man who’s starting to have legitimate mental issues” – should both look familiar to anyone who’s been following Trump. In the series, both these things are true, because, well, they pretty much have to be for us to retain any sympathy or empathy for the man. In real life? It’s what people tell themselves must be true when faced with a privileged white asshole – but in fact they’re just rationalizing, rather than facing the implications if it’s not true).
KatKapCC
@WaterGirl: Oh my gosh, I know! I feel like every time I hear about a new show that sounds good, it’s on yet another streaming service. I thought the whole point of streaming was that it would be more affordable than cable.
I also gotta throw out some love for the Golden Girls. Damn, what a terrific show. A handful of the jokes maybe haven’t aged super well, but overall it’s still as good now as it was when it first aired. And talk about a great cast.
Chris
@BellaPea:
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to read these books simply because they’re obviously never going to be finished.
I’ve already got two fantasy series whose authors have ground them to a halt and that I’m pretty sure I’ll never see the end of (the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch). Don’t need to add a third.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: I did a bunch of furniture re-arranging in my living room today, getting ready for the holidays and everyone being winter loungey. I have an armchair that I had in my office, but I decided to use it as extra living room seating. I sat in it this afternoon and felt very much like Alan and Denny! LOL.
I also did a bunch of running and Peloton this weekend, and now I am on that living room floor, strrrrrrrrretching out those calves.
TheOtherHank
I still think about Twilight Zone episodes I watched in syndication back in the 80s.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: I loved that show back in the 90s when it first aired, and then I tried to watch it again a couple years ago and just couldn’t hack it. Still love Spader and Shatner, but the smug entitlement of their characters was too much for me in the post-Trump era. Watching white men behaving badly and getting away with it no longer gets even the smallest of a tee-hee out of me these days.
ETA: Or, you know, what Chris just said!
Chetan Murthy
@Miss Bianca: I feel that way about cop shows: they’re all copaganda, and while back in the 90s I could suspend my disbelief, today I just can’t. It’s really sad, b/c I loved _Homicide_ and _The Wire_. But now? I just can’t watch ’em without noticing that it’s completely fantasy-land. Sigh.
narya
Thanks to whoever recommended “Man on the Inside.” Love seeing “Shaun” and “Pillboy.”
narya
@Chetan Murthy: Hill Street Blues…
WaterGirl
@Chris: You are so right about that.
TBone
I liked Nurse Jackie (starring Edie Falco) despite that, or because, it was brutal, also the TV show House. Gilmore Girls for corny pleasure.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Similar theme, but both are great comments. And so true.
Miss Bianca
@Chetan Murthy: oh dear, I feel you on that one, which is a shame because I love(d) police procedurals. I seem to recall thinking The Wire and Homicide were a cut above the rest in terms of problematizing police culture, but maybe I’m naive about that.
WaterGirl
@narya: Man on the Inside is a great show, truly charming. I only allow myself one episode a night. I have only seen two episodes.
It’s almost the opposite of what I described in the post, but it’s just charming.
But maybe I’m missing something? Who are Shaun and Pillboy? Sally Struthers – I hadn’t thought about her for years.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: The only legal show that David Kelley has done that hasn’t made me crazy is the Lincoln Lawyer. And I think that is because Michael Connolly acts as a brake on his worst instincts.
KatKapCC
@TBone: Oh, man, House was my fave. Even though some of the episodes drove me nuts, it was a well-crafted show. I loved Hugh Laurie from some of his earlier work and it was so cool to see how well he took on that role.
Martin
@Chris: Twin Peaks is usually considered the originator of the form. But I wouldn’t consider it extinct – Silo and Severance on AppleTV are great examples of it. Three Body Problem is as well.
Regarding cancellations. Almost 15 years ago now I wrote a series of things (long lost now) arguing that streaming services were economically unviable. The pricing structure was set by Netflix in competition with their 3 at at time DVD rental service, and not against anything that had a comparable cost structure. And that they could get content inexpensively because streaming existed as an ‘on the top’ service on cable. That is, cable was paying the bills and Netflix was a nice bit of extra revenue studios could get above that.
But once streaming sought to displace cable, they’d have to figure out how to replace the lost revenue from cable. Because whatever you think of the economics from the consumer side, the economy of the production of shows is its own thing and it will not voluntarily contract. Studios, writers, effects houses, grips, talent and all that aren’t going to just take a cut in pay and jobs, and so an economic war has taken off. The streaming services have struggled to scale up in the ways that other parts of the internet economy have because countries have all manner of regulation around that space that they have struggled to interact with (my favorite is Canadas requirement that a certain percent of shows be Canadian produced so you get Game of Thrones up against something that looks like a high school theater production) and because media is inextricable with culture and not everything that appeals to US audiences appeals to foreign ones even after you’ve taken the effort to translate, dub it and all that. So they largely failed to scale and the production industry has clawed back early concessions on residuals for writers and talent in the most recent strikes. That leaves us with an industry in which only Netflix makes money, and everyone else breaks even or loses money, because the old system that sent over $100/mo/household in 2000 to production (remember, almost everything on cable also generated ad revenue) now doesn’t collect that much at $15/mo/service.
The result is that the public has been taught that they can get high quality content for cheap, but that equation doesn’t balance. The only resolution is either higher fees or a reduction in service – lower quality shows, fewer shows, not paying talent or avoiding expensive talent, AI writing and effects, and so on. Consumers hate both ideas, and we’re seeing ads come back to help fill the gap, but this system will continue to deteriorate until the equation balances.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
There’s one particular moment in one of the late season episodes that may be the most prophetic thing ever said about the last fifteen years of politics.
The idea is briefly floated of Denny Crane running for President in 2008, with him being approached by a panel of Republicans who don’t like McCain and think he might have a shot. At one point in the questions, they ask about the rumors that he enjoys spending time with prostitutes, obviously expecting him to be embarrassed or defensive about it. His response:
“Who doesn’t? I like sex. I like women. I’ll hump anything in a dress. I’ll even get down on the floor with you right now if they’ll turn off the lights. But know this. The American people will find it refreshing to get a Republican candidate who’s not a moralistic, sexually repressed, crusading hypocrite who cruises airport men’s rooms late at night. Denny Crane rides high in the saddle! I’ll go into office with my boots on, I’ll die with my boots on. Next.”
Pretty much predicting the party’s embrace of Trump right there.
Suzanne
@Chris: I can def see that.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure you see the legal shows from a different perspective. I know I have had that issue with tech on various shows.
People using “modem” as a verb! And tech that simply didn’t exist – they just made it up.
I really like Lincoln Lawyer streaming on Netflix more than I liked the movie, but of course I saw the one on Netflix first. Maybe it’s like kids, you always loved your mom’s mac and cheese (or whatever) best.
Quaker in a Basement
No, they don’t make them like they used to, and there are a few reasons why.
First, on traditional networks, shows aired once and disappeared–at least until rerun season. VCRs and and DVR TV made it possible to save a show to watch later, but that required some work. So it was likely that viewers would miss one or more episodes during a season. That made it preferable for episodes to stand alone, mostly, so viewers wouldn’t be lost if they missed one.
That’s not how we watch streaming TV. When a new season drops, you get two or three or more episodes right away. Even if the series rolls out an episode at a time after that, all the previous episodes are still there and a viewer can binge them all at once or review them.
This makes it much more feasible to have a story arc that spans the whole season. Individual episodes don’t have to stand alone because viewers are way less likely to miss one.
Also, I’ve noticed that lots of TV series have the lead actor doubling as the executive producer. I think this prompts the lead to develop story arcs that aren’t only about coaxing viewers into watching the next one, but are also something aof a vanity project, something the actor can point to as a major accomplishment.
Or, they DO make them like they used to, only better.
I’ve really enjoyed reboots and updates of old shows. Streaming lets the producers escape the rigid rules of network television and allows characters and story lines to be less sanitized. Robert Downey’s reboot of Perry Mason was fantastic. Instead of the wooden, pious character played by Raymond Burr, the reboot featured Matthew Rhys as a gritty, down-and-out fighter who cuts corners, makes deals, drinks, has sex, and struggles with his conscience. But at its heart, it was still true to the Perry Mason legend.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Yow. Just yow. I don’t remember that particular speech – I think I may have stopped watching it by then – but holy hell, what a harbinger.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: So, WaterGirl, you recommend “Suits”? The only thing I know about it is that the Duchess of Sussex (I think that’s her correct title) was in it.
Percysowner
The one cop show I can rewatch is Cold Case, partly because the entire premise of the show is “the cops screwed up the first time”. Although no one ever actually says it, most of the time the cops screw up is because either the victims are “unimportant”, poor, wrong race, wrong sexuality or the suspects are very important and get special treatment. The focus is less on the cops investigating the case and more on the victims and the people and events that led up to the crime. Plus the music is fantastic using songs from the era that the cold case happens and a finale that always shows all the main people involved in the story and someone always sees the victim one last time. I usually cry at the finale. They don’t make them like that any more, but they didn’t make them like that back then either, it was just different. Music rights mean it will never be on DVD, but Roku Channel and HBO Max show it.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: When I was visiting my mom last month they were watching a lot of the current shows on the ER to cop spectrum, and they were not subtle on the copaganda front.
Chris
@Chetan Murthy:
I think it doesn’t help that crime related TV shows have steadily been getting worse on the copaganda front for a very long time. Like forty years at least. Same’s mostly true of spy shows and military shows. It’s not just we were more naive and willing to suspend disbelief in the nineties, the genre has genuinely gotten worse.
Parfigliano
Am I the only person in North America without a streaming service?
Martin
@Parfigliano: Lot of prisoners don’t have one.
Percysowner
@Quaker in a Basement:
Also the new Matlock reboot, which I am really enjoying.
Gin & Tonic
@Parfigliano:
No.
Miss Bianca
@Parfigliano: Nope. Hell, I don’t even get network TV. It’s DVDs or nothing for me (ok, I do subscribe to YouTube, so I have access to some very obscure TV and movies I wouldn’t otherwise. I’m about to embark on a British TV series from the 1970s called “Follyfoot”, which is about the wacky goings-on at what we would now call a horse rescue. This wonderful world!)
TheflipPsyd
@Chris: This is really an interesting point. I wonder if the success of Lost and the absolute disappointment and anger over then ending helped end that trend?
Phein64
@Baud: English Premier League games on Saturday and Sunday, sometimes on a weekday. Otherwise, repeats, Harry Potter movies, randomness.
thruppence
Rewatching Sense8 on Netflix. Cancelled as too expensive, shooting all over the world. Is it good? YMMV but I like it.
TheflipPsyd
@Suzanne: I love James Spader as well — he is such a versatile actor. So many roles I absolutely hated him and other roles I loved him.
He read Dean Koontz’s Strange Highways which is available in 4 parts on Youtube. I love listening to him — he does such a great job.
Chris
@Percysowner:
One of the things I loathe about the modern vigilante genre, or at least the modern “private citizen fighting crime” genre, is that these people’s existence is actually really easy to justify given the enormous number of crimes that go uninvestigated and categories of people that go unprotected. A guy who tries to solve crimes or resolve disputes between illegal immigrants that can’t go to the police for justice would never be out of work. Neither would one who was trying to punish perpetrators of sexual assault, the ultimate crime that the police doesn’t give a shit about. Neither would one working in pretty much any poor or nonwhite neighborhood. Neither would anyone whose clients included left-wing activists, transgender folk, homeless people, etc.
But all of these premises require admitting, even tacitly, that the cops are often as useful as a bottle of dried glue, giving them a role where they’re at best absent and at worst adversarial, and you simply can’t do that today.
So instead what we get over and over are stories where the private citizen is working the exact same cases as the cops (because you can’t admit that there’s any such thing as people the cops don’t care about), and the cops are mostly extremely competent and honest people (because you can’t admit that there’s any such thing as a bad cop except in occasional freak occurrences), which means the only way to justify the private citizen’s presence is to just give him superpowers, either literally (too many shows to list) or de facto (Elementary, Psych, The Finder).
billcinsd
@Baud: Lots of Law and Order, I think and English Premier League soccer
FelonyGovt
@WaterGirl: I liked Man on the Inside but I felt that it kind of patronized its elderly characters. (Of course I’m extra sensitive, being of that vintage myself) Also getting tired of constant Alzheimer’s references, hits too close to home with some family stuff.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I do! Lots of great characters. Yeah, some of the characters are arrogant (attorneys!) but I thought it was a great series. Take a look at the youtube above – it’s only 7 minutes or so, and you see the first few minutes of the series, and a few minutes of the last episode.
CliosFanboy
I thought the conspiracy arc was the only thing that made “Designated Survivor” interesting.
There are tons of good streaming shows still on. But they only have between 8 to 10 episodes and then you have to wait a year or two before the next batch.
Chris
@TheflipPsyd:
I think there’s a trifecta there. The X-Files, followed by Battlestar Galactica, and then followed by Lost.
Three shows that were enormous cultural phenomena in their heydey; whose writers assured their viewers that, to coin a phrase, “they have a plan;” where it gradually became clear that there was, in fact, no plan and the writers were just making everything up as they went; and where the final resolution ended up disappointing a hell of a lot of people.
Chris
@TheflipPsyd:
I watched the first season of The Blacklist, not caring for the show itself but enjoying James Spader specifically very much. It aired around the same time that MGM finally got back the rights to SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and I remember thinking at the time that I’d very much enjoy seeing Spader in the role, since he was basically already playing that archetype on The Blacklist.
billcinsd
@Parfigliano: I don’t have any streaming services. But I hate streaming. And to counter the Quaker …, I especially hate them rebooting old series
billcinsd
@CliosFanboy: and they are on like 50 different services
dexwood
Any opinions on Prime’s The Cleaning Lady series? I didn’t know it existed until Thursday when I came home to find something from the production company taped to my door. A scene or two will be shot tomorrow night at a house behind mine, but east by one. Gotta head out for an hour or two, will check back in the morning.
narya
@WaterGirl: they’re two Good Place characters, played by Marc Evan Jackson (the client whose mom has the necklace) and Danson’s son-in-law in the show.
Sure Lurkalot
I really prefer single season fare…5 to 10 episodes, closure, no searching to see if a new season has been picked up. Also I have found, usually around season 3, a lot of shows start to “lose the plot”, the characters shed their novelty and the writers seem bored. Yes, I also have a short attention span.
i never watched Ted Lasso in real time so I’m catching up on that just now. My friend tells me both Disclaimer and Shrinking are good. I will defy my distrust of multi-season series and watch Loot, Hacks and Palm Royale when their new seasons debut.
Gloria DryGarden
@Miss Bianca: i don’t have streaming services either, nor tv. Like you, it’s YouTube, or dvds from the library. The newer laptops don’t seem to even have DVD players in them.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: do you use a roller to stretch your calves? I have recurring Achilles tendonitis and a massage therapist told me that the fascia on that calf are very tight. I’m wondering what to do about it and if a foam roller would help how to do it
FelonyGovt
@WaterGirl: I’m liking the Lincoln Lawyer despite my trepidation about legal shows. Never saw the movie, but the guy on the TV show is much dishier than Matthew Mcconnaghy.
frosty
I watched Burn Notice when it came out and liked it. But of course, Bruce Campbell was in it! Haven’t had any interest in Suits but my younger son made it through all nine seasons.
I’m finally watching some TV! I started Slow Horses a few days ago and binged the whole first season in one night. Just finished the second last night. I read all the books so I didn’t think the show would be interesting but I gotta say, just watching the actors is great. Gary Oldman had one bit in the second season where the camera was on his face, he didn’t say a word, but you could see what he was feeling. I don’t know how actors do that!
FelonyGovt
Movie, but not a TV show, but we enjoyed Emilia Perez which is now showing on Netflix. Zoe Saldana and the lead, Karla Sofía Gascón, are exceptional.
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy: I feel you on that. I liked police procedural because they’re engaging without being too demanding (Homocide and The Wire are both, and exceptions), but I just get annoyed now. And all the Constitutional violations!
Related: for various reasons I’ve been looking to move and saw a listing for a pretty ideal apartment….except it’s less than a block from the main police station. I am not going to increase my chances of encountering cops once TCFG takes office. Not as brown person.
Chris
@frosty:
Hot take: Burn Notice is the best war on terror show made.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chetan Murthy: Well to be fair The Wire, Southland, Snowfall, We Own This City, all get into everything that is problematic in American policing in a pretty unflinching way. They are some of the most honest depictions of police corruption, racism etc., that we’ve probably ever had.
kalakal
Babylon 5 was amazing for an SF tv show in that it was a conspiracy story arc carried over 5 seasons. It was brilliant
A show I’m enjoying at the moment is No Offence on BritBox. A black comedy UK Police show. Each episode has it’s own story but there’s an underlying case that runs through the season
Victor Matheson
I liked Suits, but what ever happened to the actress who played Rachel? I always thought she would go somewhere…
Jacel
I’ve long thought there hasn’t been as charming and warmly with a show on TV as the late 1960s “He & She”, starring Paula Prentice and Richard Benjamin. It only ran a year or so, but Paula and Richard have continued to this day to be alive, working, and married to each other. A show featuring the two of them could have continued to this day. What a loss!
Suzanne
@Gretchen: No, but maybe I should. I am pretty damn flexible, but I just can’t seem to get as deep into my calves as I’d like.
When I do left-leg splits, it feels like something is caught behind my knee. I’ve been working at it over months. Oversplits are helping.
zhena gogolia
@Jacel: I loved that show.
Juju
@Parfigliano: No. I don’t have a streaming service either.
Martin
@Victor Matheson: I heard she married some loser. It happens.
No BellaPea
@Sure Lurkalot: Disclaimer is AWESOME! Best show I’ve seen in a long time.
sab
@Chris: I thought so too.
NotMax
@Quaker in a Basement
Check out the Warren Wiliam 1930s Perry Mason movies sometime.
Gloria DryGarden
External optical drives which plug into your laptop are really, really affordable. Like in the neighborhood of $25 bucks.
Tip: Go with a brand name you recognize rather than the polyglot off-brand names. (FTR, mine, plugged into the PC, is from LG.)
Almost surely will be on special for Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday.
sab
I have been seeing a lot of ads with those suits guys and had no idea who they were or that they were from a show. Still underwhelmed since never had a context.
On the other hand, Terry Crews wowed me when I had no idea who he was and minimal interest in the product he was advertising.
Juju
@Jacel: I have vague memories of that show, and I remember my parents loved it, but I was six when it first aired and only got to watch if I had been a good girl during the day. I don’t remember making it through a complete episode. The tv show that I really enjoyed from that same era was “My World and Welcome to It”. It had cartoons in it and that was enough for me. The “Mary Tyler Moore Show” is still a favorite of mine.
RevRick
@Baud: Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu killed cable networks. They cannot compete financially so you end up with reruns of Friends and Rizzoli and Isles filling their schedules.
jnfr
I love all those shows, but Burn Notice is my very favorite.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Suits and Burn Notice were two of the programs that got my wife and I through COVID. An episode a day was something to forward to. The Expanse was another multi-season series that we watched. And Outlander and Handmaid’s Tale and The Great and White Lotus.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Suits and Burn Notice were two of the programs that got my wife and I through COVID. An episode a day was something to forward to. The Expanse was another multi-season series that we watched. And Outlander and Handmaid’s Tale and The Great and White Lotus.
@UncleEbeneezer: The Wire has to be one of the best series ever! Another COVID salvation
Chris
@sab:
Nobody thinks of it that way because on the surface it’s mostly a “we help the helpless” show in the vein of Leverage. But it really grokked the grimy underside of the war on terror and the spy business in the twenty-first century.
Bonus point to the Sam Axe prequel movie for being based on something that actually happened, in all likelihood multiple times in multiple places. Extra bonus points to the show as a whole for going hard on the “torture is for sadists and thugs” message right in the first episode; it really wanted to stake out a ground for itself as the anti-24.
WaterGirl
@FelonyGovt: Yes!
Percysowner
@kalakal:
Late to the party, but B5 is one of my favorite shows and sadly very prescient. Worth a watch or a rewatch.