I thought it was an accepted truth that The Sopranos launched the era of Prestige TV. Does that not count because HBO?
I always thought the same.
That was what I thought too
Fair. Also The Shield.
I would say Mad Men was instrumental in proving to audiences that prestige TV could be done consistently by someone other than HBO.
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Weâd be getting into a weeds convo, but I was just using Lost/House as the only network TV shows in the early Mad Men era that got consistently nominated in the Drama category.
The biggest boon of better TV to me was good failed movie directors moving down to TV. You donât really get that without Fincherâs House of Cards, which really got that going. It may have gotten started sooner, but in my opinion TV was really no longer a place movie directors feared after House of Cards, specifically because of the early seasonsâ style of giving each director 2 episodes (Jodie Foster was a notable exception who only got one).
A really interesting offshoot of this conversation is that until this described era, in the business the tip top sign of âmaking itâ was being on a network show. It would be great to be on one still today, but the days of network shows being the pinnacle (even for shopping a show) are long over. There are also really solid known directors making Hallmark movies these days. Work becomes work at some point for just about everyone. It may feel like thereâs a lot out there but the reality is itâs getting scarcer for most people. I canât even count how many Emmy winners Iâve known who struggled to stay in or are out of the business.
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Too bad it was by the worst channel ever for that, AMC.
Fun fact: I won an audio award in college and the guy who presented my award (I did not go) ended up being the head of AMC during all the drama.
Also, HBO was really hated for their giant budgets no one could match when they started taking over the Emmys. Remember the Cable Ace Awards? HBOâs behavior killed that. The Emmys tried hard to keep HBO out.
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Hot take incoming. I donât get the over the top love for Mad Men. To be clear, I liked it. And Iâd put just below the top tier (Iâve got BB, BCS, Wire, and Sopranos ahead for sure), but there is no way that it is the GOAT TV series. Itâs just not that good (but still very good).
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Do a lot of people have BCS in the same tier as those other shows?
There are people who have it above BB (I disagree, but I can kind of understand).
I do, its an incredible series and an even better example of how to do a prequel
They do here. Theyâve gone a little overboard and theyâre wrong, but they seem to have said it enough times now to cause the idea to have reached critical mass at least in these parts.
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That would be a hot take for anyone but you, Melk. Iâve learned to let you surprise me.
I am trying to remember what even happened in BCS, all that keeps popping up in my memory is his brother with his tin foil blanket and Howard saying âJimmyyyyyyâ. I liked it, but nowhere near BB in my mind.
Well Saul does drink his own piss in that one episode.
Donât get me wrong, I think itâs a great series like others do, but just the repeated matter-of-fact equivalency with (and in some cases even perceived superiority to) Breaking Bad is pretty odd to me.
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I thought the Better Call Saul prequel series was damn good 8/10.
However the Gus Fring prequel series hidden inside it was a 10/10.
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Yes, I have it above BB, but also realize thatâs not a majority take.
Lalo Salamanca is one of the scariest best characters across both shows. Itâs criminal Tony Dalton wasnât nominated for an Emmy as it was the best pure menace Iâve seen on TV in a long time. It had a lot of that âmovie starâ Lawrence Tierney 40s menace in it, where the character made you physically uncomfortable to watch.
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What were some of the best individual iconic BCS scenes?
Practically every montage was iconic, but nothing was as good as the cold opens for BB.
Again, I like BCS for the how the story played out of a character I despised in BB. I could not believe they made a spinoff of that character when I heard about it, but it was truly incredible and wildly exceeded my expectations. BB was done very differently in the way it spun out its story. To me, BB was more about getting out of death defying jams constantly, while BCS was more about getting people out of jams in creative ways, well, except Howard and his brother.
I liked in Breaking Bad when Saul first met Skylar and almost immediately leads with, âI see that Walter likes his women like he likes his lawyers: only the best, and just the right amount of dirty.â Walterâs facial reaction to him is priceless.
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