The HBS try to decipher what makes prestige TV "prestigious." 

The 21st Century hasn’t given us a lot of reason to recommend it so far—terror, war, fascism, plague, climate disaster, and an impending technopocalyps... but, hey, at least we’ve had good tv! 

Often referred to as “Peak TV,” the so-called second (or “new”) Golden Age of Television began in the very late 90’s and really cemented its influence in the first decade of the 2000’s. The plots were complex and protracted, not episodic. The protagonists were antiheroes, not heroes, morally ambiguous, hard to endorse, but impossible not to like.  There was foul language and graphic violence and full-frontal nudity. And since nobody could access this content with an antenna and tin-foil, we paid for it. 

It’s since been dubbed “prestige tv,” in part (I think) to assuage the consciences of all those snooty people who looooooved to say that they “didn’t watch tv.” Prestige tv included shows you couldn’t not watch—not because you wouldn’t be “cool” or you might be left out of the most recent water-cooler small-talk, but because prestige tv was quite literally re-shaping culture itself.

The Sopranos. Lost. Mad Men. The Wire. Breaking Bad. House of Cards. True Detective. Game of Thrones. Atlanta.

Today we’re going to talk about prestige tv, in my opinion one of the most significant, and uniquely American, artistic movements since rock n’ roll. What makes prestige tv prestigious? How do we know it when we see it? What are some of the best examples of it? And, perhaps most importantly, why are we seeing less of it?

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-102-prestige-tv

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