As far as I'm concerned Mad Men is the highest art that television has yet achieved. It's hard to even think of a runner up; maybe Better Call Saul or True Detective S1.
The Wire - good for its time; one of the first 'good shows'; doesn't actually hold up today though... what subtext it attempts is too overt. Almost like a documentary, but who needed examples of organizations being corrupt to get it? Sopranos is about the same, but a bit better.
Succession - Entertaining but ultimately shallow; not enough meat on the bone. Straightforward, a page-turner, a Stephen King novel, compelling well written characters, but nothing to chew on or to get stuck in one's craw. Most shows people praise fall into this category actually.
Breaking Bad - Almost gets there, surpassed by BCS. It has its moments of art and pathos, but surfaces for air too frequently in its action scenes and 'badassery'.
Well I am talking only about artistic merit. Mad Men is not the most entertaining show, nor the most fun to watch show, etc. But I do find it to be the show of highest artistic achievement. It evokes the most tender pathos, touching one to the very soul; its subtext is masterful; it rivals Dostoevsky in its human wholeness. It holds up a mirror to the human viewing. It transcends its own characters like Shakespeare. Hamlet is no mere character in a play, he is all of us, as is Don, as is Joan. Read Harold Bloom's "Shakespeare: Invention of the Human", and his ardent defense of the bard's superiority in the canon may be transpiled to my thoughts about Mad Men's position in the TV canon without overmuch error.
That's how I feel anyway.
In my critical system 'entertainment' is not so much a consideration. Breaking Bad is fun, badass, shocking, gripping, and at times highly artistic, but it doesn't try to sustain the artistry throughout. Those former adjectives are not what I'm looking for. I want to read high literature, not genre fiction, regardless of how entertaining the book is. Most literature I love is hardly entertaining at all; who could say that they were on the edge of their seat reading Ivan's 'The Grand Inquisitor'? Yet it's one of my favorite passages in the book. That sort of feeling, of artistry, of greatness, of transcendence, is what I'm judging by in my OP.
Over the years I've formed a range of favourites, most fall into comedy, sci-fi or quirky and apart from the obvious picks, the rest are probably not that interesting to other people.
Those from more recent years I'd say for myself are those that I revisit and watch when and if I've got time:
Pity - it was a bit of an epic real life French Intelligence goes bad story.
Thanks for reply, I came back here after spending a bit of time searching the episode descriptions for key words - no Greenpeace (not even green), few uses of nuclear (and none related), no Rainbows or Zealand's.
Guess they just skipped right over that face plant of DGSE history :/
The plot wasn't based on true events. Also the DGSE cooperated in the production of the series so I imagine they weren't too keen on that. That said, I didn't feel that the series was a "look how awesome we are!" puff piece. On the contrary the characters were very human and they fucked up a lot. I like that it was subtle and not action-y.
You might enjoy Steven Conrad’s new series DTF St. Louis. His other stuff since Patriot (which I agree is the best tv show) hasn’t really hit for me, but DTF does.
(You mean just Patriot—The Patriot is a middling Mel Gibson movie)
The Wire - good for its time; one of the first 'good shows'; doesn't actually hold up today though... what subtext it attempts is too overt. Almost like a documentary, but who needed examples of organizations being corrupt to get it? Sopranos is about the same, but a bit better.
Succession - Entertaining but ultimately shallow; not enough meat on the bone. Straightforward, a page-turner, a Stephen King novel, compelling well written characters, but nothing to chew on or to get stuck in one's craw. Most shows people praise fall into this category actually.
Breaking Bad - Almost gets there, surpassed by BCS. It has its moments of art and pathos, but surfaces for air too frequently in its action scenes and 'badassery'.
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