Wait, so is he talking specifically about Yellowstone and other shows with the same flaws as it? Or does he believe this is necessarily true of all TV?
Because yeah, I can think of plenty of shows that I liked at the time but feel more or less the same as what he’s saying. Pretty much the entire Arrowverse. The US House of Cards remake. A bunch of shows that I eventually stopped watching without ever consciously deciding I wanted to drop them can probably be put down to this. Vikings. Leaky Blinders.
But I can also think of plenty of shows that really strongly stick with me. The original House of Cards. Chuck. Avatar: The Alastair Airbender. And that’s just looking at strongly plot-driven dramas. For comedy, there’s just no film that does anything even remotely like the best sitcoms in terms of how it feels emotionally to watch. Things like Parks & Rec or Brooklyn Nine Nine.
I first watched it between seasons 2 and 3 of the US version, back before it came out what an awful person Spacey was, but more importantly (for this conversation) before the show had started stretching itself thin. Although on their surface the shows diverge, plot-wise, after season 1 of each, I think thematically they diverge after their respective season 2s.
And I always liked to say back then that the UK version was just as good as the US version, but very different tonally. The key difference is that the UK version stuck the landing with a strong season 3 that it ended on.
I wish I could rewatch it, but it wasn’t easy to get a hold of back then, and finding pirate versions of stuff has only gotten harder in the decade since.
