I knew heather havrilesky had it in her. After months (years?) of columns with occasions of brilliance but a preponderance of solipsism (if I am never addressed to as a 'chicken' again I will be delighted. And I'm really thrilled for you baby but tv criticism is not an excuse, except perhaps thematically, to refer to your recent nuptials) her latest column is a fantastic, objective analysis of the trends and their manifestations that have made tv great over the past few years. No offense, but more criticism, less heather's personal predilictions and commentary. You've got it in you!

I have friends, but mind you, not close ones, who still boast about not watching television or not having cable.

They are among the cultural dinosaurs of our time.

The second golden age of television is no better than the first, however film and television are virtually intertwined, because one medium transfers perfectly into the other. Television now assumes the role of the old movie serial, or shorts which ran ahead of the feature during those early years. History repeats itself, we should expect television to provide us with the imaginary riches, much as film did during the depression, only this time the wealth is provided through the advertising conduit. Seen the latest Hummer ad? Feeling kicked around, buy one of our vehicles and you will be riding high.

I've been waiting for Heather's "serious defense of TV" column--it's been lurking around the corners of her pieces for a while and it's nice to see it pulled together with some force to it. I'd like to see more in this vein, if it's there.

Heather Havrilesky reminds me of why I want to be a critic. She has fun while also seriously understanding the nuances and complex details of the shows that she loves so much. And on top of that, she loves "bad" TV too! Basically, I'm saying that I'm jealous of whomever her husband is.

PS Don't stop calling us "chickens." That person below me needs to lighten up.

PPS Long live "Deadwood!"

Another aspect of the new Golden Age is that you can get a whole series on DVD, to absorb in great gulps without advertisments. Sometimes its nice to wait for a new episode every week, but watching multiple episodes without commercials is great too. "On demand" also plays into this, with some stations posting recent episodes soon after ther air date, to be watched sans commercials.

Long live the 20+ episode arc!

This weekend I wanted to go catch a movie, and perused the theater listings without finding anything that inspired me to go, something that's happened to me several times this year. After reading this article, I realize that it's just because I've become accustomed to seeing better fare right at home on my TiVo. Heather Havrilesky has hit the nail on the head -- TV today is just better than anything Hollywood is putting out on the big screen. More thoughtful, better characters, better dialogue, better plotting, and the cinematography and directing is at least catching up as well. While the last two summers have gone by without a single summer blockbuster that was not a complete retread of a tired old plot, we've had tons of innovative new television. And to think that the proverbial they said that TiVo would be the death of television. My only other two cents would be that Buffy and Joss Whedon, unfortunately omitted in the article, were at least precursors of this trend.

Top end TV dramas have definately gotten better. They benefit from long term character development and time to grow and mature. The bottom end of the TV spectrum however is the same old cart of junk if not more diluted.

In that sense, the top end "maybe" constitutes 1% of the total, and you often have to pay for premium cable. I get standard cable free with the building but there's no way in hell I'm going to pay upwards of $60 bucks a month (or $720 a year) to watch HBO.

On the flipside, Ms.Havrilesky alludes to it, but doesn't hammer it home -- the U.S. film industry puts a massive amount of mindless, pre-fabbed garbage. In that sense, anything reasonably crafted will look superior (and often is) but does that make it golden? I'm not sure.

Any way, the best thing I learned in grad school about film and media genres, aesthetics, etc. (from an old pragmatic commie prof. no less) was that people defend and prop up what they like whether they write hardcore academic criticism, standard movie reviews or is 16 y.o. watching youtube.com. In that sense at least Heather Havrilesky likes what she writes about. I'm not necessarily buying it (literally) but it's nice to know because the critics that don't like what they write about are the worse.

If you like long story arcs and complex characters, then you probably loved "Babylon 5" when it came out in the 90s.

"... and television has always aspired to be more than just a means of selling laundry detergent ..."

Am I mistaken, or is Ms. Havrilesky here attributing awareness and intention to television? That would be strange. I hope that what she's really thinking of is not "television" but "television executives." In which case, or course, she's confused. The people who run television would certainly like for their product to garner critical praise on a more highbrow plane than has traditionally been the case. But only so they can sell more detergent.

What this article illustrates is really more about the nature of mainstream criticism: critics are fans first. People who aren't particularly into TV needn't pay any attention to what TV critics think, since it mostly won't square with their own experience. The same is true for movies and criticism thereof. Being a devotee of live theater and a sometime theater critic myself, I see that the peculiarly local element of live theater prohibits any serious attempt at theater criticism as a national sport (the way TV and movie criticism are). I can nevertheless confidently assert that the same would otherwise be true for theater, ballet, symphony, and other forms of performance art.

What's that you say? What I read at Salon isn't "mainstream criticism?" Sorry. I meant to say "mainstream and hip criticism." Neither is more substantially correct, on the whole, than the other.