TV Tuesday: Always With Us

[yourlibrarian]

In a recent interview, Wendell Pierce stated “The Wire is something that is classic. What makes it classic [is]...it spoke to the audience then, it speaks to us now, it will speak to audiences long after it’s over.”

What defines a "classic" TV show for you? Do you have examples for that?

Comments

[marycuntrarian]

I might be a bit biased because I'm on my second rewatch of Community right now. Besides the season missing Dan Harmon, I think this show (now being 15 years old, ouch), really defines classic tv for me. My partner said something I need to quote which is "it never forgot it was a tv show in a time of shows that tried to be mini movies."

Community knew how to make solid episodes of tv. With a lot of different "classic" tropes that was the point to pay homage to, but now rewatching it (as a near 40 year old who misses the old 90's way of watching tv) it feels like it became a classic through osmosis of those tropes.

I'm still waiting for that damn movie but it would be so weird to see in this day and age of streaming if it would have a different vibe or comment on the state of tv. It's also a totally different time and the landscape of comedy has changed, but I think Harmon has shown in the past he can evolve and grow with tv, for better or worse. lol

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I've also been wondering what the movie could be like, especially since with the passage of time there are just more and more expectations for it.

Community is one of my own favorite shows of all time, but I find it interesting that it's the first one mentioned as a classic. I guess it's because it seems very much of our era to me? I can't, for example, imagine this show existing in the 1980s. That said, it's probably even more relevant now than when it started (or even ended). It's very fannishness and using existing pop culture and media as sources for episodes is very much what things are like now.

I guess it does make me wonder what the future of pop culture and TV entertainment will be, because I think Community was both revealing and predicting it.

[delphi]

This is maybe more answering a question with a question, but this made me realize how interested I am in how "classics" are going to / are already taking shape in a streaming era. Network scheduling and syndication used to play such a big role in whether something was cemented as a classic. We don't generally have those water cooler shows anymore, or the stuff that stays in the public consciousness or passes down by generation based on when and where and how often the reruns air. I feel like now, we're maybe more likely to nominate shows as classics based on critical reception and prestige, when before it was more influenced by popularity, ubiquity, and how much of a template-maker or trendsetter it was in the medium.

[yourlibrarian]

That's a great point about the syndication pipeline. There's quite a few shows which got a renewed life, or became cemented as popular shows because they started appearing in other places (Superatural for one). Certainly Trek would never have been the franchise it is without that second life.

I think there's still an effect there when a show moves around. For example, it was Netflix that boosted a lot of CW shows, and made a huge difference in You continuing as a show at all. So having some shows moving from streamer to streamer might actually make the shows more popular and seen by new groups of people.

At the same time, the fact that so much TV content from the 1900s, from international sources, and the addition of YouTube viewing means that any potential audience is so much smaller than when TV was one of a few options for home or group entertainment.

[tinny]

I feel like everything that permeates pop culture enough becomes a classic. Most of them do it by prolonged exposure (i.e. lots of seasons).

Not sure what else needs to be there, it needs to hit some kind of nerve, maybe have a certain amount of production quality (soaps don't usually become classics - is Dallas a soap?)

My personal favorites are The Simpsons, Futurama, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

[yourlibrarian]

I would say Dallas was definitely a nighttime soap. Quite a few shows, regardless of format are very much like soaps.

I think longevity is certainly a part of it, it's hard to think of classic shows with fewer than 30 episodes (as opposed to "famous" or "cult classic" shows, in which I'd classify Fawlty Towers and Firefly).