It Was a Golden Decade, If You Had Cable

Decade in Review
Television
The National Post

I note two trends, though it's probably demeaning to call them that. They're achievements. 1. The TV novel. Not as in the BBC Classic/Masterpiece Theatre model, but as in great original creations: The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood and probably Mad Men, though the fat lady hasn't sung yet. This form may already have crested, but it was magnificent while it lasted. 2. The comedy news show. Forty-five years on, U.S. TV has caught up with where British TV was in the early '60s when David Frost and That Was the Week That Was were credited with bringing down the Macmillan government. This is unlikely but they certainly captured a mood, just as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have done. Some complain that viewers are treating Stewart and Colbert, especially Stewart, as their primary news sources; that, too, is unlikely - you have to know the background in order to get the jokes - but even if that were the case, it wouldn't be terrible. Comedy depends on the telling of truths, and if these two men have become the most trusted commentators on TV, it's because they're the most intelligent. (Also because all the others are so pompous.) Stewart, in the best of his interviews, has broken the mould for both TV comedy and TV politics by asking questions as if he actually wants to know the answers. It's understandable that Christopher Hitchens and Rex Murphy have been having a go at him; it must be galling to see someone expressing opinions you disagree with and being funnier than you are while doing it.