The Rings of Power and the End of Television's Golden Age

[@theescapist]

Apologies for not including a spoiler timestamp for Better Call Saul. Will have that fixed for future videos. Here's the timestamp for avoiding BCS ending stuff - 10:08 - 10:52

[@sigmus5543]

i think the golden era ended with better call Saul

[@johns70]

Where is the proof that The Rings of Power is NOT a failure? Do you see any social media hysteria around it like Game of Thrones? Anywhere? No. Because it is objectively boring. And without that, this billion dollar prestige project can not be described as anything BUT a failure...

[@TheJadedJames]

So basically, if you make a bunch of morally simplistic media people will eventually get tired out that and make morally ambiguous media, and vice versa. The reason Game of Thrones exists and got popular was because of its contrast to norms. But if you make that grittiness the norm, people will want brightness again

[@TheJmack90]

That’s what I took away from the video

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yeah, it’s a pendulum swing. I do think that it does reflect broader swings in popular culture, where you go from the more complicated “we need to work through this stuff” political era of Jimmy Carter to the appealing simplicity of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America.”

[@4203105]

GoT was also just a really good show (in the beginning). House of the dragon is basically more of the same and it's still extremely popular.

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@4203105 I mean, it’s set within the same world and has the same aesthetic. But it has a very different structure and worldview, which we talk about in the video and in the video from two weeks ago.

[@sumanoskae]

I think the problem arises when we examine the difference between what makes something popular VS what makes it beloved. GoT attracted attention by being tonally distinct from fantasy stereotypes, but it retained viewership by doing great character work (at first). We'd be better off if writers strove for balance, as opposed to monochromatic tones.

[@KrMees]

You really can't argue that the age of moral ambiguity is ending, whilst HotD is outperforming RoP as we speak, and Succession won the most recent Emmy. Yes HotD is smaller in scope, but the same GoT moral ambiguity is still there in practically every character.

[@TomotoLiterally]

Hmmm... I'm not sure I entirely agree with your analysis here. While I do see The Rings of Power as a simplistic good-vs-evil kind of tale, I would argue that both House of the Dragon and Better Call Saul are more morally ambiguous than Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, respectively. In Game of Thrones Season 1, for example, it's very clear who the good guys are -- the Starks and Daenerys. Ned Stark clearly doesn't desire power, which gives him moral superiority over the ambitious and incestuous Lannisters (specifically, Cersei and Jaime). Daenerys, at least early, isn't obsessed much with power either -- at least, less so than her very obviously cruel brother Viserys. In House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra is far more morally ambiguous. It's not clear what she would be willing to do for the throne (and she's also obviously incestuous). The same goes for other characters. King Viserys I seems like your typic sympathetic patriarch, but he is far less morally defined than Ned Stark, who is always, ALWAYS, bound by honor. In Breaking Bad, it's not at all ambiguous that whatever Walter White engages in is morally repugnant. Like, it's clear from Episode 1 that selling meth is bad. Very bad, hence the title "Breaking Bad." A lot of the antagonists, including the more interesting ones like Gus Fring are also pretty unambiguously evil. In Better Call Saul, on the other hand, Jimmy McGill is far less morally clear. And so is Chuck, his brother, and a variety of other antagonists in the show. As for the ending, I don't know. I had mixed feelings about Jimmy's fate, whereas Walter White pretty much had it coming, and I wasn't at all surprised by his ending (or the ending of Breaking Bad in general). It was pretty clear-cut in Breaking Bad, I'd say. All the criminals got what was coming to them. In Better Call Saul, it feels less so. What I'd say is happening is A: Yes, we are getting more simplistic shows like Rings of Power, Star Wars, Marvel stuff, etc. and B) We're also getting more nuanced dramas that are moving away from your typical "badass" grey protagonists like Walter White and Tony Soprano (or heck, Dexter too) and more toward less glamorized versions of them, like Kendall in Succession, who is as pathetic and sad as you can get. Anyway, I wouldn't say we're done with morally ambiguous shows yet. But that's just me.

[@deviljam4]

Yeah, there's too much nuance in the details I think. Darren may be better served by focusing on the 70s new wave aesthetic vs the 80s optimistic aesthetic. I don't think there's a lot of meaning that could be gleaned by looking at timeline of moral ambiguity, but he does make the point there has been a shift from 70s style anti-heroes shown honestly, vs 80s sympathetic rebellious outsiders. One thing Darren's video is groping with is the focused creative visions (David Chase, Vince Gilligan, etc) vs top-down corporate directives. I think that'd be a hard thing to link together, but that feels like the bigger picture.

[@ravenwilder4099]

@carruthers100 Thing is, halfway through the first season, Walter is given the opportunity to have all their medical expenses paid by their wealthy friends ... which they turn down out of pride. That seemed, to me, a pretty clear way of establishing that, despite what Walter says, they're not going down this path of crime because they HAVE to, but because they want to be the big man who brings in the big bucks.

[@benl2140]

HotD seems like it's actually pretty morally ambiguous, but pretends that it's morally simple (spoilers below). The show pays quite a bit of attention to anything bad that the Greens do, while glossing over most of the Blacks' misdeeds. For example, we get almost an entire episode dedicated to exploring Aegon's cruelties, meanwhile Rhaenys murdering hundreds of people in the dragonpit is completely glossed over and never mentioned again.

[@blakegrant8381]

Was not expecting the Better Call Saul ending spoilers. Happy I finished watching it a couple weeks ago.

[@jerrodshack7610]

Thanks for the heads up. Pretty shitty to just put in a video like that lol

[@DoctorAsshole1]

Yeah... Can't watch this video now. Still have to watch BCS. Unless some is gracious enough to give a time stamp so I can pause and skip

[@JupiKitten]

@@DoctorAsshole1 same lol

[@wgo523]

@@DoctorAsshole1 10:08 - 10:52 has the better call saul ending stuff

[@justinstoll4955]

Damn, good thing your comment was the first I saw because I just started watching it and am only in season 3.

[@antoniomendes7961]

Some spoiler warnings would have been nice...

[@Hannib4lBarca]

When times are good we want gritty dramas. When times are hard, we want something more clear-cut.

[@MrGameadd1ct]

I don't really know if you could even have rings of power as morally ambigous. Tolkien wrote his world with Good ultimately triumphing over evil and took inspiration from his faith. There is just flat out evil from Morgoth and Sauron. Orcs are straight up evil, but also pitible in a way. Though never relatable.

[@jdmill2]

Except that Galadriel is the most morally ambiguous character in LotR. She does want power, she wants to see all the potential of the elven race fulfilled, and she wants the One Ring. In the third age she's using her ring to keep her people enthralled in a sort of permanent dream state where they don't perceive the passage of time and their longing for the sea is suppressed. So unfortunate that Rings of Power has replaced her character with "Stock action girl #17" archetype.

[@jacobquinn12]

I've been trying to articulate what you wrote and created in this video for years. How as the 21-century marches on, we've begun to move away from moral ambiguity as a frontline undercurrent of Western television and movies. The lighter, simpler moral perspectives have resurfaced in modern visual storytelling, and the moral ambiguity that earlier 2000s shows balanced so well has in recent years been portrayed with less nuance to the point where anti-heroes feel more like villains than flawed human beings. By far my favorite "In The Frame" episode yet.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@snixelpig]

Soprano's, BSG, Deadwood, Madmen, and Six Feet Under felt like the beginning of this to me. It feels like most of the new shows are going for blockbuster's content soup. Great Video Sir!

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed!

[@Shimamon27]

Treat those things like fashion. You can be too late, too early too accurate or just in the right time. You forget the accurate ones, laugh at the late ones, appreciate the early ones, even though others just didn't even bother to look at them, and eventually worship the ones coming exactly right. The big corporations following a trend is the special ultra detached person that comes late, kills the party and leaves smears on the walls out of sheer lack of understanding of it. To capture the spirit of an age, you need actual artists that care about what they are doing, and have enough of a space to express it while being supported by a big founder. And, more than that - Feel the right feels and hunger for the right hunger, one that others don't know yet they have. It's all fashion based really... If you bring the right feel at the right time, you are the golden age. People will remember you gloriously for ages, even though you just copied what the early one did, and just made it at the right moment.

[@commandZee]

Darron is pointing out something know to most people familiar with art history. That art has a relatively cyclical nature which reflects the cultural zeitgeist that it's from. Basically nothing happens in a vacuum. Cyclical economic, sociopolitical, and technological changes and conditions have a direct effect not only on each other but also to artistic tastes and movements.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Fair enough, but going by some the comments here, it is not known to most people commenting on videos on the internet! :) Joking aside, it’s handy to put things in broader contexts, and remind people that everything exists as part of something larger.

[@Fullbatteri]

This is why we have artists, they screw the status quo, or dance with it trying something new, sometimes they fail, sometimes they blow it out of the park, but passion is never lacking. But when companies take control….

[@SamSchott1]

I’d be interested in a follow-up on this as to how The Expanse fits in with this, even years after the core shows of this thesis. Thanks for all you do.

[@Darren_Mooney]

"The Expanse" is great. Love "The Expanse."

[@Warstub]

I'm also interested in the effect that animated shows like Castlevania and Arcane may have on the landscape of TV cinema. I've just finished Castlevania and was blown away by how powerful the storylines were, how engaging (all) the characters are, as well as the beautiful imagery; watched one episode of Love, Death & Robots ('The Very Pulse of the Machine') and felt like I could only be disappointed by live-action episodes.

[@Bustermachine]

Expanse is interesting to me because, while there is moral ambiguity, you generally never get the feeling that it's core protagonists are being selfish and a lot of the 'hard man' decisions are explicitly shown to screw people over. Avasarala is my go to example of deconstructing the 'hard man making hard decisions' trope. As many of her hard decisions are effective . . . but cost HER personally. They cost her friendships, they cost her alliances, they cost her cooperation with people she'll need later. The shows second to final arc is a master class in this. Chrisjen suspects how the bombardment of Earth is happening, but she can't get through to the Secretary General because she has burned literally all of her bridges so that the entire staff aboard UN One is ignoring her and actively playing keep away for stupid and petty reasons.

[@SamSchott1]

@@Bustermachine Thanks for the very thoughtful reply. Every choice has a price. (or multiple prices)

[@murphy7801]

Ah that's why rings of power TM seems like a corporate product.

[@arthas640]

I'd argue televisions golden age is well behind us. Just look at the number of viewers major TV shows used to get per episode in the 80s and 90s vs now, even the 70s could sometimes expect more viewers than today. In the US for example there were millions of households with TV's in the 70s but today it's tens if not hundreds of millions, so you'd expect shows today to be able to bring much more viewers, especially since in the 70s outside of the western world and Japan few people had TV's whereas now they're pretty ubiquitous. Yet despite that in the 80s some of the most viewed programs (usually finales) were bringing in over 100 million viewers but today some of the most viewed programs each year are bringing in millions.

[@Hardrampage]

I guess it depends on what metrics you use to define the “golden age”. For me, it’s quality over viewership. And shows pre-Sopranos are nowhere near the quality of the shows we have today. Back then it was mostly just comedy sitcoms. I couldn’t care less if a show finale is viewed by 100k people or 100m people, as long as it’s good.

[@mandisaw]

@@Hardrampage Your comment belies a stark ignorance of 40+yrs of [US] television. There was a helluva lot more to be had than sitcoms, and frankly several of the comedies were more groudbreaking than the formulaic bad-sad-dads of 00s "prestige television".

[@mandisaw]

To your point about viewership - it's all about fractionating the market. While yes, there are far more screens - multiple per household, even just in the US - there are orders of magnitude more options of what to watch. A major reason why shows of the 50s-80s were able to become shared experiences was that we literally had fewer choices. Cable, once it became more affordable & prolific, blew up the monopoly of the Big 3 networks, and streaming, KZbin, etc have splintered it completely.

[@arthas640]

@@Hardrampage There were good shows in the 70s, 80s, and 90s too even if they had smaller budgets typically. Even though they did have less drama and more comedy there were plenty of innovative and deep TV shows. The 70's gave us M*A*S*H, Sanford and Son, and All in the Family which each contained themes many shows decades later would be afraid to talk about like PTSD/war crimes in M*A*S*H, racism and race issues in Sanford and Son (not to mention the then rare view of America and racism from a black perspective), and both sexism, racism, rape, and abortion in All in the Family. The 80's gave us some surprisingly dark shows for a decade where the most famous shows were mainly sitcoms. Miami Vice could get about as dark as shows like the Wire and was extremely mature, I think it was Different Strokes that broached the topic of child molestation, and Blackadder could be a pretty dark comedy, and some other sitcoms like Cheers and Punky Brewster could get pretty dark or cover mature topics and shock the audience into silence while making them think. The 80's also lead to tons of dramatic shows, the guy who created Law and Order got his inspiration from working on 80s shows like Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues. Before the Sorpanos we also had dramatic shows like Law and Order and earlier courtroom dramas that could get pretty dark, mature, and dramatic. Also not sure if they count as "TV programs" or not, but there were also tons of mature, dramatic, and dark made for TV movies in the 80s and 90s. Often that was the outlet for movies without the big budgets to get into theaters or were produced by TV networks/studios. The 90s and 2000s is just when tastes started to really change. In the 70s and 80s sitcoms and comedies were the biggest programs on TV with many action and dramatic programs at least incorporating comedy into them. The same was true with many movies too, overall media was more upbeat and funny and even dramatic programs felt the need to have some comic relief. The 90s was about when movies too got more dark, more mature, and more dramatic and when TV started being less afraid to be purely dramatic and when we got fewer "all ages" shows and got more mature ones, in the 70s and 80s even many shows aimed at adults were afraid to have too much swearing or violence and tried to keep things more PG.

[@orninakassouf823]

This is because there were three television shows in the 70s and not a million streaming services each making their own flagship shows which no one has time to keep up with all of them

[@garrymugen486]

DAYUMMM! One of the best 13mins & 55secs I've spent on YT this year,

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@VICTORZITOSS]

Something something algorithm bless this video I hope i can catch up by the end of next month

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks. I hope you enjoy!

[@Salty.Peasants]

If I wanted to watch Galadriel kick ass I'd watch Elizabeth The Golden Age.

[@dookie6734]

Not to get too political because good and bad things are constantly happening in history, but I wonder if there is an inverse between complex stories in Hollywood and the level of general optimism in the US. End of the cold war and economic boom of the 90s - complex stories. 9/11, recession, pandemics - simple stories with super heroes.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I do think there’s something there, but it’s more complex. Around Watergate and Vietnam, stories became more cynical as the country did, only to really embrace optimism with the ascent of Reagan’s “Morning in America.” Similarly, while the early Busy era had a sort of rah-rah patriotism, it was also a boom time for found footage and torture porn horror like “Saw”, “Hostel”, etc. And Bush’s second term saw a lot more cynicism with the “Dark Knight Trilogy.” Similarly, while Obama’s first term was optimistic - “Star Trek”, MCU, etc. - his second was defined by more uncertainty and ambivalence - “Game of Thrones”, “Planet of the Apes”, etc. I don’t think you’re wrong, to be clear, but there is a push and pull to it. Like, I think Trump era media was quite bleak, but now people *want* to believe things can get better and be simple again, whether that’s earned or not.

[@dookie6734]

@@Darren_Mooney Oh wow, first off thanks for the thoughtful reply and the content you make. Discovered you here on the escapist and love your videos. Second, yeah there is definitely more to it all than can be said in a comment. I was thinking more by era or decade. But you bring up a really cool idea that these things could be broken down further and looked at through the lens of cultural outlook during various presidents, or even specific terms of presidents.

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@dookie6734 Yeah, there was a really good series at The Ringer by Adam Nayman (I think?) which looked at presidential terms through the lens of pop culture. They are well worth googling, if you're into that sort of thing. (I very much am.)

[@4203105]

Clear moral boundaries and stark delinitation between good and evil? Well somebody hasn't seen the last episode where they tried to cram in as many current day ambiguous issues as they could.

[@Darren_Mooney]

What kind of morally ambiguous issues? That anti-immigrant panic is bad? I don’t know if I’d call that “morally ambiguous.”

[@Canadish]

@@Darren_Mooney Immigration can bring legit economic and cultural issues with it, it's dependent on the time/place and circumstances. The shows writers literally cannot move their frame of reference beyond whatever the news cycle is howevr. Turning the Numenorians into fucking 'hurf durf, tuk ur jerbz' types is fucking idiotic. It's a damned medieval society, the material conditions don't exist that would create a that kind of problem, they're Feudal, not flipping laissez-faire Capitalists.

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@Canadish Yes, but it's a show about a magical world that is being watched and consumed in 2022. Of course it reflects contemporary debates over the issue. Because these things don't exist in vacuums, Numenor isn't a real place, and stories reflect and comment upon the world in which they exist rather than the world that they depict. And while there's certainly an issue with the way that episode scapegoats the working class - as opposed to making a point about how it's actually stoked by privileged classes as a distraction from real issues - the level of debate certainly feels of a level with modern anti-immigrant sentiment.

[@Canadish]

@@Darren_Mooney No, I don't accept your first point's presumption here. Its not about 'reflection'' it's direct allegory lifted word for word out of Conservative talking-heads. That's the work of high school drama students on part of the writers. It's extra aggregius in the case of Tolkien, given he was so opposed to direct allegory and worked hard to ensure the ring wasn't just a clear allegory for a modern issue that troubled him. That's why his work, and the Jackson movies, are timeless and relevant today as they were 20 years ago. Writing that just addresses 'current issue' whatever that is, gets forgotten and dates immediately. Only propagandists and hacks write in that way. It's lazy and a misuse of a platform like that.

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@Canadish Trust me, as somebody who was around during Peter Jackson's trilogy, those two were folded into the contemporary discourse, even if they were based around text written half a century before and footage that was shot a year before 9/11. You had Mortensen going on Charlie Rose to talk about the movies as a metaphor for the War on Terror. You had Jackson having to render special effects of the collapsing tower with 9/11 very much in mind, because the second and third movies were cut and rendered afterwards. You have a lot of cultural commentators at the time and afterwards talking about how Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy resonated with what Americans wanted at that moment in time, and how that was the prism through which they were viewed and how audiences (and the creatives) engaged with them. Again, nothing exists in a vacuum.

[@ThatFanBoyGuy]

It's interesting that even the public is getting sick and tired of moral relativism

[@Ghonosyphlaids]

Media has always had a healthy dose of escapism, it's not a shock that people would want to forget about the complexity that surrounds them

[@FranciscoAreasGuimaraes]

Great vídeo as always. Interesting that movie bob also talked about Yellowstone this week, but on a completely different perspective

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, “Yellowstone” is a cultural phenomenon, so it merits discussion!

[@TheJmack90]

The people who read the title and are using it to dunk on Rings of Power…it’s not that type of video lol. Actually watch and become apart of the discussion

[@theescapist]

There may have been a test in there ;)

[@foxeye245]

Then I would suggest that you also watch the video and become a part of the discussion. Because all of those people who are ‘dunking’ on RoP actually understand what the video is talking about and are laughing at how irrelevant RoP actually is to the topic. Even the video itself has a hard time even talking about the show because of how forgettable the series is despite how prevalent it is right now.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yep. I’m quite surprised at how few people actually know what a “Golden Age” actually is. (It’s a historical descriptor, not a metric of quality.)

[@TheJmack90]

@@Darren_Mooney Exactly. And the video is highlighting the idea that that era has ended. But of course, people can’t help but scream that the video is about how the show is trash, because it’s fun to hate on things ig 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@TheJmack90 Yeah. From the outset, we were clear that “In the Frame” is not a review show - we have other shows for that. It’s about putting things in proper perspective. (At the risk of making the titles sound more thought out than it was, of “framing” them.)

[@Peter-qe1yh]

What do you think about Atlanta? Where does that fit in? Because its characters are not morally grey. They have faults, sometimes really bad ones (like where Ern convinces Van to stay with him in a bad relationship via a ping pong game.) but I never feel like its 'morally grey'. They always feel just like relatable people just struggling to get by. Anyway, just kinda wondering where you think Atlanta fits into this archetype.

[@Mamarozan]

How is this not a failure when it fails to compete with She-Hulk... It's like Star Wars being out performed by Shazam. It's the biggest budget ever made and that by a long shot, made of a legendary author and with the IP people refer to as the greatest trilogy of all time. That it sets a record for Prime does not say much when there has not been a single major cultural movie or show produced by the studio ever, you could hire children to write the story with that IP and it would still end up in the top 3 Prime shows of all time as worst case scenario.

[@ftblszn]

Saying Game of Thrones was about squabbling over nothing then saying Rings of Power isn't bad shouldn't be in the same video, you haven't watched either shows at all have you?

[@Darren_Mooney]

Where do I offer a qualitative opinion on “The Rings of Power” in the video? (And, yes, “Game of Thrones” is about… well, the clue is in the title on that one.)

[@paradoxical998]

To be fair the original lord of the rings wasn't exactly filled with morally ambiguous characters. At least, not as much as most of the examples in this video and when there were, they weren't THAT ambiguous. So, I wouldn't expect the new series to have that many either.

[@kreestuh4367]

Interestingly, the new series is set in the Second Age which should mean it's actually a fair bit more gray/dark, per Tolkien's own writings. Stories like "a kingdom goes down a slippery slope in an attempt to gain immortality" and "man attempts to preserve the beauty of the world but creates evil instead" are book events that they should be adapting. Instead it feels like they've just tried to recapture LOTR's stricter good vs. evil vibe, and unfortunately, it feels like a pale imitation thus far. I appreciate that the show runners are trying to focus on "the light" after a long period of "dark" television but it's kinda meh so far. It seems like there should be a middle ground that allows viewers to experience darkness while also coming out with a greater appreciation for good; and so far both RoP and HoT D aren't great for that.

[@purplebananafish]

The Rings of Power is morally simple because, as you point out, it's adapting a morally simple work. And it's one show, hardly indicative of a larger trend towards morally simplicity in an entire medium. Sure, it might influence other TV shows in the future but that remains to be seen. I've got to say, this is a super clickbaity title. Clearly hoping to get clicks from the angry LOTR fans who will assume this video will tear the show apart. No idea if Darren or someone else picks the video title but still. Not great.

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, the video places “The Rings of Power” in terms of a larger trend, one where John Dutton is less morally ambiguous than Vic Mackey, Rhaenyra is less morally ambiguous than Daenerys, and Jimmy McGill is less morally ambiguous than Walter White. Yes, “The Rings of Power” is even more morally black/white than those, but it’s still a clear evolutionary line.

[@will188]

Darren you are one of the best reviewers in the game, don't let anyone let you think otherwise.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks Will! I don’t know if that’s true, but thank you anyway! 😊

[@SamSchott1]

Minor correction: Rings of Power is not clear about anything.

[@LOKITYZ]

There should be more spoiler alerts for this kind of video. Not everyone has watched these shows. I'm fine with it because I've watched most of it, but imagine someone who hasn't watched Mad Men finding out that an important character died like that, in a very general video discussing TV. If it were an analysis video on Mad Men, then that's the viewer's own fault. But how would anyone expect random spoilers in a video with this title? The final season of The Sopranos was kinda spoiled to me because a certain vehicular death of an important character was mentioned to me before I saw it in the show. I would have been shocked had that not been spoiled.

[@wildnugget1675]

silence, snowflake

[@kumatoni5245]

13:01 It's like poetry, sort of, they rhyme.

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, I was stealing from Mark Twain.

[@Ravlar84]

That DiCaprio 24 mention was gold

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks. Quite proud of that gag.

[@hoeraufist]

Things I learned about rings of power from this 14 minute rings of power video. 1. It's simplistic 2. It's expensive.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I mean, off the top of my head, you also learned the Jeff Bezos noted it, that it’s make-or-break for Amazon, that Amazon claims 25m people watched the premiere, what Jeff Bezos’ rules of drama are, how the show originated from Bezos wanted a zeitgeist hit, and that critical reviews have mostly been positive. You also learned how to situate in relation to the recent history of television as a medium. That’s a fair amount, I think.

[@getnohappy]

If I was being cynical (ironically enough), with RoP and HoD being the core examples, it feels more like budgets going towards the VFX department and away from the writing team ^^. Personally I find both of them poorly written rather than "straight forward" in their story telling ("the sea is always right" indeed) and desperate to get to the money shots in lieu of character or plot.

[@Gaia_BentosZX5]

With the constant barrage of thinkpieces, sometimes I think back to shows like the Simpsons and even M*A*S*H. Glad I watched Better Call Saul before this, too as there are spoilers at 10:08, but who am I kidding? After shows like Rick & Morty, Big Bang Theory, iCarly, Steven Universe, and Game of Thrones, I think TV's changed arguably, for the worse.

[@TheCreepypro]

a very nice analysis

[@LordPoshnameVonPlumbingparts]

TROP did fill me with emotion. I can't stop laughing at how badly written, poorly acted and shit it is.

[@spiritB0mber]

I feel like im watching something completely different to what the internet is watching

[@Brandisius]

@@spiritB0mber yeah, we’re 4 episodes in and nothing too outlandish has even happened yet. I’ll reserve judgment till the end.

[@DThron]

This is a good analysis. I think anti-heroism and Heroism represent the two (extremely general) uses of fiction/art - the first is to offer tools of self-critique for the audience, the second to offer reinforcements of core beliefs. A good filmic diet has both, and the point of each is the same: every story, every movie, is a moral lesson. It may not explicitly be framed as one, but there is a moral core to literally every film you can think of, and depending on whether it's giving us an external example of moral behavior (Star Wars, most Marvel films, Norma Ray, 12 Angry Men, etc) or internally testing where our own moral center is (Sicario, French Connection). Hero stories encourage us to be LIKE a person, and simulate the rewards of staying true to a belief. Anti-hero stories, by contrast, work by having us empathize with a morally weak or despicable person - for instance, like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle - as a way to look at our OWN flaws and hypocrisies, so that we may understand ourselves and others more deeply. Both forms intend the audience evaluate themselves and their own choices, either through encouragement or comparison. They are both good for us, especially in tandem. Likewise both forms have similar failures, and, especially when people consume exclusively one type, they run the risk of mistaking the lessons of one for the lessons of the other. With misread Anti-hero stories, we see the rise of the Film Bro, who seem to almost professionally miss the point of films like Scarface or Fight Club, or TV like Breaking Bad - because they believe they are watching EXAMPLES of morality as if they are watching something HEROIC. i.e. they are seeing Walter White as if he is Luke Skywalker. So they talk about the real world with phrases like "That's how it really IS man," and take these films to mean that anything that serves the self is moral; a version of broken self-serving philosophy of Ayn Rand's novels. On the other side are the film moralists, who receive stories of 'heroic example' as if they are intended internal explorations of self, and think the point of the story is to highlight their own moral purity. They read movies like the Marvel films as unconscious projections of their own righteousness, as opposed to what they are intended as: guiding lights that we follow; standards to which we should compare ourselves so that we can become better people - Superman is an IDEAL, not a reality of self. Folks that misread hero stories often hold the view that movies should only follow GOOD people who's only struggle is all the bad people that get in the way: "why would you make a movie about THAT person?" is a common FilmTwitter POV; they seem shocked when Blade Runner is called a classic, when Harrison Ford is a racist who professionally hunts slaves - as if the point of the film could never possibly be something like Ford REALIZES he is morally wrong, and his heart changes completely. They talk about empathy, but what they really mean is empathy for themselves, not those that oppose them, who are seen as totally unsalvageable cartoon villains. I believe that this two-sides-ism is just another aspect of our broader political/culture war, but also sort of symbolic of it. As the media we consume only further defines our lives, the artistic choices seem to be resolving themselves into self-fulfilling prophecies: either the apocalyptic nihilism of the FilmBros vs. the unexamined self-righteousness of the Moralists. Both viewpoints are pure narcissism, however, and only weaponize the tools that art gives us to heal ourselves. We should encourage people to see the value in both moral example and self-criticism through art. We do this by first exposing ourselves to the thing that challenges us the most, and try to see in in the context of what it's attempting, and trust that it's not the enemy. That is means well. Think about whatever it's serving up to examine - and then pass the recommendation on. Trust that humans actually innately want the world to be good, and that all our storytelling in every form is actually there to help us make that real. The world is not a grey soup of amorality, nor is it a world of absolute good and absolute bad. It is up to us to MAKE it good by understanding each other through empathy, and by giving examples of that goodness that we can look to. Film needs both Norma Rae AND Travis Bickle, Luke Skywalker AND Arlene Wuornos - because we learn how to be more one, and less of the other through looking within ourselves and seeing both.

[@lilowhitney8614]

Damn. That's one hell of an essay. Agree with every word.

[@DThron]

@@lilowhitney8614 thanks, Lilo!

[@feandil666]

how is one show "the end of an era" ?, especially a bad one. I suspect House of the Dragons is doing better numbers, people are not attracted to positivity or relativity they're attracted to good characters.

[@remixisthis]

Isn’t the internationalization of media companies and rise of streaming part of the blame? Before, you could make niche shows for US audiences. Rings of Power needs to be a global hit and media becomes dumbed down and global friendly as a result

[@Daealis]

"America is emerging from an age of corruption"??? I don't think it has decreased in the slightest during the last six years, only gone up. If anything, american culture has only polarized more and more to the point that it's hard to think there won't be a larger scale conflict over these lines at some point in the near future.

[@elck3]

“Reviews are good” for rings of power ? Um…

[@BubblegumCrash332]

When there is a DS9 reference, I'm in 👍

[@Darren_Mooney]

I do what I can!

[@charliepepper333]

Not an adaption..it’s really bad fan fiction

[@hank1938]

I think you're really stretching this claim. The reason the characters in The Rings of Power are black & white good vs. evil isn't because it's a fundamental shift in TV; it's Lord of the Rings! Amazon's popular show - The Boys - had the good guy shove a bomb up the arse of one of the superheroes, and blew him up AFTER agreeing to let him go. Everybody loves claims of "the end of an era". And while this is true for the deaths of major political, religious or culture figures, or the collapse of systems like the Soviet Union, a show like Mad Men is just a stylish, if somewhat self-satisfied, TV show. I agree that there's been a demand for good vs. evil heroism that's bled into TV, and that gritty shows like Ozark are a shadow of the Sopranos, but this isn't because people are 'coming out of an era of political corruption' (what is that a nod to Trump?). It's more likely the Marvelfication of TV. Too expensive to bankroll films and too tempting to make a superhero show. Just wait until Taika Waititi gets asked to do an obnoxious TV series after it settles in that his huge movies are getting panned.

[@Darren_Mooney]

"And while this is true for the deaths of major political, religious or culture figures, or the collapse of systems like the Soviet Union, a show like Mad Men is just a stylish, if somewhat self-satisfied, TV show." Well, it's a good thing that this is a pop culture website and so is making these claims in the context of pop culture rather than 'the deaths of major political, religious or culture figures, or the collapse of systems.'

[@hank1938]

@@Darren_Mooney meh

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@hank1938 Touché.

[@hank1938]

@@Darren_Mooney En garde

[@charlietownsend2826]

Thankfully I stocked up on detergent.

[@bassinvaders]

Spoilers? I just want to know the name of the intro song.

[@jaycollins2036]

The lack of moral ambiguity in ROP is lazy writing. It is essentially watching someone playing a very basic RPG without the interaction or plentiful action sequences. There are so many moments that prove that the major scenes in the show were planned in advance so the rest is filler to get to those sequences, regardless of whether the characters need any consistent motivation. Audiences are dranto ROP because of the brand name. If the show doesn't offer a more interesting and nuanced plot structure, it wont become the mega hit bezos needs it to be. You can tell a good and interesting story without moral ambiguity if the characters are interesting and charismatic enough to justify it, and the pleasures of action and world building are center stage. Can't say this show accomplishes that.

[@jacoporegini8841]

Saying that Tolkien's moral view was simple is like saying the Sun is a ball of gas. Not incorrect but extremely reductive.

[@stonedwalljackson5806]

It's amazing how much of this entertainment we cosume that we don't even need. Instead of watching made up stuff, focus on improving yourself

[@RH1812]

Nice theory

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! I mean, it is just a theory, but I think I make a good enough case laying out the evidence for that.

[@RH1812]

@@Darren_Mooney you did

[@Zastrutzki]

Jeezes. I was playing a game while watching and I had to scramble to turn it off because of all the spoilers.

[@squeezeslemons]

If I hear the word ambiguity one more time I might lose my mind

[@Darren_Mooney]

Am... bi... valence.

[@MrDrewwills]

Saying J R R Tolkien took a simplistic approach isn't perfectly fair. Yes Lords of the Ring and the Hobbit had pretty simple moral black and white, but the Silmarillion deferentially didn't

[@clementcastro9725]

stop focusing on the mainstream stuff being shoved down your throats and look at other stuff. 2022 has been an amazing year for TV with The Bear and Severance.

[@theescapist]

We talk about a lot of that stuff in our podcasts!

[@MatthewSanthos]

Good video, it don't diserve the dislikes it got

[@guyr3618]

The idea that House of the Dragon is less morally-ambiguous than Game of Thrones is a real stretch. The conflict between the two branches of House Targaryen is a lot more morally grey than the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters. And knowing where the books end up, it's clear that the show will end up being just as cynical about the iron throne as GoT was.

[@SinspaW]

I don't agree that this has much to do with audiences getting sick of morally ambiguous media. As time goes by, big corporations are focusing more and more on guaranteed results and taking less risks. Morally ambiguous media is a risk. It's not a coicidence that most of the impactful shows talked about here came from private networks who sell themselves as developing more mature content. HBO, FX and AMC are responsible for most of the shows talked about here. While these networks keep doing this kind of work, most of the TV money now belongs to Netflix, Disney, Apple and Amazon. And while they do take some risks, most of the time they are producing content that has more or less guaranteed results, or so they hope. This shift in tone for TV series is not brought my public tiredness of any kind of issue, but by gigantic corporations seeking to maintain and rise up their profits. Most of the population are not seeking morally ambiguous content. They are seeking comfort, simplistic TV that they can even have the on the background of their lives. I don't believe in the notion that fans of Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and so forth, are "tired" of these themes. They yearn for more, but in a market that has evolved into seeking less of those things.

[@thehogus]

Leaving Harfoots to die because no one wants to pull their cart..... a little bit ambiguous from a moral perspective.

[@Darren_Mooney]

But, crucially, our heroes reject and overcome that. The show's not like "tough, but fair" or even "tough, but necessary." It ends with the moral that the get through this together, as a group. That's the moral of the episode. And I don't think it's particularly ambiguous.

[@peterdietz7234]

Actually, in the Silmarillion most elves are described as having dark hair. Blond and silver are the exceptions

[@BrennySpain]

Better call Saul ended so incredible! I loved every minute of it!!!

[@Darren_Mooney]

It really was fantastic.

[@Alphabunsquad]

I think this misses the mark somewhat with BCS and HotD. Saul is much morally grey than Walt who is just a shade off black. I’d say everyone in BCS is more grey than in BB. BCS is just less of a power fantasy and more of a cautionary tale. You are right in that Jimmy’s blackest period is reframed as a punishment and his actual punishment was framed as a reward. BB punishes Walt too but we do enjoy his darkest period and in the end he only has to atone for a few things to set things somewhat right for him. Despite that he left so much more damage in his wake his death is framed as triumphant. Still I feel like BCS sits in greyness and explores it more than BB even if they’re conclusion is on more moral lines. I’ll make a separate comment on HotD

[@TheNoodleGod9001]

I'm a bit skeptical of how much of a change there has been overall and how much is cherrypicking - like, yeah, this particular show has a different mood, because it's trying to adapt something with a particular mood. I don't think that mood is terribly absent from the rest of TV.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I don’t know if I’d consider this cherrypicking, in the sense that it cites big era defining shows, sources discussing those big era defining shows, and the relationships that they have to one another. I think it’s as holistic a view of twenty years of television history as is possible in a twelve-minute video.

[@TheNoodleGod9001]

@@Darren_Mooney I dunno, it felt like the only big era-defining show that showed this pattern -was- rings of power - and we don't even know it it's era defining yet. It's only been out like a week, it could be that it'll end early and nobody will care.

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@TheNoodleGod9001 I mean, the fact that Amazon are betting the house on this - and the fact that there’s so much on the line here - makes it important. Like, “Heaven’s Gate” is an important New Hollywood movie, regardless of its box office performance.

[@ravenwilder4099]

@@Darren_Mooney With the current glut of viewing options splintering the audience so thoroughly, I'm not sure "era defining shows" are even possible now.

[@maxbants7737]

Prepare for the price of your detergent to go up...

[@murphy7801]

What next, simplistic escapism written by CW production alumni. With dumbing down effect of moral simplicity and focus on emotional reaction rather than moral reaction.

[@murphy7801]

I mean look at view count videos on KZbin get which designed to stimulate unthinking dopamine reaction. They get millions of views. People want quick easy stimulation now.

[@gusonian8637]

I really like Rings of Power. I think people have impossible expectations to live up to with Tolkien, which is understandable, but I think a lot of people can agree that the show is a hell of a lot of fun to watch and has some really intriguing stuff happening.

[@digitaljanus]

I'm finding the other break between Rings of Power and earlier prestige TV is the pacing: stuff actually happens within episodes. Yes the pilot had a lot of tedious table-setting and I almost tapped out, but after that things get moving. Plot points that would be drawn out for half a season in other prestige series get resolved in the next scene in Rings of Power!

[@SeanSmith-gm3ov]

3 weeks later and the show is doing way worse then house of dragon, looks like this video didn't stand the test of time, or the show is so bad no one can stand to watch it any more... lol

[@PabbyPabbles]

I thought this video would be at least 5% about the Rings of Power, lol Did a passing editor re-title you for clicks?

[@Darren_Mooney]

The video is entirely about “The Rings of Power”, and situating it in the wider context of television’s history since (the other half of the title here) “the Golden Age.” “The Rings of Power” is in the video at least as much as Hannibal Lector is in “The Silence of the Lambs” or the Joker is in “The Dark Knight”, percentage and importance wise.

[@Tzilandi]

3:38 "I lied. I cheated." [...] "But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it..." Really, Escapist? You're talking about moral ambiguity, and you're cutting out the "I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder." part?

[@VoltaDoMar]

Good video but I don't agree that House of the Dragon fits the trend. I think it's actually more ambiguous than GOT so far. At least so far, it has fewer unambiguously "good" characters (maybe none?) and it appears set on a course of portraying conflict between two sides where you can understand both of them but neither one is clearly right or wrong. It does not have the clear fan favorite "good" characters that GOT had nor the looming existential evil of the white walkers. So, in many ways I feel it's a more morally ambiguous show than even GOT. And saying that the show is a lot less cynical about Rhaenyra than GOT was about Daenerys- that seems quite premature, doesn't it? I haven't read the source material but already I feel they're establishing Rhaenyra as a complicated, not wholly likable person, and I think she's been portrayed with more ambiguity than Dany was in the beginning of Thrones. You may be comparing the end of Dany's arc to the beginning of Rhaenyra's.

[@ftblszn]

His point about Arya Stark around the common folk made no sense. Why would characters need to go on a pointless trips when all the main characters are in King's Landing anyway? They only do it when it's nessessary for the character arc, like when Daemon took Rhaenyra out in the pleasure house, so many points that made no sense in the video.

[@justinstoll4955]

Golden era of TV was The Wire, The Sopranos, The Shield, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, early Walking Dead, The Americans, Peeky Blinders, and seems to be ending with Better Call Saul that I'm currently watching but it's awesome.

[@Darren_Mooney]

“Better Call Saul” is great.

[@Psil0]

I think it's a bit early to call it ''the end of the golden age of television'' considering the reception it is getting.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Oh “Golden Age” is a not a qualitative measure. It’s just a commonly agreed description of a particular era in the history of the medium, spanning (approximately) 1999 to 2014.

[@MariaVosa]

Not sure if I agree with the full thesis, but it's always fun to listen to your videos. I think we'll see that the moral ambiguity will have seeped into Rings of Power more than what was present in LotR. Galadriel is clearly a bit blinded by obsession and anger, which will probably lead to her unwittingly aiding Sauron's return. We've already seen elves and dwarves being in danger of becoming equally blinded in their pursuit of perfection, and while the human southlanders aren't "good", it's clear the treatment of the elves have exacerbated the wounds which will also help Sauron. Even the lovely Harfoots are not just love and joy - with the weak being left behind and the subversive in danger of exclusion. So I'd say it's interesting to see how the Difficult Men (and Women) will be leaving their corruptive influences even in high epic fantasy. Solid 24 joke btw. 😂

[@Darren_Mooney]

I was very proud that nobody beat me to that “24” joke, at least that I’m aware.

[@MariaVosa]

@@Darren_Mooney Insert "Leo_clapping.gif" ;)

[@nauziraf]

The Rings of Power isnt intentionally dumbed down, its simply written by people who think theyre much smarter than the target audience Its the same all the other shows that value IP than the people actualy making them

[@Ian-ky5hf]

So if a show rightly calls out things that characters do wrong when they are. Than the show is lesser for it? We should portend tony Soprano did not do evil things?

[@tobiaswedin]

In all honesty I think we have arrived at an age of polished turds in tv and cinema. They will have block buster amounts of funds and will look good visually but in terms of substance it's just.. crap.

[@amberhon]

I hope so

[@TheStacanova]

You haven’t watched the Rings of Power, have you? 1. It’s not very good. 2. They are doing very little “Tolkien” in it. 3. They’re working in lots of allegory( which Tolkien hated) & some modern day Identify Politics. 4. They turn the main protagonist Galadriel, into an extremely unlikable “Karen” & “Mary Sue”. 5. You haven’t read much Tolkien, have you? To call it morally unambiguous is kinda lazy. Especially during the 1st & 2nd age, it involves Elves killing other Elves to take their boats, which gets them banned from returning, all while in pursuit of what is the “Big Bad”, so they’re not technically “the bad guys”, even though they took part in what is known as the “Kinslaying”.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yes. Yes, I have watched it. I would also point out that it's impossible for a character to be both a "Karen" and a "Mary Sue", as much as internet people like those buzzwords to apply to female characters, given they are two completely different archetypes.

[@yogibbear]

Most of modern TV is crap. Asides from that House of the Dragon is at Episode 5, and like it's already written, I think it's a bit early to judge the complexity of the morality involved. If you only restricted yourself to season 1 episodes 1-5, you'd probably say the same thing.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I have seen more than the first five episodes.

[@Number0neSon]

Ozark is definitely a top-tier, gritty drama. Whatchu talking about, Willis?!

[@forrestorange]

Then why is Galadriel so evil?

[@Ian-ky5hf]

Why can’t you have both morally gray shows and shows that are about heroes fighting evil?

[@Guy-cb1oh]

Japan does.

[@Super_Ammo]

Now we enter the mythril age. The second age? There's jokes here. Not least of all this freaking show.(RoP of course)

[@flipdart]

I have never watched any of these shows.

[@sumanoskae]

Amazon saying that RoP will determine the future of their streaming service feels like a threat. Like, 'watch our stupidly expensive elf show or we'll cancel Invincible.'

[@Darren_Mooney]

Well, also that the price of your detergent will go up.

[@mikeduplessis8069]

in the 1970s studios were throwing money at auteur film directors for increasingly esoteric films. Then came 'Heaven's Gate' which failed so miserably that it dragged down all of auteur film making along with it. Fast forward to this millennium. Studios throwing money at CGI houses to produce increasingly bloated spectacle. Now comes 'Rings of Power' which is in danger of dragging the whole CGI spectacle industry down with it. As it is, people now groan whenever a dumb new franchise series pops up. Oh no, not another Star Wars series!

[@christianpetersen163]

1:38 Subtext is meaning that is not directly stated. I think the word you're looking for is "allegory". Ouch. RoP will not herrald in a new age of streaming series. First of all, people want simplistic and ambiguous characters/shows like they want strawberry and chocolade icecream. Secondly, RoP is objectively a terrible show. Just because it has LOTR and 1 billion $ attached to it, doesn't mean it's going anywhere. Thirdly, we have 100+ great new shows to watch nowadays. Everything is a callback to something that came previously, because that's how culture works. 11:35 Are the rules different in HotD than they were in GoT (season 1-6)? Is it more simplistic or does it have a clearer distinction between good and evil because we don't see any regular people? Highly dubious. On the contrary, the shows take place in the same universe. Characters are primarily motivated by circumstance and necesity. However, just because morality is so subtle, does not mean that it's less complicated. A cornerstone of GoT/HotD is that it doesn't force any deeper meaning through allegory upon you (like the inferior RoP does), but asks you to simply enjoy the backstapping with a glass of cognac.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I mean, Martin has been candid that "Game of Thrones" is a story about climate change. So it absolutely does have a deeper meaning. (Just because one doesn't see it - or would rather not see it - doesn't mean it isn't there.

[@christianpetersen163]

​@@Darren_Mooney Yes, and look what the show turned into when it decented into allegory and symbolism. TRASH!

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@christianpetersen163 I thought it was a show where one could (checks notes) "simply enjoy the backstapping with a glass of cognac."

[@christianpetersen163]

​@@Darren_Mooney Well, I was specifically refering to (checks notes) "season 1-6"

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@christianpetersen163 Sure, even if you didn't specify that at the time. But the White Walkers were a metaphor for climate change from the outset of the show.

[@hoeraufist]

Can you maybe spoiler tag that better call saul part. It just ended, and this show is completely unrelated. What were we thinking here?

[@Ian-ky5hf]

Better call Saul is not part of the golden age of television?

[@Alphabunsquad]

GoT is a much better example of what you are talking about than HotD. The end of GoT everyone becomes much more clear cut black and white. Yes Dany flips but she goes from slightly grey to completely black. Even Arya who is a psychotic murdering machine is framed as pretty much 100% good with no focus on the consequences of her actions because the people she is killing are the bad guys. HotD is way more grey than GoT. Every character is unlikable. In GoT when we first meet Dany she is an entirely sympathetic character being sold off as a sex slave. She eventually buys into the savagery of the Dathraki until she sees what it’s actually like and pushes back against it. Rhaenyra is no where near as sympathetic. She constantly is shooting herself in the foot and is incredibly petulant despite being about as privileged as you can possibly ever hope for. She does have legitimate things to complain about but she doesn’t go about it in a way that makes her sympathetic because she seems to be frustratingly making things worse for herself for no reason and then ruins other peoples lives with her own desires. Like yah Dany ends in a much less sympathetic place but we are only six episodes in. Dany started in a much less grey place than Rhaenyra and we don’t know how she will end up so it’s a bad comparison to compare her to later seasons Dany. There are a few a good characters in HotD but they are side characters and they are all dead by halfway through the first season. There is no Arya and no Bran. Even the kids are bullying each other and masturbating out of windows. This show is much darker and less black and white than the start of GoT and I think referencing it really hurts your argument.

[@Ugway]

You missed peaky blinder

[@Darren_Mooney]

There was only so much time in the video!

[@Nightscape_]

I only have time for about two shows so I just stick to Cobra Kai and The Orville. No way I would waste my time on the butchering of Tolkien.

[@robertdeskoski9783]

Your summary of 'Game of Thrones' is 100% incorrect. In fact, Ned Stark was so involved with the people "beneath" him and concepts of honour and justice that it ended up killing him. Daenryes wanted to break the wheel of slavery and oppression so bad, in the TV show at least she edged towards the outright tyrannical. Re. 'Rings of Power': This series does not offer a stark delineation between good and evil: if anything, it simplifies the concepts of good and evil but in a skewed fashion and for a modern context. Adar's compassion for the orcs humanises them, whereas a traditional fantasy story may demonise an evil race (with some small exceptions); racism is now a thing within the LOTR's world (I cannot recall an incident of straight out racism in the original books, ever), whereas originally concepts like honour, duty, loyalty, and respect were at the fore; and the Harfoots leaving people behind who can't 'migrate'? In the LOTR lore, even though there were factional disputes between the hobbits (I'm looking at you, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins) the Scouring of the Shire showed that the community could come together and support each other despite adversity. In fact, Lobelia is redeemed as a hero at the end of the series and Frodo forgives her in his heart (my interpretation, but i think it's also evident on the page). These traditional fantasy-and I would also say, moral concepts-are shoved out the window for lesser, more preachy ideals. And this LOTR's series is poorer for the loss.

[@chasehedges6775]

We live in the age of mediocrity and averageness

[@Darren_Mooney]

I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it is a new world out there.

[@chasehedges6775]

@@Darren_Mooney 💯👍 it's definitely strange

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@chasehedges6775 Niiice.

[@chasehedges6775]

@@Darren_Mooney 👌

[@Canadish]

[Citation needed]

[@PS4sos21]

Time in this show makes no sense. Some travel for days and when they get to another place only one day has passed. Physics don't even make any sense in this show. The makers of this show think their audience is stupid and won't notice time jumps and time reversals.. It's beyond stupid and insulting.

[@MacDiggity]

Second-richest man on earth, by the way.

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, we use the word "occasional" there quite pointedly.

[@jamiej3776]

“Much like the end of the 1970s, America is emerging from a period of political corruption and turbulence…” Tell me you know nothing about either contemporary American politics or American politics of the 1980s without telling me you know nothing about either contemporary American politics or American politics of the 1980s jfc

[@comodorogalante8951]

Dale Joao! Esse upgrade vai deixar a leitura dos jogos mais rápidos? Ou diminuir o tempo de loading?

[@BeardedFrog]

Good take (although there are plenty of other factors/issues not touched on here). Really though, your compilation is a depressing reminder of how bad TV/Movies have become. It has been a gradual decline since that golden era. It went from tons of unique, interesting, solid tv/cinema to less and less. 90s/2000s had tons, less by early 2010s, much less by mid to late 2010s, and now you're lucky to find anything decent anymore. Almost every movie is either a terrible remake, another easy to make comic book movie, a terrible sequel to an older better movie, a movie that's entire main focus is on being woke first and story second, or just bland/unoriginal/boring on its own. The same of course applies to TV on a different level. As someone who is/has been an avid cinephile for a very long time (I have a collection of literally thousands of movies, and hundreds of TV shows), it has been very depressing. The same exact thing has been happening with video games over the same time period (I'm also an avid gamer). However, at least for games there are a lot of really good indie developers out there that still put out quality unique content from time to time. Hollywood and the AAA gaming industry no longer take any risks anymore, or have any interest in what they make. It's all become the easiest path to pumping out money. As a result of this, I mostly have to spend my time replaying older games, and rewatching older movies/tv series from the era you reference. That is with the very rare exception of occasional good new game/movie/tv mixed in (and I do pay attention to every single new release). Although good is closer to "watchable" rather than good especially for movies/tv. A movie or show I'd rate a 7/10 or 8/10 in 2022 is closer to a 4/10 or 5/10 in say 1995-2010.