The Good and Bad of Television in 2010
Seen from today, 2010 was a hinge year for television: cable drama hit a new peak, a few landmark shows bowed out, and broadcast networks had a rough time learning what no longer worked.
The good
A remarkable crop of debuts. It is hard to think of many years that launched as many long-lived or influential series. FX premiered Justified in the spring and Louie in the summer. HBO opened Treme and then the lavish Prohibition saga Boardwalk Empire. AMC put The Walking Dead on the air around Halloween and discovered it had a phenomenon on its hands. In Britain, the BBC introduced a modern-day Sherlock and ITV launched Downton Abbey, two shows that would travel the world.
Established dramas at full strength. Breaking Bad aired its third season and Mad Men its fourth, and both are often counted among the strongest seasons of their shows. The Good Wife showed that a broadcast network could still make a smart serialised drama for adults.
A strong night of comedy. NBC’s Thursday line-up, with Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office and 30 Rock, was one of the most inventive comedy blocks on any network, even if it was never as widely watched as it deserved.
The bad
The late-night mess. The year opened with NBC unwinding its decision to move Jay Leno to a nightly 10 p.m. show, a reshuffle that cost Conan O’Brien The Tonight Show after less than a year in the chair. Beyond the public awkwardness, the Leno experiment had already squeezed five hours a week of scripted drama off the network, and some of that collateral damage, such as the treatment of Southland, is still remembered.
Quick hooks for ambitious newcomers. Fox cancelled the prestige-minded Lone Star after just two episodes, which became shorthand for how little patience networks had. FX’s much-liked Terriers did not survive its first season, and Starz ended the cult comedy Party Down. Each had admirers who still bring them up.
The mystery-box hangover. After Lost, every network wanted a serialised puzzle. NBC’s The Event and several similar efforts promised big secrets and struggled to make viewers care about the people keeping them.
And the goodbyes. Two long-running shows ended in May. 24 wrapped up its run, and Lost closed with a finale that remains one of the most argued-over endings in television. Whether those goodbyes belong in the good or the bad column depends entirely on whom you ask, and that might be the most 2010 thing about them.
The overall picture is clear, though. The energy in scripted television was moving towards cable and towards shows confident enough to be specific. The networks that thrived later in the decade were the ones that noticed.
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