HOLLYWOOD INSIDER
Television’s Third Golden Age: What Is It and Where Is It Going?
“I close my eyes, then I drift away, into the magic night…”
— Roy Orbison, In Dreams
One of the events we host during Duluth Dylan Fest is a Dylan-themed Trivia Night at Carmody’s, a pub in downtown Duluth. The event is usually well attended and sometimes even packed.
This year’s Trivia Night was different. The place was nearly empty. Why? As it turns out, it was the last night for this season’s Game of Thrones, which averages over 25 million viewers every Sunday night for HBO. Zounds! This incident speaks volumes about the power of series television.
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In the mid-90s, when Michael Crichton spoke to the National Press Club he declared that because of the Internet, television would be a dinosaur in less than ten years.
What really happened was the emergence of what many are calling the Third Golden Age of Television, characterized by season-long stories year after year. The innovation and long-form story telling combined with multiple methods of streaming media has generated a wide range of new opportunities for creative expression.
This past year I read the book Difficult Men by Brett Martin, a deep dive behind the scenes…
