Vanityfair.com - Let’s assume first that we all agree that The Wire is TV’s greatest show, The Sopranos is the best-written series, and the Bewitched episode in which Serena sings “I’ll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind” is “the single greatest moment in television history.”
But what is TV’s greatest year? Film critics and historians generally say 1939 was film’s greatest year, with occasional arguments for the likes of 1968 and 2007. Can a single television season be lauded in the same way?
“TV doesn’t really lend itself to that kind of analysis, in part because the shows continue year after year,” says Brian Lowry,TV columnist for Variety.
Ken Levine can relate. With his writing partner, David Isaacs, he wrote for such iconic series as MAS*H, Cheers, and Frasier, each of which lasted at least a decade. “A great movie comes out and it is forever stamped with that year,” he said. “A long-running series is more often associated with an era of television rather than a specific year. Usually, a TV series evolves and finds its rhythm. There are better years than others.”
So, can we do this? Yes. And before we get to the winner, a few other years that were deemed worthy of consideration.
But what is TV’s greatest year? Film critics and historians generally say 1939 was film’s greatest year, with occasional arguments for the likes of 1968 and 2007. Can a single television season be lauded in the same way?
“TV doesn’t really lend itself to that kind of analysis, in part because the shows continue year after year,” says Brian Lowry,TV columnist for Variety.
Ken Levine can relate. With his writing partner, David Isaacs, he wrote for such iconic series as MAS*H, Cheers, and Frasier, each of which lasted at least a decade. “A great movie comes out and it is forever stamped with that year,” he said. “A long-running series is more often associated with an era of television rather than a specific year. Usually, a TV series evolves and finds its rhythm. There are better years than others.”
So, can we do this? Yes. And before we get to the winner, a few other years that were deemed worthy of consideration.
1956
Ron Simon, curator of the Paley Center for Media in New York, considered “the creative tension between the old and new, the popular and the artistic,” and made a convincing case for 1956.
“It was the culmination of the live-TV era,” he explains. “Caesar’s Hour, which I would argue was TV’s most inventive comedy, was at its peak. Playhouse 90 began that year. Its second production was Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight. The Honeymooners played for the [last time]. But you have something else in ’56: Elvis Presley’s appearances on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, and he’s going to bring about a whole youth revolution. On the one hand, you have suburban comedies like Father Knows Best, and then Elvis signals something different.”
There’s also that connection to cinema’s greatest year, 1939: “It was also the first year The Wizard of Oz was broadcast, and that became a family [viewing] tradition.”
Ron Simon, curator of the Paley Center for Media in New York, considered “the creative tension between the old and new, the popular and the artistic,” and made a convincing case for 1956.
“It was the culmination of the live-TV era,” he explains. “Caesar’s Hour, which I would argue was TV’s most inventive comedy, was at its peak. Playhouse 90 began that year. Its second production was Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight. The Honeymooners played for the [last time]. But you have something else in ’56: Elvis Presley’s appearances on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, and he’s going to bring about a whole youth revolution. On the one hand, you have suburban comedies like Father Knows Best, and then Elvis signals something different.”
There’s also that connection to cinema’s greatest year, 1939: “It was also the first year The Wizard of Oz was broadcast, and that became a family [viewing] tradition.”
1985 to 1986
Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University and author of several books, including Television’s Second Golden Age, jumped ahead three decades to consider 1985 to 1986. “Look at TV Guide for any week in that season and it’s just incredible the choices on hand,” he says. “All this new stuff, like Moonlighting and Miami Vice, was just emerging. St. Elsewhere, which I think is one of the best shows ever made on American TV to date—including The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad—was in its fourth season. Hill Street Blues, a breakthrough and the single most influential entertainment TV show second only to All in the Family, was still going strong. And NBC’s Thursday-night lineup of really solid comedies was emerging with Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court.”
Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University and author of several books, including Television’s Second Golden Age, jumped ahead three decades to consider 1985 to 1986. “Look at TV Guide for any week in that season and it’s just incredible the choices on hand,” he says. “All this new stuff, like Moonlighting and Miami Vice, was just emerging. St. Elsewhere, which I think is one of the best shows ever made on American TV to date—including The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad—was in its fourth season. Hill Street Blues, a breakthrough and the single most influential entertainment TV show second only to All in the Family, was still going strong. And NBC’s Thursday-night lineup of really solid comedies was emerging with Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court.”
1994
But when you consider “quality, ratings, everything,” says Warren Littlefield, 1994 is the year it all came together.
As the executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, Littlefield was one of the architects of “Must-See TV,” the famed Thursday-night block of NBC programming. But even with his evident bias, Littlefield admits that, in 1994, every network had “amazing choices every single night where it’s ‘Get out of my way—I will run you over in my car—I have to get to a television set,’ because delayed viewing was not all that prevalent.”
“I am not prepared to call it the greatest TV season," reflects Josef Adalian, West Coast editor for New York magazine’s Vulture, who wrote an appreciation of the season last year. “What I can say is that it was one of the last great seasons for network television, which reached so many more people (back then). The overall number of well-done, great TV shows could be bigger now, but 1994 to 1995 was one of the last great seasons where you had really, really good populist television.”
In the fall of 1994 NBC debuted Friends and ER, adding them to a powerful Thursday-night lineup that already included Seinfeld. “I'll ignore Madman of the People,” Littlefield jokes. “We’re entitled to make mistakes”.
CBS, at the time the number-one network, had Murphy Brown and Northern Exposure. ABC debuted My So-Called Life and These Friends of Mine, later retitled Ellen. And even Fox, a new and formidable factor in the network wars at the time, was making an impact with The Simpsons’ move back to Sunday nights and the rise of Melrose Place and The X-Files.
“Fox was pushing in a younger direction,” Adalian says. “By going after young viewers, it forced some of the other networks to take notice and realize they had to maybe up their game.”
Erik Adams, associate editor of the A.V. Club, views 1994 as “the last great year of TV where the broadcast networks had it all to themselves. Cable is still this Wild West at this point.”
A Wild West that, Adams notes, began taking shape in 1994. Space Ghost Coast to Coast debuted on Cartoon Network in 1994 and unearthed a new audience for animation that would lead the way to that network’s Adult Swim block, which launched in 2001.
FX, IFC, and HGTV all launched in 1994, leading to our current explosion in premium cable hits, ranging from Emmy winners like FX’s Fargo to HGTV’s addictive modern classic House Hunters. That year may have been the year of the broad hit—as Adalian pointed out in Vulture, even the flops of 1994 (like, say, Madman of the People) would trounce the ratings for our current biggest TV hit, The Big Bang Theory. But it was in the wilds of cable where the future was truly beginning.
“I wouldn’t say that Friends or even Space Ghost had their best seasons in 1994, but it was just all of that activity happening at the same time that jumps out at me,” Adams says.
More than anything, 1994 may stand out because it is the last year of its kind that will ever exist. “It may be impossible to define the greatest TV season ever again because, for the most part, we’re all not watching the same shows at the same time,” Adalian said. “We could be in an era where most people will watch shows the year, or even two or three years, after they are first aired. In the not-so-distant future, who knows if we'll even have TV seasons to judge anymore?”
But when you consider “quality, ratings, everything,” says Warren Littlefield, 1994 is the year it all came together.
As the executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, Littlefield was one of the architects of “Must-See TV,” the famed Thursday-night block of NBC programming. But even with his evident bias, Littlefield admits that, in 1994, every network had “amazing choices every single night where it’s ‘Get out of my way—I will run you over in my car—I have to get to a television set,’ because delayed viewing was not all that prevalent.”
“I am not prepared to call it the greatest TV season," reflects Josef Adalian, West Coast editor for New York magazine’s Vulture, who wrote an appreciation of the season last year. “What I can say is that it was one of the last great seasons for network television, which reached so many more people (back then). The overall number of well-done, great TV shows could be bigger now, but 1994 to 1995 was one of the last great seasons where you had really, really good populist television.”
In the fall of 1994 NBC debuted Friends and ER, adding them to a powerful Thursday-night lineup that already included Seinfeld. “I'll ignore Madman of the People,” Littlefield jokes. “We’re entitled to make mistakes”.
CBS, at the time the number-one network, had Murphy Brown and Northern Exposure. ABC debuted My So-Called Life and These Friends of Mine, later retitled Ellen. And even Fox, a new and formidable factor in the network wars at the time, was making an impact with The Simpsons’ move back to Sunday nights and the rise of Melrose Place and The X-Files.
“Fox was pushing in a younger direction,” Adalian says. “By going after young viewers, it forced some of the other networks to take notice and realize they had to maybe up their game.”
Erik Adams, associate editor of the A.V. Club, views 1994 as “the last great year of TV where the broadcast networks had it all to themselves. Cable is still this Wild West at this point.”
A Wild West that, Adams notes, began taking shape in 1994. Space Ghost Coast to Coast debuted on Cartoon Network in 1994 and unearthed a new audience for animation that would lead the way to that network’s Adult Swim block, which launched in 2001.
FX, IFC, and HGTV all launched in 1994, leading to our current explosion in premium cable hits, ranging from Emmy winners like FX’s Fargo to HGTV’s addictive modern classic House Hunters. That year may have been the year of the broad hit—as Adalian pointed out in Vulture, even the flops of 1994 (like, say, Madman of the People) would trounce the ratings for our current biggest TV hit, The Big Bang Theory. But it was in the wilds of cable where the future was truly beginning.
“I wouldn’t say that Friends or even Space Ghost had their best seasons in 1994, but it was just all of that activity happening at the same time that jumps out at me,” Adams says.
More than anything, 1994 may stand out because it is the last year of its kind that will ever exist. “It may be impossible to define the greatest TV season ever again because, for the most part, we’re all not watching the same shows at the same time,” Adalian said. “We could be in an era where most people will watch shows the year, or even two or three years, after they are first aired. In the not-so-distant future, who knows if we'll even have TV seasons to judge anymore?”
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