[knobby109]

Originally Posted by brianwp

You're right, Jawbone, but I think excellent shows were easier to make in the old days, like Bonanza, or whatever. The spectrum of genres were wide open back then, tv was really still in it's infancy. By now, a lot of the premises have been run into the ground. I really don't find much on regular tv these days, except for stations like Discovery, or the History Channel, or TLC, or PBS, who still play many excellent programs like Masterpiece Theatre. (Or Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network). But the premium channels like HBO are really the groundbreakers nowadays. A series like The Sopranos is hard to top these days. Or Rome, or Six Feet Under, or Curb Your Enthusiasm, or political talk shows like Real Time with Bill Maher. I think all the premium channels are going nuts to find another series like the Sopranos, that one will be hard to beat.

I think though our expectations are higher.Look back at some of them and you wonder why you stayed in on a Saturday night to watch them.But there were some real gems too.We had a whole raft of great sitcoms in the 80s and some like Only Fools and Horses well into the 90s.I only watch about 3 hours of TV a week , love Time Team (not a great fan of T.Robinson but he fronts it well) and of course some of the Attenborough documentaries are world class.