Good TV

This is a post that I’ve started without really thinking it out much, so I don’t know where it will go, but: I was evaluating my own TV-viewing interests (not an interesting exercise in and of itself), and came to the conclusion that my favourite shows often can be described as “good-bad shows.” The term “good-bad movie” used to be somewhat popular among critics to refer to a movie that was somehow disreputable or formula-ridden or silly, and yet managed to use that format to achieve a certain energy and power that a more prestigious film (literary adaptation, historical epic) could not. Good-bad TV is similar. It’s TV that does not exactly get beyond the limitations that make television artistically disreputable — the cliches, the chasing after trends, the storytelling and character formulas — and uses its own lack of class and prestige to its own advantage.