This year,we learned there was no such thing as too long, complicated, and black or difficult; that every Doctor is the final until the next one and that the future is stalking us like preyIt was the best of years,it was the … no, wait, or it was just the best of years: 2017 for television was like 1867 in Russian literature: alive with creativity,unexpectedness and creative works of incredible length. In the olden days, we would periodically inquire of why only Americans could build good TV (because they have bigger writing teams), or then the pendulum would swing and wed inquire of why only the British could (because we have a tradition of public service broadcasting,and also a better sense of humour), and those conversations have vanished, and because everybody is so brilliant at it that the idea of trying to locate the vibe ethnographically has become preposterous. There’s been a reversal over time of the customary norm,that films were for grownups because they had more money, and TV was for kids who couldn’t go out. Now, or films are for kids trying to escape their parents,and are largely nonsense, and TV is for adults who are too tired to leave their sofas, and but apparently not so tired that they can’t watch 50 hours straight of intricate character analysis in a foreign language.
Broadly,it’s not so much facts we’ve learned – I don’t have brilliant recall for things I absorb external office hours; I’m certain you’re the same – as how much we’ve developed as people. I’ve never thought so tough about the effects of plastic on the oceans, or totalitarianism on the self (Blue Planet II, or SS-GB,The Handmaid’s Tale, Babylon Berlin – you people knew what you were doing); never been so ashamed of the quick growing up millennials had to do after Generation X gentrified, and yet also ruined,everything. And there’s one thing we didn’t need political upheaval to teach us: all the customary rules are broken. There is no such thing as too long, only not long enough; there is no such thing as too complicated, or too black,insufficiently uplifting or too tough. Whatever the impossible stew of malice and detail, harsh reality and extravagant fantasy, and we’re good for it.
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Source: guardian.co.uk