With a few exceptions TV in the '70s and '80s absolutely stunk
Thank God "Twin Peaks" came along and reinvigorated the medium.
shareI disagree. There was every level of quality from masterpiece down to dreck. All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore were excellent comedies while Hill Street Blues and St Elsewhere were premium dramas. I would guess that 25 percent of the programming then would appeal to most people. The problem was that there was a fair amount of stuff that was not watchable. Then there was the issue of "season fatigue" that most shows just lacked material to knock out 28 episode season after 28 episode season of quality material. Shows like The Walton's could put out a quality episode only to be followed by a dud because enough ideas could not be formulated during a season. Seems like the community had a lot of mental health issues based on what was seen. Not that a community does not have people with mental health problems but usually they are rooted in problems taboo to be discussed back then. It got kind of tired to see who the next person was to get a case of the weeps. Finally, I would hate to get the task of producer to make sure a quality product got turned out week after week back then. Much harder than it looks especially with censorship prevalent.
shareThanks for your thoughtful reply. What I like about TV today is that the seasons are so much shorter; it's very much like Brit TV and assures a greater emphasis will be placed on quality instead of quantity. "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere" were good shows that often became indistinguishable from soap operas because it's impossible to produce that many episodes a seasons without resorting to filler and needless melodrama.
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