The Platinum Age of Television

National Public Radio's Television critic David Bianculli has written an excellent, expansive book that is very detailed when it comes to looking at the history of Television. The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific examines all genres of TV, starting in the earliest days of the medium, the late-1940s/early 1950s. This is a long book. The audio version of it is 24 hours in length!

One of the most pivotal and influential shows from the early days of television was NBC's weekly sketch comedy show, Your Show of Shows (1950-54). Like Saturday Night Live, this was a weekly 90 minute comedy show that was broadcast live. Unlike SNL, no prompter of cue cards were there to help the stars to recall their lines. Key players in the show were Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris and more. Writers included Neil Simon and Mel Brooks.

The chapters in the book are broken down by TV genres, such as western, soap operas, miniseries, drama, medical, crime, comedy, and more. There are several chapters looking at different types of situation comedies, such as family comedies (The Cosby Show or Family Ties), work comedies (Cheers or Taxi), family/work comedies or "split-coms" as Bianculli called them (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show), and comedies headed up by unmarried females (Murphy Brown, The Mary Tyler Moore Show).

The book has in-depth profiles of important people in TV such as Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Bob Newhart, Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, Louis CK, Larry Wilmore, James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and others.

Bianculli feels that the platinum age of television is from about 1998 until now. There are many more avenues for viewing TV, such as countless cable networks, Netflix, Hulu, You Tube, Amazon video, etc. Many times the best shows are not coming from ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, but from HBO, FX, IFC, AMC and other fringe networks. Look at the abundance of outstanding TV shows that we have seen over the past 20 years or so: Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Portlandia, Louie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire and many more. I think that at one point, there was a stigma against working in TV. Film stars looked down on TV stars. But that is not the case anymore. Some of the very best writing, acting and technical feats are coming from the small screen.

I liked how the chapters were organized, by TV genre. One can skip chapters with no loss in continuity. I skipped chapters on westerns and crime dramas since I do not like those type of shows. My only criticism is that there is no chapter looking at the rich history of late night TV, from pioneers like Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs, to current stars like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel.