So it has been announced that this season of Succession which premiered on March 26 will be the last. On the one hand, you are sad. On the other hand, it's important that it ends when the creators want it to after they feel they've finished the story they have to tell, so we accept that.
What worries me, however, is something else. I think BoJack Horseman ended last year, Better Call Saul and Atlanta ended last year, and Succession ending this year. In my opinion, these are probably the 4 series that reached a qualitative peak in American television in its mature golden era, i.e. on the ground created by The Sopranos, The Wire, etc. in the early 00s.
As these series end one after the other, I feel like they haven't been able to be replaced by something equal. I look back over the last five years and find it hard to find anything that breaks new ground for television fiction, something that can enter the pantheon of Great Series, series that not only made television more cinematic but saw the medium of television as opportunity to do something original and pioneering.
Fleabag could perhaps fit into this category, the first seasons of Fargo the same, probably the first season of The Terror. But if we look at the last 3-4 years, quality TV is coming out, no doubt, but I haven't seen TV series that really stand out. Or, rather, the ones that really stand out to me are shows that don't so much resemble classic prestige/peak tv fiction, but play with the boundaries between fiction/non-fiction in unexpected and meta ways, like Who Is America , How to with John Wilson or The Rehearsal.
Anyway, it's a big issue, and basically it has to do with whether we're entering an era of gigantization of American television as an industry, with all the new players in streaming (and especially Disney of course), but also an era of retreat of the television medium as creative field where the original, the new, etc. are produced. and after Succession, what?
