A couple of weeks ago, a television writer/creator named Javier Grillo-Marxuach ("Lost," "The Middleman," "Boomtown," "Helix") posted his unified theory about the current Golden Age of television. There were three elements to his post, but the third part, I thought, was the most thought-provoking section. Here's an excerpt:
"As much as writers and directors want to take credit for the current quality of the medium, I would say that the development of non-linear editing, CGI, digital post-production, and ultimately, digital image capture ...have had as much to do with the 'golden age of television' as the ambitions of the creatives and the expansion of the medium through cable, and certainly more than the shibboleth that 'TV got good because feature people got into TV' (which I consider to be bullshit of the highest order)"
Grillo-Marxuach's post provoked a good deal of comment among my critical peers, and given that I was in Los Angeles when it was posted, I asked him if he'd be willing to talk more about some of the ideas in that short piece. He agreed to do so, and we ended up chatting about television's past, future and present for about 100 minutes.
Grillo-Marxuach has worked as an executive, a showrunner, a comic-book writer, a TV staff writer and he's also created independent projects on YouTube. His knowledge of how television is made and how various commercial demands, production capabilities and creative agendas affect what we see (and don't see) made for -- if I may be so bold -- an enjoyable conversation.
Here are just some of the shows that came up in our discussion: "Louie," "Babylon 5," "The X-Files," "The Twilight Zone," "Game of Thrones," "The Middleman," "The Shield," "Friday Night Lights," "Battlestar Galactica," "The Guild," "Rectify," "Banshee," "The Walking Dead," "Roots," "Star Trek," "Spartacus" (of course) and "Law and Order." The focus throughout was not on specific story points (so there are no spoilers), but on how innovations in technology, storytelling, platforms and other arenas have transformed television in recent decades.
The last 20 minutes or so center on the first couple seasons of "Lost." Grillo-Marxuach was a staff writer in the first two seasons; the pilot script that was completed around the time he joined the "Lost" team had Jack dying in it, and flashbacks hadn't even been conceived of yet. His account of that time made me very nostalgic to visit the island again (insert your own "we have to go back" joke here).
I've listed some of the topics we covered (with approximate time codes in some cases):
- We discussed the various contributions that writers, showrunners and directors make. Lately there's been a bit of debate over who gets credit for the state of TV, and we go into why that's the case, but as Grillo-Marxuach said, "Credit is not like oil. We're not going to reach 'peak credit' and then there's no more."