Fall Programming

“‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The Wire,’ ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ besides being among the best shows the medium has ever produced, together served as a televisual Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Two hundred years from now, when people look to understand life in the United States in 2026 — a time of masked federal agents in the streets, presidential pardons for sale and gulag-style detention camps for immigrants — they’d be well advised to bypass whatever happens to be playing currently on TV. Despite these shows’ very different premises — one about the mafia, one about the drug trade in Baltimore, one about advertising on Madison Avenue in the 1960s and one about a chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin in New Mexico — all four contained clear warnings about where the country was headed, and their warnings have come true.” NYT (Gift Article): The Four TV Shows That Heralded America’s Fall. (I’d put The Apprentice on that list…)