Difficult Men by Brett Martin is a pretty good read discussing the golden age of cable TV prestige dramas, marked in the book from the Sopranos to Breaking Bad (which IIRC was either still airing or just finished when the book was published.)
The creators covered ranged from outright tyrants (David Chase, Matt Weiner) to kinda incoherent …
Difficult Men by Brett Martin is a pretty good read discussing the golden age of cable TV prestige dramas, marked in the book from the Sopranos to Breaking Bad (which IIRC was either still airing or just finished when the book was published.)
The creators covered ranged from outright tyrants (David Chase, Matt Weiner) to kinda incoherent (David Milch) to argumentative-but-not-a-dick (David Simon) to genuinely affable (Vince Gilligan).
Gilligan in particular interests me- by accounts, he's a legit nice guy and he has a very interesting fill in the blank methodology (he filmed the opening scene of the final season, which turned out to be key set up for the series finale, without having plotted out the end of the series or knowing what form the ending would take. He just wrote the first ep figuring that he'd figure out what the scene meant by the time he got there.)
And he followed his smash hit magnum opus series with a prequel series that for a lot of people (myself included) has turned out to be better than the original series.
Whereas for David Chase I think The Many Saints of Newark showed where he goes when he doesn't have the elder Gandolfini to carry the production.
I hadn't seen Breaking Bad, but started with Better Call Saul. Completely love it. Now on to Breaking Bad (was somewhat freaked by first episode, just this side of horror movie.) Best tv ever, along with The Wire and first season of True Detective. I've heard about the sequel to The Wire, but will have to wait for DVD on Netflix, crappy rural internet.
Difficult Men by Brett Martin is a pretty good read discussing the golden age of cable TV prestige dramas, marked in the book from the Sopranos to Breaking Bad (which IIRC was either still airing or just finished when the book was published.)
The creators covered ranged from outright tyrants (David Chase, Matt Weiner) to kinda incoherent (David Milch) to argumentative-but-not-a-dick (David Simon) to genuinely affable (Vince Gilligan).
Gilligan in particular interests me- by accounts, he's a legit nice guy and he has a very interesting fill in the blank methodology (he filmed the opening scene of the final season, which turned out to be key set up for the series finale, without having plotted out the end of the series or knowing what form the ending would take. He just wrote the first ep figuring that he'd figure out what the scene meant by the time he got there.)
And he followed his smash hit magnum opus series with a prequel series that for a lot of people (myself included) has turned out to be better than the original series.
Whereas for David Chase I think The Many Saints of Newark showed where he goes when he doesn't have the elder Gandolfini to carry the production.
I hadn't seen Breaking Bad, but started with Better Call Saul. Completely love it. Now on to Breaking Bad (was somewhat freaked by first episode, just this side of horror movie.) Best tv ever, along with The Wire and first season of True Detective. I've heard about the sequel to The Wire, but will have to wait for DVD on Netflix, crappy rural internet.
Thanks for reply. I get a kinda "I'm rich!" feeling when I know I have something good to watch on a warm summer evening.
I love to hear that. It's genuinely refreshing to see somebody hit that level of genius without having to be a complete dick about it.