re: #402 freetoken

What strikes me about AITF and M*A*S*H is that both of them attempted to deal with the social changes that had happened in the 1960’s. The former was basically a comedy that included dramatic moments, while the latter was a more even mixture of drama and comedy. Still, both tried to deal with the results of the 60’s - post Civil Rights Act, and post Vietnam.

I don’t know of any broadcast network show that is trying to do something similar today - say, tackle the issues of our society post boom years, post 9/11, post massive wars in Asia - what shows reflect back on what has happened in America after all of this?

A couple of extremely well written and high quality series that are full of social commentary just off the top of my head - The Sopranos and The Wire. Also still in production - Dexter - which has very interesting and well informed post-religious bullshit meditations on the nature of evil.

TV in the UK is where there is a real void of decent social commentary in drama, also everything seems to be really poor quality at the moment. The programme makers seem to think they can demonstrate their commitment to quality broadcasting by putting everyone in Georgian or Victorian costumes every once in a while.

Having said all that I’ve yet to see Charlie Brookers recent 3 part drama which I have high hopes for.