The late war criminal Henry Kissinger is purported to have once said: “The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.” It’s a great quote in spite of the source, and in recent years I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot with regard to television shows. More specifically, I think about it with regard to “prestige” offerings that become critical darlings in their early seasons, then drop off in quality, yet the sheen of that early, rapturous response seems to keep people from admitting that they are no longer very good or maybe were never actually quite that good in the first place. We make excuses for their shortcomings, aimlessness becomes mistaken for sophistication, and we continue slogging through despite the diminishing returns, because just stopping watching would somehow feel like our fault.
Read Full Article »
