What does it mean to exist in a Golden Age? The tragedy of this question is, generally speaking, most people rarely ever realize when they’re actively living in one—or at least, not until they recognize when it’s coming to an end. As a famed New Jersey mobster once said to his therapist, “Lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end—the best is over.”
Fortunately, in this age of endless information exchange, both our media and collectively sharpened senses of self-awareness continuously remind us that we are in the midst of a very specific kind of Golden Age—a Golden Age of Television. Whereas the turn of the millennium exclusively presented offerings from the big, broadcast networks, with a handful of HBO shows thrown in for good measure, the past 15 years has seen an explosion of prestigious content from every venue imaginable. Hell, the company that once shipped us DVDs in red envelopes now seems to be churning out paradigm-shifting programs every week. But, as with any abrupt growth spurt, there has been no shortage of growing pains.
In his now infamous address to TV critics at the Television Critics Association press tour in summer 2015, FX President John Landgraf coined the term “peak TV” and went on to describe the mass scramble that has resulted, now that hundreds of shows (his own included) are vying for viewer eyeballs.
“There is simply too much television,” Landgraf proclaimed. “There’s just too much competition, so much so that I think the good shows often get in the way of the audience finding the great ones.”
For me, Landgraf’s prognostications never felt more incisive than last week when news broke that WGN America had canceled Manhattan—a program I have spilled much digital ink over in the past year. Besides the standard sadness that accompanies such news, however, the series’ cancellation has moved me to ruminate on our status quo. As Hitfix critic Alan Sepinwall so succinctly put it, Manhattan was a show made possible by “peak TV” only to, in the end, be killed by it.
Let’s unpack the first part of that statement. Whereas a decade prior, WGN American may have been running Chicago sports games and sitcom reruns, the changing nature of the business pushed the channel—as it had with FX and AMC before it—into the realm of original programming. In a business climate where there are more networks than any one human could possibly consume, it becomes imperative to make your network stick out—to make it a destination and not just something a person glances at for a split second while channel surfing. The solution: produce a TV show that will capture the public’s imagination and dominate the water cooler conversation, effectively creating a network brand or, in some cases, pivoting away from a previous one. Following HBO’s meteoric rise in the late ‘90s, FX positioned themselves as a contender with The Shield, as did AMC with Breaking Bad and Mad Men. More recently, USA and Lifetime have sought to revamp their established brands by airing dark, challenging dramas such as Mr. Robot and Unreal.
WGN dipped their toe into original programming with the genre excursion Salem, but its first true dive into the “prestige television” category was Manhattan. From the onset, the show had an ambitious premise. Set in the desert town of Los Alamos, New Mexico at the height of WWII, the story examined the complicated relationships and interior lives of a group of (mostly fictionalized) physicists, as they grapple with the slow realization that they are constructing the most destructive weapon the world will ever see: the atomic bomb. It’s the type of show that could only exist in the wake of Mad Men—a period, ensemble drama that engages with the history around it, all the while imbuing its narrative with the kind of domestic drama one would typically find in a John Cheever story. And that’s not even taking into account the frequent flashes of high-stakes espionage, as well as the suspense-filled, dread-soaked atmosphere that brings to mind the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, or the genre morality plays of The Twilight Zone.
I loved this show. I loved its world. I loved its character. I loved its music. It introduced me to an assortment of great actors (Rachel Brosnahan, Ashley Zukerman, Katja Herbers, Christopher Denham), successfully highlighted ones who deserve the spotlight (John Benjamin Hickey, Michael Chernus, Harry Lloyd) and pushed its more noteworthy thespians (William Petersen, Olivia Williams, Daniel Stern) into exciting new territories. There was a reason I sought to interview its creator, Sam Shaw, not just once, but twice, before the series came to an end. I even bought the First Season Blu-Ray as a Christmas present for my parents and got them hooked (still not looking forward to explaining this news to them).
I won’t lie—perhaps part of my love for the show stemmed from the sad fact that, unlike say Game of Thrones, Walking Dead or Empire, not everyone and their mother was watching it. It felt like something specially designed just for myself and a dedicated group of viewers, much in the same way I’m sure intense music geeks flocked to the likes of Big Star. Unfortunately, no series that seeks longevity necessarily wants to be a cult hit. Moreover, the world that helped birth Manhattan was also a world replete with overcrowding issues. To extend the music metaphor to its breaking point, we now live in a world where there are literally hundreds of new songs being pumped out every week. And while critics and tastemakers can do their best to sort through the mass and find the diamonds, there’s the very real, very depressing possibility that the next Big Star has already slipped through the cracks. Heck, Andy Samberg even did a bit in his Emmy opening about how there’s simply “too many shows.”
The real shame is that, given the show’s negative prognosis, Shaw will likely not have the opportunity to explore the real meat of his story, which was not actually the bomb’s inevitable detonation, but the aftermath of its deployment. Also, to be clear, I’m not blaming WGN America for cutting the cord. This is a fickle business and recent developments have only afforded it reasons to be even more fickle. Plus, the network’s producing the likes of Outsiders and the upcoming Underground, so it’s not as though they’re distancing themselves from producing quality, buzz-worthy TV.
As a point of comparison, the closest parallel to Manhattan that I can draw is AMC’s equally viewer-challenged drama Halt & Catch Fire. Like Manhattan, Halt is a period drama (albeit, the more recent 1980s) wherein the central characters all have highly specialized, if not necessarily super sexy, skill sets (computer programmers, mechanics, etc.). Late last year, against all odds, AMC announced that Halt had secured a third season. Here, unlike the relatively new WGN America, AMC more than likely has the the infrastructure in place when it comes to their original programming (as well as a monster new hit in the form of Fear the Walking Dead). As such, the network could probably afford to support its struggling, critically acclaimed baby. Plus, something tells me that the more minimal Halt, with its limited roster of regulars and numerous interior scenes, can be produced for far cheaper than the beautifully rendered world and ensemble that Manhattan required.