The 2010s was the decade that spoiler culture went mainstream

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https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-was-the...ryt-1838626676

"Spoiler alert: We all love spoilers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we all want them, of course—there are as many people who fervently avoid details about upcoming stories as there are people who hunt them down to learn beforehand," says James Whitbrook. "But as the 2010s come to a close, the way we talk about spoilers with each other has changed dramatically—and not necessarily for the best." Whitbrook says Game of Thrones changed everything when it came to spoilers, especially with its split audience of newbies and book readers. "That inherently meant that the way Thrones’ courtly intrigues and plot twists were discussed were laced with the danger of spoiler territory," he says. "A danger that became inherently weaponized by fans, when all it would take is one whisper of Ned Stark’s fate, or Daenerys’ true path, or an ominous mention of a seemingly far off wedding, to completely ruin the show for fans who had no idea that—in what is still paradoxically still one of the most audacious scenes of TV ever and also a plot point that’s been known since (George R.R.) Martin first wrote it in 1996 —Sean Bean was about to get his head lopped off."

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2019 marks the end of one TV era -- and the beginning of a new one

"Collectively, 2019’s graduating class represents some of the most exciting fruits of the fertile valley between two distinct periods," says Alison Herman. "On one side lies TV’s loosely defined Golden Age (or Third Golden Age, depending on the historical framing), the imperfect yet sticky term for the stretch from the late 1990s to the early 2010s that saw an explosion in noteworthy, resonant series, many of them on subscription cable networks. On the other lies the Streaming Wars, the imperfect yet sticky term for the time when the entertainment conglomerates and tech giants started to join in on the resulting gold rush with owned-and-operated services of their own. Not that the mid-2010s were exactly free of corporate influence; it takes a tremendous amount of capital to run a TV network, meaning the dynamic between major ones will never be as simple as scrappy indies versus bloated behemoths. Still, there’s a notable gear shift between HBO and HBO Max, FX and the Disney+-Hulu-ESPN+ bundle, Netflix as vanguard and Netflix as incumbent."

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  Here are the 10 best TV episodes of 2019

[dee2364]

Spoilers have made it impossible for writers to surprise fans. That Newhart finale would've never been able to make it without it being spoiled weeks in advance.

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Here are the worst things to happen on TV in 2019, from Netflix's cancelation spree to host-less award shows

There were plenty of great moments on TV in 2019. But with so many options, there were many worst offenders, says Kelly Lawler. Among them was the terrible Game of Thrones finale, the overly weird Dickinson arriving with the disappointing Apple TV+, Big Little Lies wasting a second season, Arrested Development ending with a whimper, not-so-live TV musicals like Rent: Live and The Little Mermaid Live!, bad behavior on Big Brother and Survivor, host-less awards shows and Netflix's cancelation spree. "Every network and streaming service has to cancel multiple series every year; it's just a fact of the industry," says Lawler. "But in 2019 Netflix wielded its ax at a far higher rate than the streamer had before, canceling such a wide swath of its series that, from an outside view, it seemed to speak more to the company's overall strategy rather than viewership for any one series, which it (mostly) won't reveal. As more shows (good and bad) are announced as a 'third and final' or 'fourth and final' season (including greats like Dear White People and GLOW), it becomes clear that Netflix isn't out to get 200 episodes of a sitcom or even 100 episodes of a twisty drama, the outmoded formula for syndication. While certainly not every show needs to last 10 seasons, some have the potential to evolve and grow for years. Especially on a platform that pioneered the idea of binge-watching a series over a week or two, it's sad that Netflix originals might never keep us occupied for very long. As streaming becomes more dominant in the industry, it's a safe bet to say we'll be far less likely get a series that runs as long as Friends or Grey's Anatomy again."

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The 2010s was the decade of Netflix

"This decade has been dominated, directly and indirectly, by the consolidation, rise, and reign of Reed Hastings’s DVD startup that in 1998 was nothing but a twinkle in Blockbuster’s rearview mirror," says Sonia Soraiya. "In 2007, Netflix introduced streaming on its platform—a model that would become fundamental to a rapid transformation of content creation and distribution—but cable infrastructure could barely keep up with Netflix users’ demand, so the world-shaking innovation took a while to catch on. Streaming video requires staggering amounts of bandwidth—eventually, the internet had to be reshaped to accommodate it—and while taking out rental rival Blockbuster, which folded in 2013, Netflix got into spats with internet service providers over users’ video quality. The problem was that their product was growing faster than the internet could keep up with. For a fairly cheap monthly fee, Netflix delivered users a lot of content, free of advertisements and interruptions—and customers were using the hell out of it. Mid-decade, nearly 40% of North American peak-time internet usage came from Netflix. Currently, Netflix accounts for 15% of the world’s total internet traffic. Netflix’s attempts to stay ahead of its expansion ended up defining the decade of TV. Viewers catching up on Netflix ended up boosting seasons of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, as well as unleashing Great British Baking Show mania on America. Netflix was dealing in digital licensing years before distributors realized how lucrative these rights could be; early Netflix was a treasure trove of everything you’d ever wanted to watch, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Parks and Recreation. Now, of course, digital content licensing has become a hot little corner of the entertainment industry, as decades-old reliable shows like Friends have become coveted assets for a platform’s portfolio."

ALSO:

• The 50 best comedy sketches of the decade include: SNL's "David S. Pumpkins" and "Black Jeopardy!" and Inside Amy Schumer's "Last F*ckable Day"
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  Queer Eye and RuPaul's Drag Race are among the 10 best reality shows of the 2010s
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  BoJack Horseman, Adventure Time and Rick and Morty are among the best animated series of the decade
  Here are the most standout moments of the 2010s: From the acclaimed Mad Men series finale to the disappointing How I Met Your Mother series finale

[cfr1970]

The 2010's was the decade I gave up cable for good and discovered the wonderful world of classic TV channels. For some reason, none of these channels appeared when I had cable. Only when I hooked up an antenna did they suddenly appear and it opened a whole new world of TV viewing that I completely stopped watching all modern television...and don't miss it one bit.

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TV transformed dramatically in the 2010s, but it's remakarkable how much TV didn't change at all

Here we are at the end of the decade, and thanks to Netflix, "The Office is as popular and omnipresent as ever, if not more so," says Jen Chaney. "I don’t go a single day without seeing an image of Michael Scott in my social-media feeds, on merchandise, or on a screen in my house where my kid is streaming episodes of the show. Did Steve Carell leave The Office? Yes, that is a fact. But is he also kind of still on it, 24/7? Yes." The story of the 2010s, says Chaney, is how many shows that were popular at the beginning of the decade are either still around or still relevant thanks to revivals or streaming services like Netflix. Grey's Anatomy, The Walking Dead, Blue Bloods, The Bachelor, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Dancing with the Stars, Bob's Burgers, and The Simpsons are among the shows that were on in 2010 that will be around in 2020. Even though Lost finished with its controversial series finale in May 2010, it has survived via a number of copycats like Manifest and Emergence. "That doesn’t even take into account the shows that aren’t Lost knockoffs but have it in their DNA, like The Good Place and Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers and Watchmen," says Chaney. "The beginning of the decade said, Lost is dead. The second half of it responded, Long live Lost." Chaney adds: "The 2010s were, without a doubt, a transformative time for television. The number of TV shows and ways in which we watched them exploded on an unprecedented level. In the year 2010, our viewing options were akin to an overstuffed closet: There was a lot to sort through, but it was manageable. We had a handle on how to get rid of the stuff that didn’t spark joy. But in 2019, our potential binge-watches are more like the stock room in The Matrix: an endless series of shelving units that extend into infinity. Even if you’re the One, there’s no way you can stream this many damn episodes. Every end-of-decade retrospective about the medium — even our own! — will tell you a version of this same story: The big news about TV in the 2010s was its abundance and how much more nichified it became. But in a decade that will also be remembered as a time of great polarization, it seems only right to offer another perspective. As much as the TV landscape transformed, it’s remarkable how much didn’t change at all."

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  The decade's best TV episodes include Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" and Atlanta's "Teddy Perkins"
  The 25 best shows of the decade include The Leftovers, Enlightened and Nathan for You
  The best international shows of the decade include Babylon Berlin, The Crown and Killing Eve
  The Lost series finale was the best underrated ending

[Yong Fang]

For me this decade and especially the last half of this decade sort of marks the post television era. We don’t need television to watch our shows and programming. We have the internet and the streaming services. We can watch shows anytime we want at our leisure and pleasure.

While the networks themselves I don’t think will be gone for several more decades are beginning to see a decline, and there are so many competitors out there with their content and the new medium thereof.