Succession's depiction of the rich is a far cry from Dynasty - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

TMC · 10-16-2021, 07:05 AM

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/a...-3-review.html

"Succession, whose scabrously funny third season begins Sunday, is superficially in the same genre as Dynasty, Dallas and other bygone soaps about the unhappy superrich," says James Poniewozik. "Minus the lyrically deployed obscenities, it would have fit perfectly on prime time in 1981 with its thumbnail premise — Kendall, Roman and their sister, Shiv (Sarah Snook), strive and connive to become either the favorite of their mogul dad, Logan (Brian Cox), or his destroyer. But in key ways, the show is also nothing like its predecessors, because being rich is nothing like it used to be. The wicked oil tycoons of ’80s TV soaps were different from you and me in the way of Ernest Hemingway’s rejoinder to Fitzgerald: They had more money. They used that money the way their viewers would have if they had won the lottery. The opening sequence of the original Dynasty is a time-capsule rendering of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, with John Forsythe cradling a snifter of something expensive and Joan Collins wearing bejeweled earrings the size of squash racquets. Like wealth itself today, Succession is both a logical progression from its Reagan-era predecessors and something of an entirely different order. The show is made for a time when the richest are proportionally so much richer that it has made them alien. (Even the ones not literally going to space.) Being rich, on Succession, does not look fun. If anything, it is aggressively anti-fun, as if fun itself were just a tatty concept for the lumpen masses who crowd the family’s amusement parks. The show’s libido is not hot but warped; Roman, for instance, gets most aroused by being shamed and insulted, preferably by the family consigliere Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron). Its aesthetic is not glitzy but cold. Compared with the covetable glitter of ’80s soaps, the modern luxury of Succession is both unattainable and alienating. It says, not only will you never have this, you N.R.P., your primitive mind doesn’t even have the cultivation to want it. This may be one reason that Succession, unlike its predecessors, is a niche sensation rather than a mass broadcast hit. It’s a bitter acquired taste, like expensive imported licorice, with twisted pleasures but little wish fulfillment."

10-16-2021, 07:05 AM	#1
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,493	Succession's depiction of the rich is a far cry from Dynasty https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/a...-3-review.html "Succession, whose scabrously funny third season begins Sunday, is superficially in the same genre as Dynasty, Dallas and other bygone soaps about the unhappy superrich," says James Poniewozik. "Minus the lyrically deployed obscenities, it would have fit perfectly on prime time in 1981 with its thumbnail premise — Kendall, Roman and their sister, Shiv (Sarah Snook), strive and connive to become either the favorite of their mogul dad, Logan (Brian Cox), or his destroyer. But in key ways, the show is also nothing like its predecessors, because being rich is nothing like it used to be. The wicked oil tycoons of ’80s TV soaps were different from you and me in the way of Ernest Hemingway’s rejoinder to Fitzgerald: They had more money. They used that money the way their viewers would have if they had won the lottery. The opening sequence of the original Dynasty is a time-capsule rendering of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, with John Forsythe cradling a snifter of something expensive and Joan Collins wearing bejeweled earrings the size of squash racquets. Like wealth itself today, Succession is both a logical progression from its Reagan-era predecessors and something of an entirely different order. The show is made for a time when the richest are proportionally so much richer that it has made them alien. (Even the ones not literally going to space.) Being rich, on Succession, does not look fun. If anything, it is aggressively anti-fun, as if fun itself were just a tatty concept for the lumpen masses who crowd the family’s amusement parks. The show’s libido is not hot but warped; Roman, for instance, gets most aroused by being shamed and insulted, preferably by the family consigliere Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron). Its aesthetic is not glitzy but cold. Compared with the covetable glitter of ’80s soaps, the modern luxury of Succession is both unattainable and alienating. It says, not only will you never have this, you N.R.P., your primitive mind doesn’t even have the cultivation to want it. This may be one reason that Succession, unlike its predecessors, is a niche sensation rather than a mass broadcast hit. It’s a bitter acquired taste, like expensive imported licorice, with twisted pleasures but little wish fulfillment."