Prestige television, or the Golden Age of Television, lifted the medium to creative and artistic heights with shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, but we are now in the late stages of an era that is well and truly tired, writes Derek McArthur

There is a certain, specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with physical labour.

It’s the feeling you get late at night, eyes glazed over, as the credits of yet another incredibly important television series roll. You have not been entertained. You have been assessed. You feel, not elated or moved, but graded. In the know. Educated on something rather meaningless. It’s the fatigue of consumption without joy, of completing a task that was never assigned but still feels mandatory.

We find ourselves amid the late-stage era of prestige TV, where every season of a show is likely the most important thing happening in life, and no one's sure why.

It was once dubbed the ‘Golden Age of Television’, spearheaded by groundbreaking shows like The Sopranos and The Wire. These thoughtful, elaborate, and high-quality works proved television could be just as well made, intricate, and as artful as the highest brows of cinema.

But television has now taken the template ushered in by The Sopranos and The Wire and turned it into empty aesthetic. A set of rules to follow that convey the required sense of loftiness. Tricks on the viewers that now simply tire.

© Herald Scotland