biolog

National Post critic Robert Fulford applies the four stages of an art movement to TV shows: Primitive, Classical, Baroque, and Decadent. Nifty, but does everyshow follow this arc or can its progress be defined by these criteria? Fulford uses L.A. Law, Numbe3s, Without a Trace, Flashpoint, House, and some Canadian show as examples. These are all dramas, and with the exception of House, crime dramas. Also, I haven’t watched a single episode of a single one of these shows, so I  have no idea.

Do comedies such as the The Office, a show I do watch, apply? As a huge sucess and just about to start it’s…what 5th season, it can’t be primitive. I think seasons 2 can be classified as the beginning of the classical era for The Office. Now that Pam and Jim are married the cast has expanded, we must be well within the Boroque years of The Office.

Simpsons: Decadent Accept for the Halloween espisodes, Homer is a parody of himself.

Lost: Decadent by the 3rd season. I could handle a polar bear in the jungle, but the CG mist was the beginning of the end. Admittedly, I stopped watching, so maybe it’s reinvented itself.

South Park: Classical/Baroque Its topicality saves it. However, Cartmen is this show’s Homer. The good Cartman from another dimension really pushed it into Jump the Shark territory)

Top Chef: Classical/Baroque They saved themselves from Decadence by firing that irritating Simon Cowell-wannabe, British judge near the end of the season.)

Shows that are no more:

X-Files: Decadent. And the spin-off movies only confirmed this

Millennium: Baroque/Decadent Maligned with the X-Files plot entanglement syndrome (a new writer almost every season), a plot that promised resolution and was instead abandoned, completely unresolved by the end of the fourth and final season.

The Wire: Classical with a small reservation. I’m calling shenanigans on the fourth season’s plot. A plagarising reporter in collusion with multiple detectives from the homocide deptartment was too far-fetched, a needless duex-ex machina for dramatizing a metro paper’s daily pulse. A little too Murder She Wrote for my taste. However, further character development from the already solid roles in seasons past coupled with a beat-goes-on finale and just four seasons, unlike most series crime dramas, kept this one solidly in the Classical era.

Deadwood: Classical: I’m halfway through season two; though it definitely hit its stride. The writing, already florid in the first season, has been described in the second season as almost Shakespearean.

Seinfeld: Decadent

Arrested Development: Classical

Kingdom: Primitive. Obviously, since it never made it past its first season.

Dragon Ball Z: Baroque. But only technically. The follow-up Dragon Ball GT was referential, uninspired and Decadent.