What are the most influential dramas on television?
If you go back to Hill Street Blues, for example, in the 1980s, we're talking about the beginning of the parallel story telling, of the very long narrative, of story lines that have multiple episodes, of huge ensemble casts, and great depth and honesty in story telling. That was one of many early iconic TV drama shows that started the golden age which we're in now. There have been many wonderful shows since then - Homicide: Life on the Street, which still is a network show, St. Elsewhere, and others. Coming to closer time, the advent of HBO and those high quality dramas, most especially The Sopranos, added even more depth to what you could do with characters and with story telling and with the kinds of material that the audience would accept and love. So HBO opened the door to a lot with The Sopranos and other fine shows. There are outlets all over the dial; Showtime is doing some interesting programming, as is the Sci-Fi channel. While most of it is the expected stuff, they have the brilliant drama Battlestar Galactica, which is another ground-breaking show because it defies stereotypes and categories in the depth of the stories and the subject matter they can tell. That was also true, by the way, of West Wing. So, all of these have moved television to a level of serious critical consideration and artistic consideration that had not existed before the 1980s.
