By Dalton DeStefano ’16, Arts and Entertainment Editor

Around the world, the term “Golden Age” is thrown around to describe the current television era. Shows like Breaking Bad, Scandal, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead have set an elevated standard for Drama series, while shows like Modern Family, Veep, and Parks and Recreation have broken the traditional mold and emerged as powerhouses in the comedy industry. This new era of television is leading to overload of content. Even obsessive binge-watchers, like much of the community at the Academy, find it difficult to keep up with the dozens of shows emerging and garnering critical acclaim. This rapid evolution is leading to new styles of television that are completely changing the experience for viewers.

One of the major emerging styles of television is the anthology format. An anthology series is defined as a show in which every season (or even episode) features a completely new plot with different characters. Arguably the most famous show that follows this format was The Twilight Zone (1960s), which used science fiction and psychological horror as an overarching theme for each of its episodes, which were essentially completely unrelated short stories. However, in modern times, the most popular series of this format is American Horror Story, which recycles actors through a different horror-related plot every season. Past seasons have focused on a haunted house, a mental asylum, and a witches’ coven. American Horror Story is rapidly gaining popularity and is one of the most watched cable dramas on television today (behind only The Walking Dead and the now-finished Breaking Bad). Another rising anthology series, True Detective, starring Woody Harrelson and new Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey, just finished its first season and is quickly collecting praise from both critics and viewers. This new format of television plays off of viewers’ impatience by completely wrapping up a story arch every year. This keeps the audience interested and gives the series freedom to completely reinvent itself from season to season.

Another style of TV watching that is rapidly gaining popularity is the binge-watching method. The emergence of Netflix as a major source of television has allowed for rapid TV watching becoming the norm in our culture. Especially at Newark Academy, where students are so busy during the week, many people use their weekends as an opportunity to burn through episodes of their current favorite shows. Shows such as Breaking Bad owe their overwhelming popularity to Netflix, where people could easily have access to watch the shows at their own desired pace. Netflix itself has taken this formula and applied it to the TV shows themselves. Netflix is now producing its own shows and releasing whole seasons at a time in order to allow for rapid binge-watching. The revival of Arrested Development, House of Cards, and Orange is the New Black, have all received numerous accolades and were all produced by Netflix. Netflix ended 2013 with over 44 million subscribers, which gives the company a very broad audience to market to. Hulu, another popular streaming service, has even begun creating its own shows, such as Deadbeat, which was released a few weeks ago (albeit to less acclaim than Orange is the New Black or House of Cards). This new method of watching television is allowing people to watch and fall in love with a show all in the course of a week.

Evidently, an exciting change is coming in the television industry. While traditional dramas and comedies will undoubtedly find continued success in the future, new formats and genres of television shows are rising up to redefine how our society interacts with television shows.