Hannibal´s screenwriting page - The history of television

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The history of television

In "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present", Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh divides the history into seven different eras. This division can be very helpful as a start, so let´s go through it:

Vaudeo (1948-1957)

The first television shows were similar to the first films in that they contained slapstick and crazy skits, mostly borrowed from vaudeville. There were also large talent shows as "The Ed Sullivan Show", which leaned heavily on short numbers with a great variety between them.

But as the broadcasting system was further refined, and more and more details could be seen clearly, the sitcom was developed. Although the name suggests a "situation", the sitcom was really based on characters, for example Lucille Ball´s character Lucy in "I Love Lucy" (1951-1957), whose personality was a constant source of comical adventures. Along with Jackie Gleason´s "get rich quick"-scheming Ralph Kamden in "Honeymooners" (1955-1956) and Robert Young´s bumbling Jim Anderson in "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960), Lucy was the situation that created the comedy. Even though the sitcoms were largly visual, there were a lot of them which were actually picked up from radio, a medium with much higher ratings than the newly developed television medium.

On the other side of the spectrum, there was anthologies and live plays, as serious and international in scope as the sitcoms were American. Many of them were adaptations of classical works, but the studios bought much of what they could their hands on.

This was also the time for the big studios, and almost everything was filmed on set, instead of on location. This was the reason for the relatively few action series, but "Dragnet" (1951-1959) was an instant hit.

Adult Westerns (1957-early 1960s)

Such hit movies as "High Noon" (1952) and "Shane" (1953) inspired TV producers to develop the already existing Wild West show from something kids would watch on Sunday mornings, to more profound shows aimed at adults. The first new show was probably "Gunsmoke", which started out in radio in 1952, but made the transition to TV in 1955. It would stay there for twenty years, but the really amazing part is how many shows that would follow in its footsteps: in the 1958-1959 season, there were as many as 31 different Western shows, among them "Have Gun, Will Travel" (1957-1963), "Rawhide" (1959-1965), "Bonanza" (1959-1973) and the Western satire "Maverick" (1957-1962).

Almost all the Westerns were produced by movie companies in Hollywood, ending both the New York theatre dominance, and the split between film and television. TV and film was after all not that different, and it would begin to show on the types of shows produced: more style, and less spectacle.

One exception was the huge success of the live quiz shows, as "The $64,000 Question" (1955-1958) and "Twenty-One" (1956-1958), which were still taped in New York. The quiz shows made the contestants instant heroes, until it was discovered that networks had provided some of the participants with the correct answers. All live gameshows were cancelled that season, which left room for even more Western shows, and their modernday counterpart, the detective show.

"77 Sunset Strip" (1958-1964) was for the detective shows what "Gunsmoke" was for Westerns. It changed the genre from straight-faced "Dragnet" to sexy, swinging "Peter Gunn" (1958-1961). The detective genre would hold its grip on the audience longer than the Western would. Soon the market was flooded with Westerns, that were heavily critisised for their violence. But more importantly, the improved accuracy when measuring audience shares told networks to go for more comedy.

Idiot Sitcom (1960s)

Soon, the tube was flooded with sitcoms in every type: from slapstick shows such as "Gilligan´s Island" (1964-1967) and "Mister Ed" (1961-1966), to bizarre shows such as "The Addams Family" (1964-1966) and "The Flying Nun (1967-1970), to gimmick-based shows such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962-1971) and "My Favourite Martian" (1963-1966), to family shows such as "Leave It To Beaver" (1957-1963).

It seemed that everything was funny, or absurd. Even action shows that were decidedly campy, as "Batman" (1966-1968) were successes. But the fantastical was also starting to make waves: "Star Trek" (1966-1969) for example was not a hit show from the start, but it had a strong following and it would be rerun to success. In Great Britain, The Doctor in "Doctor Who" (1963-2005?) travelled through time and space, and soon got millions of fans.

And space was not the only place where unrealistic things would happen - on Earth, spies and agents, inspired by the James Bond craze, in shows as "Mission: Impossible" (1966-1973) and "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." (1964-1968).

Serious shows were cancelled by the dozen, but there were some exceptions. The hospital dramas "Ben Casey" (1961-1966) and "Dr Kildare" (1961-1966), for example. And soap opera had its first hit with "Peyton Place" (1964-1969).

Relevance (1960s-1975)

After a while, society and the viewing habits changed. As the 1970s started, television programmes began to deal with a more realistical and political world. Race, sex, gender and class issues became subjects even in comedies. "All In The Family" (1971-1979) is the quintessential example of this - with a bigoted, conservative as the lead, which prompted discussions about serious subjects - gun control, free speech and economics - a clean break with the fun loving 1960s.

"M*A*S*H" (1972-1983) went even further, by showing and parodying the Korean war, and it was popular too - the final episode holds the records as the singular most watched episode ever on any TV show (surpassing the "Who shot J.R.? Part 2" episode of "Dallas".)

Women were also given a more prominent role, as in "Mary Tyler Moore" (1979-1977) - about a single working woman (which Oprah Winfrey later credited for having inspired her to start a career in TV).

Unfortunally, the gritty realism of such shows as "Kojak" (1973-1978) and "The Rockford Files" (1974-1980), and others, prompted complaints about violence on TV. (A complaint that has popped up time and time again ever since television, and indeed motion pictures, was invented.) Perhaps as a counter-balance, there was several shows that celebrated the simpler life, as "The Little House On The Prairie" (1974-1983), and "The Waltons" (1972-1981).

ABC Fantasy (1975-1980)

The controversies in the early 1970s scared some viewers and repelled some, and the reaction was to go back to the safe subjects and areas, as exemplified by "Three´s Company" (1977-1984), "Soap" (1977-1981) and "Laverne & Shirley" (1976-1983), or the harmless "sexiness" of "Charlie´s Angels" (1976-1981). Escapism once again ruled television, to the point where one show was called "Fantasy island" (1978-1984). (All of these shows were, not surprisingly, distributed by ABC.)

One notable exception was in the field of the miniseries, where more serious themes still held their ground, as exemplified by "Roots" (1977). Though the miniseries told the story of slavery of African-Americans throughout the American history, it it still the third most watched TV show.

Soap Opera & Real People (1980s)

With the advent of cable TV in the early 1980s, the television landscape was changed forever, when soap operas found their way into prime time. "Dallas" (1978-1991) competed with "Dynasty" (1981-1989) and "Falcon Crest" (1981-1990) for the big audience. They kept the dramatic structure of the daytime serial of the 1950s and 1960s, but left behind much of the day-to-day struggle of human existance and replaced it with luxuary and power conflicts in the élite.

In the meantime, cheap video cameras made their way to the public. TV stations made use of it and launched a series of Candid Camera (the original started in 1953) and bloopers shows.

What could be considered a mix of these two genres sprang forward at the start of the 1980s when the cop show "Hill Street Blues" (1981-1987) became popular. Using more continuing stories across the season than was usual, but with a less fashionable look, not unlike the ordinary people from the "reality" shows, "Hill Street Blues" soon got many imitators.

At the same time, several escapist detective shows came on. But what first almost seemed as a counter-reaction to the reality on TV (and some of them were, like "The A-Team" (1983-1987)), soon turned out to be a new paradigm. Take "Magnum, P.I." (1980-1988) for example. At first it appeared to be about a flashy detective working in the glossy Hawaii, but the show soon delved into the Vietnam war veteran psyche and other not so glossy subjects. Several more traditionally substance-less detective or action shows turned into "issue of the week" shows, like "Midnight Caller" (1988-1991) and "MacGyver" (1985-1992).

Era of choice (1990s)

The full effect of cable TV wasn´t obvious until the 1990s when syndication bloomed (syndication is when production companies sell the right to broadcast television programs to multiple television stations, as opposed to network television, when a central organisation provides the content for the broadcasts). The number of shows produced exploded, without an equally large inflow of cash, which led to even more cheaply produced soap operas and reality cop shows with short documentary segments, like in "Cops" (1989-) and "Rescue 911" (1989). Soon the documentary segment would merge with adventure competion shows like "The American Gladiators" (1989-1997) and "Fort Boyard" (1990-) to create the modern reality shows, like "The Real World" (1992-), "Survivor" (2000-) (from the Swedish format "Expedition: Robinson" (1997-)), and "Big Brother" (2000-).

With so many channels competing for viewers, some channels specialised their content, like MTV and CNN or Sci-Fi Channel (since science fiction had had a comeback with "Star Trek - The Next Generation" (1987-1994)). Others created extra quirky shows, like the lawyer show "Ally McBeal" (1997-2002), with cartoonish fantasies and odd cases, or the science fiction show "The X-Files" (1993-2002) with a government conspiracy at the heart and some really off-center aliens and monsters.

Simoultaneously, society rebelled against the ideal family ideal, portrayed in for instance "The Cosby Show" (1984-1992), and the result on TV was "Married with children" (1987-1997) and "Roseanne" (1988-1997), as well as "The Simpsons (1989-), where the stupid losers rule, and people didn´t get along. And the result was also other types of shows without the ideal family: "Seinfeld" (1990-1998) had a cast of four Jewish single friends, "Friends" (1994-2004) centered around six single friends on Manhattan, and "Ellen" (1994-1998) was the first show with a lesbian lead (she came out during the fourth out of five seasons).

Targeted shows (2000s)

Since Brooks and Marsh´ book was published in 1995, much has happened, and several new shows deserves to be put in their relative positions:

The sitcom wave which started during the early 1990s, has left lots of lukewarm examples during the late 1990s and early 2000s, which has left room for another drama wave. Starting with he big teeange show during the late 1990s was "Dawsons Creek" (1998-2003), a show about adolencence in a precaucious and somewhat preachy way which clash totally with the disrespectful and sometimes cynically pop culture action heroine show, "Buffy - The Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003).

But teenagers weren´t the only group to get shows on their own. Women got "7th heaven" (1996-), "Gilmore Girls (2000-) and other family oriented drama shows that tries to give advice in an increasingly complex world with divorces and date rapes.

"Sopranos" (1999-), the dark and often violent mafia family drama, was created the same year as "The West Wing", the much lighter and intellectual palace intrigue show inside the White House. Both were critically awarded, and did well in the ratings. "C.S.I. - Crime Scene Investigations" (2000-) which takes us behind the scenes of a forensic team and portrays graphically the damages that are done to each victim. Combined with the undertaker show, "Six feet under" (2001-), these shows give an insider´s look into unusual arenas.

Further patterns are harder to see, as we go closer to our own time, but as time goes by whether the drama trend will subside or not.

By Lennart Guldbrandsson

The eras
Vaudeo (1948-1957)