"Homicide: Life on the Street" (NBC) and "The Sopranos" (HBO)
"Homicide" was the cop show of the decade, a tough, jazzed, midnight ride into the unquiet soul of the Baltimore "murder police." Its pseudo-realism, chaotic squad room scenes and use of pop music to underscore mood, as well as its unforgettable roster of heroes and anti-heroes, borrowed from previous NBC trailblazers "Hill Street Blues" and "Miami Vice." But "Homicide" (created by Paul Attanasio and produced by Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson) took it all a step further, faster, deeper and blacker (this show had the best-written, most prominent African-American characters of the decade). At its finest, "Homicide" was the most uncompromising police drama on the air. Never a Nielsen hit, "Homicide" spent all of its six-year run in danger of cancellation. But that's how it was for most challenging network dramas during the high-stakes '90s.
"The Sopranos" ended up on HBO because David Chase, the show's creator, couldn't find a taker for his dark mafia comedy-drama among the broadcast networks. Which was a good thing for us. Even though ABC's "NYPD Blue" had broken the nudity and language barrier earlier in the decade, it's doubtful "The Sopranos" would have made it to network prime time with its topless bar dancers and its colorful vernacular -- basically, the F-word used as a verb, noun, adjective or some combination of the three in every other sentence -- intact. HBO has provided a nurturing home for this magnificent series, which became a talker right out of the gate, inspiring hordes of fans to subscribe to HBO or buy satellite-dish packages. America has embraced this dysfunctional New Jersey Mafia clan the way it took to the Corleones 20 years ago, and it isn't hard to see why. The Sopranos may be working the wrong side of the law, but their suburban upper-middle-class assimilation dreams ring true -- they're ethnic and new money, but they want to belong. Smart, ballsy, lushly cinematic and unlike anything else on TV, "The Sopranos" represents the future of TV programming. The broadcast networks have got to be worried.
"Biography" (A&E) and "Dateline NBC" (NBC)
"Biography" hit on the perfect way to fill air time cheaply in an ever-expanding cable universe: Slap together some archival footage of the famous and notorious, add a few interviews with "experts" and "friends," lay on some grabbily pretentious narration along the lines of "Elvis was riding high. But storm clouds, in the form of divorce, drug addiction and peanut butter and banana sandwiches, were gathering on the horizon," and, presto, you've got yourself a franchise. "Biography" became A&E's gold mine, and the cable network packaged it with book tie-ins, videos, a magazine and specialized editions for global audiences. "Biography" was one of the programming success stories of the decade, a fact that becomes even more obvious when you consider its growing list of clones: VH1's "Legends" and "Behind the Music"; E!'s "True Hollywood Story"; Lifetime's "Intimate Portraits"; MSNBC's "Time and Again" and "Headliners and Legends." Yes, by the end of 1999, "Biography" imitators were riding high. But storm clouds, in the form of biography-saturated viewers, were gathering on the horizon ...
A younger, hipper and more sensationalistic version of "60 Minutes," "Dateline NBC" was the network version of "Biography": relatively cheap reality programming to plug into the scheduling holes that arose as NBC killed off more and more hour-long dramas. Expanding to two, three and four broadcasts a week, "Dateline" was everywhere in the latter half of the decade; so were its competitors, as "Dateline" inspired "20/20," "48 Hours" and even "60 Minutes" to go multi-night. The proliferation of newsmagazines didn't mean more actual news, however, just an endless parade of bizarre murders, obscure diseases, automobile crash tests, child-rearing scare stories, natural disasters and celebrity fluff.
Mergers and acquisitions
And Ted Turner stood on the mountaintop and saw that the '90s economy was robust, and it was good. And he saw that the FCC and the Justice Department were kind, and it was good. And so Turner laid down with Gerald Levin of Time Warner, and they begat a new media empire, and it was good. And, lo, the Mouse laid down with ABC, and it was good (except for Disney's stock, which was so-so), and then the Prince of Microsoft wanted a pieceth of the TV action, and so he laid down with NBC, and they begat MSNBC, and it was good. And Sumner Redstone, ruler of the kingdom of Viacom (MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Video), laid down with Mel Karmazin, ruler of the kingdom of CBS, and it was very good for shareholders. And whatever they did not take, Rupert Murdoch, the absolute monarch of the land of News Corp., took, and so Twentieth Century Fox begat Fox TV and Fox TV begat Fox News Channel and Fox News Channel begat Fox Sports Network and Fox Sports Network begat Fox Family and Fox Family begat FX, and the names of all the Foxes were inscribed in News Corp.'s Guide of TV, and it was good.
Or was it?
Geraldo and O.J.
Together, the self-promoting tabloid TV pioneer and the NFL Hall of Famer and double-murder defendant ushered in a new era of TV "news." Geraldo Rivera's impassioned, obsessive coverage of the O.J. Simpson saga on his nightly CNBC debate show pitted pro- and con-Simpson legal analysts against each other in blood-pressure-
Oprah and Xena
And Roseanne and Martha and Ellen ... Women flexed muscle and kicked butt in the TV industry throughout the decade, from the in-your-face feminism and sitcom-form-
During the '90s, women also led the crusade for gay representation in prime time. ABC's "Roseanne" featured a lesbian character and a gay married couple. Ellen DeGeneres finally came out (like we didn’t know) in real life and on her ABC sitcom "Ellen," becoming the first openly gay lead character in a TV series. Her coming out paved the way for the flaming, proudly queer Will and Jack of NBC's "Will & Grace" (who seem more comfortable in their skin than Ellen ever did on her show). And while all of this was happening, Xena the Warrior Princess and her Amazon sidekick, Gabrielle, were having a gay old time as the coolest, toughest, closest female action heroines in TV history. Ay-ay-ay-aiee!
Honorable mention: Some shows we can't overlook
"Absolutely Fabulous" (Comedy Central), "The Ben Stiller Show" (Fox), "Cop Rock" (ABC), "Elvis" (ABC), "Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS), "EZ Streets" (CBS), "Friends" (NBC), "Get a Life" (Fox), "In Living Color" (Fox), "The Kids in the Hall" (HBO), "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (NBC),"The Middle Ages" (CBS), "Nowhere Man" (UPN), "NYPD Blue" (ABC), "Prime Suspect" (PBS), "Profit"(Fox).
About the writer
Joyce Millman is Salon's TV critic. To read more by Joyce Millman, visit her column archive.
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