The peak TV era is long gone, and fewer shows are being made now compared to even a few years ago. So maybe it’s time to take a closer look at what k
The peak TV era is long gone, and fewer shows are being made now compared to even a few years ago. So maybe it’s time to take a closer look at what kinds of shows are actually being made. This week on Little Gold Men, we pick three TV trends that we’d like to see canceled—or at least put into hibernation for a bit.
We begin with adaptations of airport novels—breezy reads often about prosperous people dealing with dead bodies—a trend that really kicked off with the huge success of Big Little Lies, the starry HBO show featuring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Laura Dern.
“It inspired a lot of imitators, and none live up to the original—not even the second season of Big Little Lies,” says Vanity Fair features editor Hillary Busis. “You can’t capture that lightning again, which has not stopped TV networks and streamers from trying.”
The dozens of similar shows that have followed, many of them starring Kidman as well—she can also be found in The Undoing, Expats, Nine Perfect Strangers, and The Perfect Couple—have varied in quality. Sharp Objects drew critical praise; more recent Big Little Lies descendents, like Imperfect Women and The Five-Star Weekend, have had a much more tepid reception.
The Little Gold Men team is also getting tired of fictionalized true crime series. The 2017 Netflix hit Mindhunter made a mighty impression—but not every show based on a real-life case can look like it was made by David Fincher. More recent entries in the genre, including The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox and Good American Family, have hardly made an impression; too many of these shows bring nothing modern to stories that have already been told and retold through documentaries and numerous news pieces. “We didn’t really move the narrative forward, and we’re seeing that more and more,” says Little Gold Men cohost John Ross.
