BOXED OUT

The passing of prestige TV

- MICHAEL SCHULMAN

When did “prestige TV” jump the shark, or maybe just get chomped up in its jaws? Flip around for something to watch, and you’ll find star-crammed absurdities (“The Morning Show,” “Only Murders in the Building”), I.P.-brand extensions (“Wednesday,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi”), “Yellowstone” spinoffs, or, under the banner of the once genre-busting HBO, rehashes of better shows (“House of the Dragon,” “And Just Like That . . .”). When a worthy new series breaks out (“Reservation Dogs,” “The Bear”), it feels like an anomaly, and just as many get prematurely cancelled (“A League of Their Own,” “Winning Time”). Many streaming services are cutting costs and curbing output while casting around for the broadest possible audience. We used to say that twenty-first-century TV was like the nineteenth-century novel—instead of staring at the idiot box, we were communing with Dickens or Zola!—but at some point that stopped seeming true.