Loews Winter/Spring 2013 - (Page 30)
WATCH THIS
Television digs into the past to entertain today.
BY GLENN GARVIN
Mad Men, AMC’s drama about 1960s ad executives who like their martinis cold and their secretaries loose, has become so popular that it has inspired everything from paper dolls to a Banana Republic clothing line. Starz’s Magic City is set in a long-ago Miami where the biggest problem was not Latin American narcotraffickers but home-grown Mafiosi. And who cares about the Kardashians when those fussing, feuding, fornicating Ewings are back in a Dallas remake? The networks are discovering that going back in time to entertain in the present isn’t a hard sell for viewers, and the idea is producing shows that have staying power. The reasons for TV’s time-travel binges are hard to pin down. The startling success of Mad Men, which has been AMC’s toprated show since its debut in 2007, certainly played a big role in an industry where conceptual rip-offs are the sincerest form of flattery, not to mention greed. But it seems unlikely that the viewers watching suave Don Draper cut a swath through the secretarial pool on Mad Men are the same ones watching the shootouts with terrorists on the CBS remake of Hawaii Five-0. Hollywood’s common wisdom is that, in troubled times, Americans embrace the comfort of the past. But the ruthless mobsters of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and the slovenly, joyless
LOEWS MAGAZINE
railroad work camps in AMC’s Hell on Wheels hardly seem the stuff of nostalgia. Whatever the reason, network executives are increasingly seeking viewers in the long ago and far away. Here’s a timetraveler’s guide to television.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Loews Winter/Spring 2013
Modern Etiquette
The Kaws Effect
Sizzling Meetings
Pretty Green
Socially Speaking
The Perfect Bubbly
Watch This
Building Legacy
Spotlight on Hollywood
Soaking Up Sobe
Go West
Surf's Up
News and Notes
Loews Winter/Spring 2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/worth/Loews/winterspring2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/worth/loews/summerfall2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/worth/Loews/winter_spring_2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/worth/LOEWS/summer_fall_2011
https://www.nxtbook.com/worth/Loews/winter_spring_2011
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com