Summer Television: Mad Men and Rubicon

My internal calendar has informed me that the new television season is right around the corner.  Okay, fine, it's less my internal calendar and much more the fact that the original cable series I'm watching this summer are promoing upcoming episodes using phrases like "only two episodes left in the most explosive season ever," or "the hottest original super-specified ultra-sub-genre series with six female leads and three males who appear in alternating episodes every third week to ever air between 8:12 and 8:17 on a cable network that specializes in a completely and totally different super-specified ultra-sub-genre is about to finish the summer third of its eighth-and-a-half season."  Which is all to say that I don't understand the ways in which television shows our promoted. 

However they may be promoted, the truth of the matter is that I'm definitely going to miss a bunch of the shows that I've been watching this summer.  I'm not in love with the fact that there's so much less on during the summer, but I definitely feel as though the choices are vastly improved from what existed when I was but a wee lad.

One of my current favorite summer series is also a brand-new one, Rubicon.  Airing after AMC's brilliant Mad Men, Rubicon is a conspiracy theory show that, much like Mad Men, seems willing to take time to tell its story rather than rush headlong into anything.  It isn't that nothing happens on either series, it's much more that both shows appear to be far more interested in telling a good story — allowing it to develop organically, creating the right feel, and getting what they want from the actors — than promoting action for the sake of action.  I think that's even more refreshing over the summer when it feels as though shows try to convince people to watch solely by promoting all the crazy excitement that is going to occur.  It's good television instead of flashy television, and it has made for the best two hour block of shows on this summer.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

Visit Josh Lasser's author page — Josh Lasser's Blog