Prestige TV soared in the aftermath of 9/11 — but mostly on HBO

The A.V. Club

“That the rise of this sort of ‘serious’ television began in the wake of 9/11 is no coincidence,” says Sean O’Neal. “As our initial shock wore off, yielding to a sort of constant, subconscious abyss, the national temperament turned darkly self-reflective, slightly shattered, wounded and cynical. It’s little wonder that the years that followed were a boom time for shows like that, series that subverted TV’s reassuring conventions and concerned themselves with characters who similarly felt adrift, jaded, and secretly terrified. Most of what we came to know as the ‘prestige drama’ was formulated there, and most of it was on HBO.”