A great deal of discussion about television’s breakout period has focused on the extent to which television has equaled, or even replaced the novel in the best shows’ sprawling explorations of huge groups of characters, social issues, and the idiosyncrasies of American life. But last season, and I think in this upcoming season of television, we have a number of shows with different ambition that are struggling within their forms: they want to be movies or miniseries, and are trying to figure out how how to stretch their plots over 22 episodes, much less multiple seasons. The prime existing example of that kind of show is Revenge, the story of a woman coming back to have her way with the people who framed her father for complicity with terrorism, a decision that lead to his death. The show initially started with its protagonist, Emily Thorne (Emily Van Camp) doing in an enemy per week, but given how short her enemies’ list really was, the show lost momentum after she got rid of the easy marks and had to stretch out her stalking of the Big Bads. It’s a setup that might have worked brilliantly and nastily as a six-episode miniseries, but got ponderous towards the end, and is hard to imagine working all the way through a second season unless her battle escalates to full-on trench warfare in the Hamptons:

This fall television season features a number of new shows, all of which I like, but none of which seem sustainable over the long term. On ABC’s Last Resort, the crew of a nuclear submarine refuse their orders and take over a small tropical island which they declare independent. The idea of taking Gotham hostage with a nuclear weapon barely seemed plausible over a period of nine months in The Dark Knight Rises, and it’s hard for me to see how a viable stalemate would persist for years or the conspiracy around the orders the crew got to nuke Pakistan can stay undetected and unbusted for that long either. Nashville, also on that network, features a rivalry between two country singers played by Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere, but it’s hard to believe they can remain in a perpetual state of animosity—tours last only so long—or what the show plans to do after playing out its B story, about the Nashville mayoral election. Fox’s midseason show The Following, about a serial killer who develops a following during his imprisonment, has an even more limited premise: there can only be so many people willing to sign up to commit mass murder or to stab themselves in the eye to mess with the FBI. The case can’t go on forever unless the show wants to abandon its core dynamic, a rivalry between Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy. That show, at least, is beginning with a 15-episode season because that’s the number per year Bacon was willing to commit to.

To an extent, it seems like Revenge was written with the expectation that it couldn’t possibly get a full-season order, and the same may be the case with Last Resort, which is excellent, but high-concept and will air in an extremely difficult 8 PM Thursday timeslot. But it’s really too bad that networks don’t have some quarterly or mini-series sized time slots that they could use for concepts that are fascinating, but don’t fit neatly into the 22 episode season. The season length is essentially arbitrary, and in so much as it has a rationale, it’s a commercial rather than an artistic one, a way to get to the syndication threshhold of 100 episodes as quickly as possible without burning out actors or writers. But miniseries or shorter runs could be a way to make truly must-see TV again, as appeared to be the case with Kevin Costner’s run on Hatfields & McCoys earlier this summer. I understand the difficulties of sinking resources into one-time productions for a business model that’s based on monetizing the same content multiple times.

But when I think about it, I still think one of the shows I enjoyed last season was ABC’s The River, a horror story about a group of Amazonian explorers who go looking for their long-lost leader. The show had its flaws, including some casting problems. But when it was cancelled after the short run of its first season, it went out with a genuinely terrifying image, of the river shifting to trap the crew forever. That, more than a clear resolution or explanation, or wringing everything out of the characters that could possibly be obtained with them, was some thrilling television. There wasn’t a repetitive episode, a moment that made me feel like the show was in a rut, just a scary economy to the show’s forward progress. I’d rather have less of a good concept executed well than one wrung painfully dry, as CBS is doing to How I Met Your Mother right now. And I’d love for networks to find their way to building some flexibility into the schedule to give stories the amount of space they actually need. It’s not only in my interests. If the broadcast networks are going to complain that cable’s beating them in awards nominations because those networks only need to produce eight to fifteen episodes of a show, the broadcast networks might consider whether it would behoove them to play the game, at least sometimes, by the new rules.

ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee has been saying some variation of this since his upfront presentation, but he reinforced it again last week when he said his division had gone back through entertainment history to figure out what themes American audiences might be drawn to during a severe and prolonged economics downturn:

“We thought this was a joke and something we could sell at the upfront” presentation. The network found that in difficult periods such as the Great Depression audiences responded to tales of anger and revenge, romances, screwball comedies, and fairy tales. “Lo and behold when you look at the big shows that worked for us, they were comedies, stories of revenge and fairy tales, which was fascinating to see.” For this fall he’s optimistic about Nashville, The Neighbors, and 666 Park Avenue, which he describes as “a very ABC show, a deeply soapy show but it has a twist.”

The way the network’s actually gone about incorporating those themes into its programming is fascinating. There’s nary a straightforward class-war narrative among them, but a strong sense that the elites in any given show are self-cannibalizing.

On Revenge, there are minor upstarts, like assistant Ashley and con man Tyler, who hope to make their way into the upper echelons of Hamptons society, but they’re concerned with preserving that millieu so they can enjoy it. The real threats to upper-class solidarity come from within. Amanda Clarke’s family was destroyed by a conspiracy among her father’s friends to frame him for laundering money for a terrorist organization, when it was actually his neighbors who were guilty—their privilege is founded on the kind of transactions they publicly condemn as noxious. As Amanda, in the guise of Emily Thorne, begins exacting revenge on the people who ruined her life, she finds that some of her enemies, despite their past experience, are still eager to get involved in complex financial schemes, and she uses that propensity against them. When the men of the Clarkes’ circle aren’t making money in a way that carries an inherent risk of dreadful downfall, the women are tearing each other apart: Victoria Greyson, the matriarch of Emily’s stretch of beach is a harpy who doesn’t seem happy unless she has her talons buried deep in the flesh of someone else’s happiness. This is a paradise constructed from rusting siding and rotten struts, dresses sewn from moth-eaten silk. Why wage class war when the system will tear itself to pieces?

The story in Once Upon a Time is similarly a clash of elites, rather than a pure struggle between the powerful and the powerless. In this fairy tale universe, the evil queen’s become Regina, the mayor of a small New England town, and while she clashes with the sheriff Emma Swan (who happens to be the biological mother of the Mayor’s adopted child), the real struggle seems to between her and Mr. Gold, the city’s largest industrialist, and in another world, Rumplestiltskin. In this world and the one they left behind, they’ve pitted different kinds of power against each other: whether elected or anointed, Regina wields the power of the state, while Gold’s control of commerce gives him extraordinary power over the life of the town even after he’s stripped of his magical abilities. The fight between Regina and Emma is vicious and personal, given that the stakes are custody of the child the former raised and the latter bore, and it’s fun to see Emma come into herself as a hero. But the real battle seems to be between Regina and Mr. Gold—their preoccupation with each other alternately harms the people around them and creates space for them to live their lives.

From what I’ve seen, fall show 666 Park Avenue appears to be the same way, a show that takes as its premise that a group of hugely rich New Yorkers got that way because they made a deal with the devil. These shows have in common the idea that while elites can have feelings, they bear some sort of blood taint, and that their power is based in inherently unstable forces or structures. It’s the perfect concept for audiences that feels powerless but frustrated by their circumstances, that wants to see a comeuppance for the architects of their misfortunes but would like to see someone execute them.

EW’s Ken Tucker, in his season-end roundup of the year in television, is sick of anti-heroes, or more specifically, turned off by American Horror Story, which he calls “a deeply despairing show.” He writes:

Indeed, at this point, the edgiest thing a producer could do would be to mount a stylistically daring, well-acted show that was free of bleakness, snark, or the promise that we are being shown the corrupt underbelly of any given profession. Even though I’m not a great fan of it, Once Upon a Time exhibits a generosity of spirit I can applaud, and I’m glad it’s a success. While it comes on as a dark, edgy show, Person of Interest is another ratings hit that is actually, if you watched its progress over the season, quite open to the goodness of humanity — for what is this show really about, at bottom, if not the redemption of the wounded souls of Jim Caviezel’s Reese and Michael Emerson’s Finch, and those to whose aid they come? A Gifted Man might have been similarly uplifting in an interesting way, but something about the show took a wrong creative turn early on; perhaps that’s what star Patrick Wilson was at least in part referring to when he said the series was ultimately not what he “signed on for” in a tweet after it was canceled. And Smash: For all the carping that I and other critics did about it, there was never any doubt that creator Theresa Rebek wanted to share with network television viewers the same bursting joy for the musical-theater experience that she has felt, even if it was only Megan Hilty who occasionally came close to embodying it.

At Salon, Willa Paskin has noted something related, though not precisely the same: a return of moral clarity and easily hateable villains to shows like Downton Abbey, where good and evil are precisely delineated in sweeping, emotional terms, and Game of Thrones, where loyalties may shift constantly but Bad King Joffrey is the worst.

One of the things that’s interested me about the Age of Anti-Heroes is a sense in many of the great cable shows that it takes a bad person to accomplish certain kinds of things. On The Wire, Jimmy McNulty would be vastly less effective if he was a paragon, a knight of Baltimore flashing brass instead of Valyrian Steel. In Damages, lawyer Patty Hewes has to be ruthless to the point of murder because the corporations she goes up against are so powerful and amoral that someone has to sacrifice herself and her humanity to oppose them effectively. Breaking Bad initially considered whether cancer-stricken chemistry teacher Walter White had options other than cooking meth to provide a nest egg for his family after his death when his son set up an online fund for his treatment, but moved past that idea. And part of Walter’s evolution into a monster has been his inability or unwillingness to stop his life of crime once he’s laid away that money and his wife has found a way to launder it—he doesn’t just need to be the one who knocks, he wants to be. The Sopranos is entirely dedicated to the question of Tony’s efficacy: he enters therapy in the first place because his issues are making him ineffective, and Dr. Melfi ultimately decides she can’t continue to participate in perfecting him.

But in this new crop of clearer-hearted shows, there’s much greater trust in the idea that you can still be a decent person and beat the bad guys. On Once Upon a Time, Emma Swan may get a little feisty occasionally, but she’s fundamentally a good-hearted person, which is precisely what makes it possible for her to pick up a sword in the finale and slay a dragon. Her goodness gives her courage. Downton Abbey operates on a much smaller scale, but the show is fundamentally a romance that trusts Matthew and Mary to find their way to their hearts and to each other. Now that they’ve come around to each other and plan a union that will both satisfy their families’ financial needs and the pulls of their own hearts, does anyone seriously doubt that Sir Richard will emerge victorious? Revenge has an anti-heroine for its lead, but she also has a best friend who constantly tries to draw lines for her, who doesn’t want to see her debased both for her own good and for the success of her plan. On Grimm, Nick’s work against fairy-tale monsters has two purposes: it keeps his community safe, and brings him closer to a true understanding of his family. And of course Parks and Recreation finished its fourth season with an affirmation of the idea that a passion for public service and kindness can put you over the top, even in a world and in an arena that doesn’t often reward those values.

None of this means that anti-heroes can’t be good spiky fun (ditto for villains). But there’s something morally and artistically reinvigorating about the idea that there’s more than one way to tackle difficult problems, and that the struggle to hold on to goodness is a worthwhile enterprise to engage in and story to tell in and of itself.

Last night’s Revenge brought us yet more twists and turns in ABC’s monumentally and fantastically soapy drama—don’t worry, I won’t tell you what happened—leading me to wonder when they’re going to be ready to throw in the towel on this one. Jack may not be ready to move on, but some of us are starting to get a little frustrated with the ongoing tension. You know what I’m sayin’?

Don’t get me wrong: I am a huge fan of Revenge and I eagerly dissect it in my email with friends each morning after a new episode, but it’s starting to wander big time, and that’s because, like all good drama, it has an expiration date. The question is whether the production team and ABC are going to recognize that, or if they’re going to draw this painfully out in an effort to milk every possible drop of ratings out of it.

So far, Revenge is going pretty strong ratings-wise, and ABC’s renewed it for fall in a pretty plum spot on Sunday nights, allowing it to replace Desperate Housewives and pairing it with the unexpectedly popular Once Upon A Time. (Sorry if this is controversial, but I really can’t get into Once Upon A Time, you guys.) It’s obviously immensely successful because it speaks to the deep desire in all of us to tear out the hearts of our enemies and eat them for breakfast with a little raspberry jam. Er, maybe that’s just me. 

I think I’m supposed to say that Revenge is all about love and passion and emotion and how these things drive us to do weird and horrible things to each other, but I’m pretty pragmatic so I really just watch the show for the revenge and the plotting. Because I do love me some revenge, and Emily’s cool, calculating scheme is interesting to watch as it unfolds (and collapses, as the case may be). It’s sort of like seeing vultures swirling around and taking leisurely pecks now and then rather than just getting down and getting to it. Yes, I just compared Emily Thorne to a vulture.

So, the thing is, this show is ostensibly based on The Count of Monte Cristo, which is also deliciously soapy, I will freely admit, but does actually have a clearly defined endpoint as well as a steadily moving plot that is designed to pull things together in the end and keep you reading. It was, after all, a serial, which meant Dumas needed to come up with reasons to keep people reading when the next installment came out. And I’m starting to feel like Revenge is losing its focus, which in turn is making me lose my focus. And that’s a bad thing, people.

Every week there’s a new attempt to flip the narrative right on its head, which is the point of soapy drama, but the stacking of incidents on top of each other makes it increasingly more baroque and harder to track. The cast of characters is growing and I’m reminded of the too many cooks problem; how many people can we add to this kitchen before it gets totally out of control? Because we seem to be rapidly getting there. There are only so many double crossings, backstabbings, and new players viewers can follow and stay invested in the show. If my Twitter feed last night was any indicator, some viewers are starting to reach saturation point.

Revenge is finding itself in the same place Lost was as it shed fans in later seasons. It’s getting so damn complicated that if you haven’t been watching from the start and focusing on each episode, you’re going to get lost (ha ha). This is not the kind of show you can randomly pick up and still follow and enjoy. As the storyline gets more absurd, we start to wonder if there’s any kind of point here; is there anyone on deck up there keeping us on course, or are we actually just adrift in the Sea of Abandoned Plots, waiting for rescue?

So here’s my advice to Revenge: Quit while you’re ahead. Know your end date. Tighten up your storylines. Map this out and take us on a fun ride to the end. I want to see you go out with a decisive bang when it’s time, not dwindle and fade away into nothing. Maybe you’ve got another season or two in you, but sit down and have a serious think about how you want those seasons to go and make them explosive, driven, and fast-paced.

Because I love this show and I love these characters. Wow do I love these characters. There are so many women doing exciting and sneaky and amazing things on Revenge and I especially adore watching Thorne’s character development as she gets deeper and deeper into this hole she’s digging for herself. And I’m totally in love with Nolan as a character; he’s a man who just gets more fascinating by the minute and I like that the rich playboy has turned into Emily’s ally and the closest thing she has to a real friend over time, but he’s got his own stuff going on too. Though stuffed shirt Daniel kind of bores me, the rest of the Graysons are fascinating. Particularly Victoria, which woah, what is that girl up to half the time?! I don’t even know.

And yes, I like the machinations and twists and turns. Revenge is a labyrinth of delights, but it’s also a house of cards, and it’s getting a bit wobbly ’round the base. Keep me hooked ’til the bitter end, Revenge. I’m begging you.

What do you think about Revenge‘s prospects, gang? Talk to me!

In tonight’s finale of Parks & Recreation, we’ll find out if Leslie Knope won or lost the City Council seat she’s been campaigning for all season, but it’s still not clear if we’ll return to Pawnee next season to see Leslie take her place alongside Councilman Hauser in victory or revitalize the Parks Department in defeat. The same is true for Greendale Community College and the TGS writers’ room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The speculation is that 30 Rock will be back for a short season, and that if Parks & Rec and Community get pickups, they’ll be shorter orders as well. That might mean fewer episodes of shows we love. But creatively, it strikes me as a good thing.

I’m a long-time advocate of shorter seasons, and I think we’ve seen a lot of illustrations of the foibles of trying to fit 22-episode orders into a 40-week period this year. Revenge‘s long hiatus slowed the momentum of the ABC Hamptons-set thriller down to a crawl, and the show’s gotten baroque and full of moody shots in its attempt to fill up episode space since its return. Community‘s disappearance from NBC’s airwaves for an agonizing and indefinite period left fans waiting, and while NBC tossed out and then yanked sitcoms like Best Friends Forever and Bent in quick succession. Now I understand that shows fail, networks need to replace things that aren’t working at all, and fans don’t want to wait a long time for their favorite shows to come back. But I’d much rather see short, excellent seasons of shows that are suited to it, and to see them run continuously rather than spaced out in seemingly random ways.

NBC’s Thursday night comedies seem uniquely suited to shorter, smarter seasons. 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation‘s shortened seasons were their best for entirely different reasons. 30 Rock‘s second season was shortened by the writers’ strike, but it was a hilarious, joke-dense season. “SeinfeldVision” and “MILF Island” were fantastic riffs on the industry that preceded the “Queen of Jordan” running gag the show is using now. “Greenzo” featured two of the show’s best-ever cameos in David Schwimmer and Al Gore. And “Sandwich Day” turned Liz’s love of food into a sign of something other than middle-aged singleton schlubbiness. No one has ever made scarfing a sub look so poignant before or since.

Parks and Recreation‘s shortened third season had tons of great comedic beats as well, but it also illustrated how sitcoms can pull off strong serialization without dropping plotlines for a long stretch of episodes or producing episodes that don’t work as standalones. The stated major arc of the season was the question of whether Ben and Leslie would get together, a will-they-or-won’t-they that fit neatly into a wide variety of settings. And it turned out that Leslie’s victories in restoring the Harvest Festival, over her rivals in Eagleton, and in organizing Lil’ Sebastian’s funeral were actually setting up Leslie being asked to run for office. The show didn’t always hit the same beats, and in fact in episodes like “April and Andy’s Fancy Party” and “The Fight,” we got to see a number of the vulnerabilities that would plague Leslie in her campaign this season, namely her desire for control.

The 22-odd episode season may be an industry convention, but that doesn’t mean it’s a creative imperative. If the 2012-2013 season is going to be the last year we have 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation and Community, I’d rather have one of those shows on every night for 36 to 45 straight weeks (with exceptions for holidays), and to have those episodes be uniformly excellent, no filler. And if television’s really just about selling soap, I’ve got to believe it might sell better with new programming rather than reruns and schedule gaps.

I was hatewatching Smash this morning, and I realized the show is managing to be the second example for two mini-trends that have been bouncing around episodes in recent weeks—the sneaky bisexual, and the blonde being abused by her creator.

The fairly clear implication of last night’s episode was that assistant-turned-wannabe-producer Ellis was willing to sleep with a star’s agent to get her to consider playing Marilyn more seriously than she had previously, even though we know he has what appears to be a serious, live-in girlfriend. Much like Revenge‘s bisexual, loner tech billionaire Nolan, Ellis’s sexuality is presented less as a means of personal expression and more of a strategic tool. Ellis is one of the most irritating characters on television, a relentless climber without an iota of personal attachment, whether it’s to another human being, to ideas of merit and talent, or to the work and the subject matter itself. If Smash has been successful at anything, it’s managed to communicate the other characters’ investment in musical theater. Ellis just seems to want power because it’s there. And perhaps its best scene was a fight between Tom and Derek that turned into a sophisticated debate between how gay men and straight men see Marilyn Monroe and the theater. So it’s particularly disappointing that the show defaulted back to the old stereotype of the Evil Bisexual.

Nolan’s portrayal on Revenge has been more nuanced: he’s clearly very personally invested in helping Amanda/Emily at minimum in memory of her father (thought it would be nice if the show spent some time articulating how Nolan and David Clark got so close in the first place). He’s got an actual attachment to the cause at hand. And when he seduces Tyler, the unstable imposter who’s insinuated himself in wealthy scion Daniel Grayson’s life, Nolan appears to feel at least some sense of sympathy with the other man—there’s an actual frisson of attraction there, not merely convenience. But it’s true that Nolan doesn’t appear to have much of a life of his own, at least in the slice of time we’re seeing him. He’s not allowed genuine romantic attachment, or even business moves that don’t serve Emily/Amanda’s interests. His whole life, not just his sexuality, are at her disposal, though the show has clearly demonstrated the limited scope in which that arrangement can remain comfortable.

Smash is also in company with Mad Men in taking out some nastier emotions on its signature blondes. As much as I think that what Mad Men is doing to Betty Draper, turning her fat and even more miserable than usual, has some basis in Matt Weiner’s distate for the character, I also think it makes sense as an arc. The woman who had, as the only tool at her disposal, beauty, finds it can’t bring her happiness, and then loses her power. There’s an un-vindictive plot available in there if this means that Betty ends up forced to address some deeper issues. Only time will tell if the show avails itself of that option.

By contrast, Smash is being just nasty to Ivy, and that nastiness comes from a profoundly illogical place. Prednisone does have side effects, but the show seemed to take a real leap in turning its most professional and disciplined character into a pill-popping, drunk, show-flubbing hot mess. More to the point, turning Ivy into a joke minimizes her disappointment in a way I think is unfortunate: she’s legitimately heartbroken at the loss of her first big chance. If the show wants this to be an even fight between Karen and Ivy, which is the sense I’ve gotten from the show’s renewal and the dismissal of its showrunner, it’s got to make Karen more legitimately compelling, not undermine Ivy in a way that denies her character consistency.

On Monday, Ryan McGee laid down a marker in the AV Club, arguing that HBO’s success with shows like The Sopranos deemphasized the need to make individual episodes of television compelling as long as they served a larger narrative, and urged episodic shows to adopt at least the facade of long-arc stories even if they weren’t well-suited to do so. James Poniewozick at Time suggested that Ryan’s overstating the extent to which this has actually happened, and make a point that I think gets at a gateway that precedes Ryan’s piece. “It’s true that a TV series is not a novel,” James writes. “But it’s also not a movie. Every medium works best when it takes advantage of what’s distinctive about it. TV is linear and cumulative, allowing a story to unfold over weeks, months or years.” So what is it that makes it a distinctive medium? And how can we best nurture that?

To answer the second question first, there’s an extent to which television is the least flexible of the major media. While it’s absolutely true that the networks are becoming somewhat more flexible about season lengths—something like ABC’s found footage horror show The River is a good example of this—and cable channels and network do make miniseries, it’s true that the standard network season is 22ish episodes and the standard cable season is 13ish episodes. The episodes are of a relatively standard length: 22ish minutes for a sitcom and 42ish for a drama on the networks and non-premium cable channels, and closer to 30 and an hour on the premium cable channels.

Those are astonishing formal constraints for an artist, even a commercial one, to work under, and it’s worth pausing to appreciate that. Standard-release movie features features can run from 80 minutes to well over two hours, and you can make something substantially shorter or longer than that and still find mass-market distribution for it. Novels are bound by some constraints on what a publisher can physically bind, but there’s a great deal of range within those technical specifications, and within them, no one’s setting limitations on how long or short chapters have to be, or even what they’re expected to look like: David Foster Wallace and Jennifer Eagan have helped shake that up. And one can only imagine, especially given the rise of e-books that can incorporate video, graphics, or animation, that experimentation will continue. Most pop songs hover in the three-minute range, but once again, that’s not a formal constraint, and iTunes may have hurt the album but it also freed artists like Robyn from its limitations. Web television may yet shake the formal constraints of television, but we’re far from a paradigm shift. Television is the most restrictive popular art form in existence, and I’m constantly awed that people manage to fit stories neatly into the space allotted to them without too much filler or franticness. But those restrictions are more than some sort of technical exercise: this is a multi-billion dollar industry, not a writing workshop handing out a structurally tricky assignment to talented students.
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This post contains spoilers through the February 5 episode of Downton Abbey:

This seems like a worthwhile moment to make the salient if somewhat disappointing observation that Downton Abbey, while handsome and as well-acted as ever, really seems to have devolved into a common melodrama this season. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with common melodrama—Revenge has thrived on camp and plot twists. But while that show’s remained relatively focused, telling us how the various developments we’re seeing on screen illuminate the central story of who framed David Clark and why, Downton Abbey’s dangerously close to feeling like a mish-mash of dramatic plot devices tossed together for effect: these are flash bombs, producing a lot of temporary light, but I’m not sure the heat they’re generating is nearly enough to scorch the ends of Peter/Patrick’s hair, much less maim him permanently.

Speaking of which, why don’t we start there? I think there would be a fascinating story to tell about a maimed war veteran who, amidst his trauma, is ambitious and clever enough to try to upjump himself using the opportunities presented by the war. But it’s a story that’s much more interesting if it’s told from the perspective of the perpetrator than from the perspective of the objects of his long con. And it needs to be a long con for there to be any sense of investment or risk. If an impostor is so easily dismissed and driven out, both from the plot and from the consciences of most of the characters, why bring him up at all? This ought to have been a storyline with profound implications for the succession question that Downton Abbey has taken as its overall framework, but instead it became a soap opera drama of the week, and that feels like a substantial failing.

And I feel the same way about Mrs. Bates’ death. Now, there’s no question that divorce trials can be protracted things, but they have to come to an end at some point. The show could have taken some time off-estate to handle the proceedings, or could have had Vera hang around to raise the temperature of things between Sir Richard and Mary (he could always release Vera from her contract, ruining Mary and saving himself from having to do it directly, which for a gentleman with aspirations of truly finding his place in the nobility would have been the place to do it). Killing her off feels like succumbing to the temptation to have a dramatic event thrown into the mix, rather than to actually carry out a process to its full conclusion—it’s a rather American way to deal with an English problem of prolonged longing and suffering.

The only plotline the show is actually letting build to a true boiling point is the dynamic between Matthew and Lavinia and Mary and Sir Richard, two couples who are in the rather delicious position of being affianced—and thus allowed certain intimacies—but not not married—leaving some barriers and dangers intact. There’s no question that Mary and Matthew are deeply emotionally engaged. “I shall have arms like Jack Johnson if I’m not careful,” she jokes during one of the afternoons with Matthew that have aroused so much comment. “I’m strong enough to wheel myself,” he says, but Mary insists “I shall be the judge of that.” There’s no clearer sign of intimacy than a proprietary air about another person. Matthew may insist that “I can only relax because I know you have a real life coming…I have nothing to give and nothing to share. And if you were not engaged to be married I wouldn’t let you anywhere near me,” but I’m not sure he even believes himself.

It’s rough competition Sir Richard faces, and he doesn’t quite know how to play by the rules of the society that he wants to enter (not that it’s clear he’d be allowed to play, given Mary’s rather withering “Your lot buys it. My lot inherits it.”). When he tries to woo Mary with a new home, asking ” Shall we give the house another chapter?” she responds rather drearily, “Well, I suppose one has to live somewhere.” Starting a new house will never quite have the romance of continuing an ancient line. And buying someone’s reputation is not quite the same as saving them—it lacks a certain selflessness. But unlike almost everyone else in this world, Sir Richard isn’t content to be limited by the rules of decorum: what he can’t have with ease, he’s willing to force, an attitude that puts Mary at a sexual and strategic disadvantage. Punctuating a warning that “If you think you can jilt me or in osme way set me aside, you have given me the power to destroy you, and don’t think I won’t use it…I want to be a good husband, but don’t cross me. Ever. Do you understand? Absolutely never,” with kisses is not something she has a defense again. At least not yet.

And of everything left to juggle in this story, that’s the one thing I’m left excited to find out, just as I’m desperate to know who the body on the beach is in Revenge. There’s something to be said for setting up a central mystery and sticking to it. Downton Abbey‘s always going to be a more complex story than Revenge because it’s about society, rather than individuals. But that doesn’t mean this prestige drama couldn’t learn something about storytelling, focus, and impact from ABC’s soap.

It’s not exactly surprising that there’d be a lot of interest in politics in a presidential election year, but even given that, the heavy investment by networks in political shows feels unusual. And it’s even more unusual that all the political or Washington shows coming down the pike sound—or are, given what I’ve seen of them—surprisingly smart and fun.

What’s making this an official trend is USA’s announcement that it’s picked up a series called Political Animals. The network’s other Washington show, Covert Affairs, can be a little silly about Washington geography and what kind of shoes Washington women can afford on civil service salaries, but it had a decent sense of the relationship between the press and the administration and of tension over leaks. So I’m not shocked that USA’s first real political drama is doing something intelligent in focusing on a main character who is a not-so-thinly-veiled version of Hillary Rodham Clinton: a former First Lady who is now Secretary of State. The civil service geek in me is pretty excited about this and Kal Penn’s workplace drama set at the UN, both of which are a welcome expansion beyond the White House and spies for subject matter. And I think it’s smart to get out of the legislative process, which by this point is fairly well-worn dramatic territory, and into diplomacy and the press—the main character’s best friend will be a reporter. I don’t exactly count on this to be an accurate depiction of diplomacy any more than I expect Royal Pains to be a penetrating look at the Hamptons, but the concept is savvy, and should provide a couple of good roles for non-twenty-something women.

As does Veep, HBO’s terrific comedy about a female Vice President dealing with needy staffers, a president who ignores her, and a press corps that picks up on her every misstep. The sitcom, which premieres April 22, certainly is heightened and ridiculous, but the pilot nails the rhythms of speech and attitudes in Washington, along with the obnoxious and prickly gatekeepers and the minor screw-ups that become major catastrophes. “I want it to be right. I want it to be accurate,” creator Armando Iannucci, the force behind In the Thick of It and In the Loop, told me at the Television Critics Association press tour. “I want to know the dull stuff. What time do people get in in the morning? Who do they sit next to? If someone calls from a newspaper or a television show, who takes the call? How do they issue a retraction?” He and star Julia Louis-Dreyfus told me that they continue to consult with advisors on both sides of the aisle in the city, and from what I’ve seen of the show, that care and attention pay off. When a prominent and aged Senator dies, the Vice President muses about the last time she saw him: “He was full of bourbon, and he grabbed my left tit.” Later, when Amy (Anna Chlumsky, who appears to be Iannucci’s current muse), her chief of staff signs her own name to a condolence card for the man instead of the Veep’s, she moans of the screwup “it’s going to look like the Veep couldn’t be bothered to sign a condolence card for one of the most celebrated perverts on the senate.” And the show mines a lot of humor out of the Veep’s lame attempts at humor, a perfect example of official Washington squareness. “I have stepped into the president’s shoes this evening and who knew he wore kitten heels,” the Veep says to kick off a speech. ” Just kidding. He’s more of a stilettos guy.” Sometimes, politics is both small, and small-minded (as is also the case with Hulu’s first original scripted series Battleground, about campaign workers in a Wisconsin Senate race).

And then there’s Scandal, which is essentially Revenge for the Washington set. Based on the experiences of Judy Smith, the Washington crisis manager, the show is soapy as hell. The president is sexy and straying! The cases handled by Kerry Washington’s PR firm are totally over the top. The real estate is improbably gorgeous. But if you can appreciate it for what it is, Scandal is a wonderfully entertaining funhouse look at Washington from Hollywood’s perspective—it’s Hollywood for ugly people with the ugly people subbed out. I imagine it’ll drive real politicos nuts, but if you can suspend disbelief and just enjoy it, Scandal is going to be awfully diverting.

Which is good. Even political junkies need a break from what will undoubtedly be a bruising campaign. And if we can only downshift to political shows, rather than to something entirely off-topic and escapist, it’s nice to know that there will be diverting alternatives to dusting off our West Wing DVDs.

ABC has been very, very good at building diverse casts and rosters of characters for television shows, and minority media groups recognized them for it earlier this week. When the nominations for the NAACP Image Awards came out, ABC was in the mix in prime time with Modern Family in Outstanding Comedy Series, Vanessa Williams in Desperate Housewives, Damon Wayans, Jr. in Happy Endings, Sofia Vergara for Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy for Outstanding Drama Series, Taye Diggs in Private Practice, Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh, Loretta Devine, and James Pickens, Jr. for acting on Grey’s Anatomy. And the network snagged an additional eight nominations in the GLAAD Media Awards, including Grey’s Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars in Outstanding Drama Series, Happy Endings and Modern Family, and the episode “Acceptance” on Man Up!.

I’m particularly glad to see the love for Happy Endings, which has its flaws, but I think is the best group-of-friends comedy on television right now. At the Television Critics Association press tour, I asked creator David Caspe how he came up with the character of Max, who I think is one of the most balanced portrayals of a gay man anywhere in popular culture right now. Caspe said that while he knows Max has gotten praise for avoiding being either totally nelly or totally butch, he just based the character on a friend of his. It’s evidence of the fact that pop culture will get more diverse not only as the country does, and generational turnover (hopefully) makes the entertainment industry less white and dudely, but as white dudes have more diverse groups of friends and more contact with other kinds of people.

Similarly, Revenge, about which I really should be writing more, has done a nice job of getting different kinds of people into what’s typically seen as a hegemonic enclave. They’ve got both race and class in Ashley, who is trying to make her way in a world that looks down on her more for her economic station than (at least explicitly) her skin color. And Nolan is gay and techie and something entirely behind the standard menu of gay stereotypes. Tyler’s bisexuality was handled as if it was no big deal — neither he nor Nolan have ever had a conversation about their sex lives that’s about orientation, just individuals. Sometimes, I think TV shows get themselves hung up on the idea of diversity because they think they’d have to tell stories that are explicitly about the experience of being diverse. But it turns out that black people and gay people want things that don’t have to do with being black and gay.