It is a reality that for years the television format has gained ground that seemed to be owned by the cinema. Gone are those times in which television fictions were classified as something minor and alien to any hint of artistic excellence. What has happened to radically change the situation?
We are in 1990. David Lynch, renowned author recently nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, decides to take a leap that no one would consider as such. The director of masterpieces like Blue Velvet O Lost Highway He would create the television series with Mark Frost that would break all the schemes. Twin Peaks It only lasted two seasons, but they were enough to break taboos and start a debate that would last until today. Until that moment, television fictions were considered extremely inferior to any cinematographic product, and Twin Peaks created a precedent that would later emulate fictions like Lost, The Wire, The Sopranos O Breaking Bad. Nobody could have imagined in the 80s that a TV series was going to question the pedestal on which the cinema was compared to television.
That it got Twin Peaks that he had no work until 1990? An author who realized the potential of the television format when telling a story. Actually, it is very simple: a TV series is much more durable than a movie, so you can explore areas that the seventh art cannot, given its limitations. Lynch realized this and created the best season of a TV series ever. The first 8 episodes of Twin Peaks they are outrageous. The pilot is one of the best that has ever been shot, both in film and on television. It is true that the second season declined a lot (Lynch appeared on rare occasions in the credits of the beginning of each episode), but they did not dirty what has ended up being Twin Peaks: the series that started it all.
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30 years later we find a diametrically opposite picture. Film directors fight to put their ideas on television. The illustrious cases of Luca Guadagnino, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Álex de la Iglesia and Nicolas Winding Refn are good proof of this. These great directors have found in a unique format an escape route to some of their most powerful ideas. Riot gear It is the best we have ever seen in this country, without going any further. But you have to note that I did not say “tv series”, but a single format.
Miniseries are not series, but neither are they movies. They are a format that rides between both lands and that is in no man’s land. This land free of owners has allowed both film directors and TV showrunners to unleash their imaginations. Because there is a substantial difference with the tv series: there can be no filler. What for The Walking Dead went from being a television phenomenon to a joke in bad taste has no place in such a limited format as miniseries. This factor makes these productions much more interesting, enjoyable and addictive; I would even dare to say that they are of higher quality.
In recent years we have seen miniseries like Watchmen, Chernobyl, Fargo, True Detective, Antidisturbios, Sharp Objects, Big Little Lies, American Crime Story… Stories squeezed out until they have said enough without showing that they have squeezed themselves out. The antithesis of the bulk products that rule today’s television.
And of course, at the height of the most authorial fictions in television history, it was inevitable that Lynch would return. He and Mark Frost brought together nearly the entire original cast to create an 18-part masterpiece that came to question the boundaries between television and film. It may be called Twin Peaks, but that third season is something else. It is an independent miniseries (longer than usual, yes) that plunges us into Lynch’s darkest nightmares. That such a work could have been carried out on television is only explained by the precedent that Lynch himself signed in the 90s.
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Lynch opened a door three decades ago that true artists of the medium have been able to penetrate to convince us that television is quality art. Thanks to them, television is a much more prestigious space than 40 years ago. We’ll see what the future holds, but the miniseries are here to stay.
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