Pour One Out For The Latest Round Of Prestige TV

TV as we know it will change on May 31 when Ted Lasso, one of four prestige series set to conclude in 2023, airs its Season 3 finale. Losing four of television’s greatest shows in the same year is inherently excruciating. But to ensure maximum emotional destruction, their series finales will premiere back-to-back over a somber six-day stretch.

Kicking off the farewell tour, Prime Video‘s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will take its final bow on May 26 after five seasons. On May 28, HBO powerhouses Succession and Barry will dare to wrap (in succession) after their fourth seasons. And though Ted Lasso’s cast and crew are still being coy about calling Season 3’s episodes their last, fans fear the Apple TV+ series will end (or at least take a significant break) on May 31.

Despite regularly welcoming and bidding farewell to slews of streaming and broadcast series, this latest slate of finales feels like a crushing conclusion to another seminal era and, perhaps, the start of an inferior one.

In a time when bulk streaming releases are the norm, the four Emmy-winning series above consistently lured weekly viewers and helped preserve the collective thrill of appointment TV. They defined their respective networks and platforms for years, influencing the medium and our culture at large. And though they featured cherished components of great shows before them, in so many ways they were unlike anything we’d seen before. Maisel transported us back to the 1950s and ’60s to follow a housewife’s journey to stand-up stardom. Barry crafted a dark comedy about a hitman with dreams of becoming an actor. Succession immersed us in a simmering satirical family dramedy about an aging mogul deciding which of his children is best suited for takeover. And Ted Lasso made old NBC Sports promos about an American turned English football coach into a moving comedy that tackles grief and encourages viewers to be their best selves. 

On top of innovative premises, these lightning-in-a-bottle series were amalgamations of meticulous writing; casts and crews that fired on all cylinders; and rich, thought-provoking, unhurried storytelling that’s hard to come by these days. All four series garnered fervent fandoms over the years, and it’s not uncommon to experience feelings of loss, grief, or emptiness when letting go of characters we’ve emotionally invested in, storylines we’ve connected with, or shows that served as constants in our ever-changing lives.

Critics have long claimed we’re past the Golden Age of Television, so it’s no surprise that Peak TV has been steadily dwindling since streaming platforms started to gain momentum. But it still hurts seeing our favorite shows conclude, whether they’re canceled or not. In 2022, we lost series including The Walking Dead, Atlanta, Dead To Me, Dickinson, Black-Ish, Killing Eve, and Ozark. Among the year’s casualties were also personal favorites: This Is Us, my weekly sob supplier for seven straight years; Peaky Blinders, which unexpectedly mesmerized me with 1900s Birmingham crime for a decade; and Better Call Saul, the ambitious six-season masterpiece that seamlessly extended and closed the door on the world of Breaking Bad. Aside from the four series we’ll mourn in May, 2023 also marks the end of popular shows such as NCIS: Los Angeles, A Million Little Things, The Resident, The Goldbergs, Riverdale, The Handmaid’s Tale, Manifest, Cobra Kai, The Blacklist, and The Flash.

I’m not claiming that all top-notch television will cease to exist after May. Apple TV+ continues churning out bangers like Severance, Shrinking, and The Big Door Prize. HBO has everything from The Last Of Us and The White Lotus to The Rehearsal and Euphoria. Peacock hit the jackpot with Poker Face. Hulu is bringing back The Bear, Only Murders In The Building, Reservation Dogs, and What We Do In The Shadows. Series like You, Heartstopper, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, and I Think You Should Leave are returning to Netflix. And beloved broadcast shows like Abbott Elementary and 9-1-1 were renewed for future seasons.

However, with seemingly endless swaths of reality dating shows, a number of Yellowstone spin-offs and imitations on the horizon, and so many shows struggling to survive multiple seasons, there’s concern that quantity over quality will continue to be favored; fewer unique series will get the green-lit in pursuit of replicating past success; and TV will fully enter its flop era, or as Slate’s Sam Adams calls it, the age of “Trough TV.”

As we say goodbye to the latest superb string of 21st-century prestige TV, the grief we feel is compounded by a fear that what lies ahead might never live up to what we’ve left behind. Maisel, Barry, Succession, Ted Lasso, and other series that set themselves apart from the surplus of redundancies competing for our attention helped define the past decade of television. And with any luck, they’ll inspire the next decade to be better.