2007: The sky is falling

On DVD prices, that is.

HBO is the main offender. Five years ago, Six Feet Under Season One retailed at $99. Now you can pick up each season for $19 a pop.

I haven't decided if I should blame (or thank) the WGA strike, the DVD format wars, or the obsolescence of the physical medium. Perhaps all of the above.

For the past half decade, the DVD has been Hollywood's glorious cash cow. Confused about the Writers' Strike? Consider this: for every ticket you buy at the box office, a movie studio gets about $3.50; for every DVD, it gets $17.26. Now apply this to television. No wonder the DVD resurrected Family Guy or that the new Futurama episodes will debut on DVD before being aired.

The changing media landscape has cannibalized network syndication revenues (one of the principal sources of residual checks for writers) and is bound to do the same to DVD sales. Oh wait. It already has. DVD sales only expanded 2% this year and are estimated to decrease by 20% in 2010.

And, of course, there is the Internet. The great unknown. The horrifying apparition that keeps media conglomerates up at night. An entity that seems to evade all profit forecasting and thus defers all negotiation and action. [An argument which was, quite fittingly, dismantled by the Daily Show's writers in a video broadcasted by traditional media outlets on YouTube. The irony.]

My personal position doesn't need to be stated. We all know my sympathies are with Michael Eisner.

Honestly.

The fallout of the strike: next year's network lineups look abysmal [with the exception of Lost, of course -- <3 Kate]. Which means it is time to catch up on television shows you may have missed. For me, that will probably entail The Wire, Deadwood, and Rome. And maybe I will humor Nell and Mark by watching Buffy.

Instead of pimping out the usual end of year favorites (after all, you should already be watching 30 Rock and The Office) or dissecting Heroes's terrible twos (someone really thought of Hiro as anything other than asexual?), I thought I would offer a few alternative recommendations for shows you may want to add to your Netflix Queue.

I have already encouraged you all to watch Pushing Daisies, so add that to your New Year's resolution list. And I agree with Mark about Flight of the Conchords, although I would probably give the series an 8.

But really there were two standout seasons in the fall of 2007: Mad Men and Dexter.

Compared to the decades that bookend it, the 1950s form a curious visual lacuna in my memory. My impression, which I imagine is similar to others of my generation, is mostly confined to noirs and Leave it to Beaver. While set in the year 1960, Mad Men bears witness to the collapse of the postwar 1950s episteme: race, sexuality, and class all lurk at the peripheries waiting to challenge and upset the staid social mores. The series does a particularly strong job of balancing affection and critique (parents smile as they watch their children running around with bags on their heads), and there is a curious thrill of seeing an era from which we are only two generations removed. But most of all, the sharp writing carries the show. Speaking of the ad agency in which he works, Don Draper, the main protagonist of the show, comments, "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich." A haunting juxtaposition with the VW "Lemon" ads the characters analyze earlier in the episode.

Speaking of haunting, Dexter accomplishes what all returning shows should attempt in their second season: it successfully destabilizes the general structure of the series, it unsettles everything we know about its characters, and best of all, it compounds Dexter's problems creating possibly the most suspenseful season-wide arc I have ever seen.

And guess what: CBS announced they will be showing Dexter on network television next year to fill in the gaps of their lineup.

Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe 2008 will mark the return of syndication.

Or not.