Column 2: Let’s Talk About TURN
AMC has an impressive track record of successful television programming. Its standouts, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, quite often are referred to as the best shows in the history of television. Anyone who’s watched them knows this to be true. But for every Jaguar pitch and jaw-dropping desert shootout, there are a handful of mediocre moments happening on one of AMC’s lesser shows. TURN, AMC’s new colonial spy drama, is just slightly better than mediocre despite an obvious attempt to be great. TURN’s mediocrity is surprising because it has all the makings of a successful show: a story with a good hook, unknown actors, attractive costuming and set design, purposeful music, and the list goes on. It’s as if the programming team at AMC looked at their successes and from them created a checklist of what every other show must have in order to be good. This line of thinking seems[...]