Far be it from me to ever suggest that HBO’s best days are behind it, or that Netflix is in danger of losing its status as not only the biggest streaming service in the world but also the most important. But having said all that, there is an increasingly inescapable truth that keeps gnawing at me the more time passes, and the more that FX keeps putting out jaw-droppingly great TV shows that effortlessly enter the zeitgeist. That make you sit up and take notice. That leave you spellbound after you walk away from your TV or phone screen.
My feeling is that this network that damn near never puts a foot wrong these days — a network that also won more Emmys than Netflix and HBO over the weekend, the first time in at least 15 years that neither of those streamers has been the top winner at the Emmys ceremony — feels much more essential than almost any other streamer. I mean, just like at this list of top-tier TV shows: With FX, you get shows like Atlanta, Reservation Dogs, The Old Man (one of my personal favorite spy shows), Justified, Fargo, Shogun, The Americans, and The Bear, to name just a few.
Disney+ is great, for example, but unless you have kids, is it really essential? Likewise, HBO and its companion streaming service Max are great, but what shows do they have right now that rival the “oh my god, you have to watch this” quality of FX’s Shogun or The Bear? Even George R.R. Martin himself has issues with House of the Dragon, one of HBO’s biggest and buzziest shows at the moment.
“What we lack in volume we try to make up for in love and dedication,” FX president John Landgraf, who’s been dubbed “the mayor of TV,” said in an interview with Variety after his network’s haul of Emmy nominations was announced earlier this year. FX also makes up for its lack of volume, he continued, by “the level of care and attention and personal commitment we put behind each individual show and each individual creator work. It’s their work. It’s not ours. We’re here to try to lift them up.”
Following this year’s Emmys, Landgraf added about his small but mighty network: “What we’re trying to provide for creative people is a home that can take their passions and their ideas from inception through everything and provide personal and very curated experience for them.”
Meanwhile, at least FX and HBO aren’t in the position of Netflix, which will probably never completely shake off the criticism that it’s overfilled with content — to the point that some unsatisfied subscribers will always argue that the streamer behind Love is Blind clearly prizes volume over quality. In fact, I dare say that many of you still pay for Netflix today because you kind of feel like you have to, and not necessarily because of a particular attachment to the service beyond an increasingly sporadic number of hits, like Stranger Things and Squid Game.
Of course, I realize that all of this is as subjective as it gets. Me, I’m certainly in awe of the way FX consistently elevates the medium of TV. Maybe to you, though, HBO is still the reigning champ and always will be. And maybe to someone else, that’s the wrong way to look at all this.
All I know is, between those three choices, there’s only one that I couldn’t be without. It’s the network that more or less abides by Carmy’s speech about legacy, about taking and using the best of what’s inspired you — and then other people taking those parts and doing the same thing. Legacy begets inspiration, whether we’re talking about a restaurant like the Bear or a network like FX.
