The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of House of Cards

When I first wrote about the First Season of House of Cards, my waxing of poetic might have gone a little bit overboard. I mean, I did call it the official beginning of a new revolution of television. But that being said, if the time between The Sopranos to Breaking Bad constitutes The Golden Era of Television, then we are most certainly in The Silver Era now. We are in a era of television marked by a vast quantity of shows, many of them great, with no real consensus of which one is the best. Netflix and House of Cards is a major reason for the current proliferation of great TV dramas as we don't even have to watch traditional TV channels to find great television programs. And House of Cards is currently back in the fold to be considered great.

I absolutely love the first season of House of Cards. I literally lost sleep just so I could binge watch another episode of the show. In the end, I placed it as my 4th favorite show of 2013 behind Justified, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men and right above Netflix's other major television program Orange Is The New Black. Not a bad company to be joined by.

House of Cards' first season was as good as it was because it had interesting characters (obviously most notably The Underwoods) that you couldn't wait to see what they were up to next. The actions of these characters might not have been wholly believable- mainly the idea that Frank Underwood could get any bill he wanted to passed with a little bit of elbow grease and blackmail- but you didn't have to suspend your disbelief terribly to envision that this version of Washington D.C. actually exists. House of Cards was first and foremost a political thriller where the web of lies and deceit was a chess game for Frank.

2014 Emmy Questions: House Of Cards

Click here for the introduction to The Cover 3's "2014 Emmy Questions" series

COLD, HARD LOCK NOMINATIONS: N/A

STRONG EDUCATED GUESS NOMINATIONS: Outstanding Drama Series, Best Lead Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Lead Actress (Robin Wright)

QUESTION ONE: Will House of Cards earn a second Best Drama Series Emmy nomination?

Series Review of Netflix's House Of Cards and The Start of The New Era Of Television

The Golden Age of Television is dead. Shows like The Sopranos and Oz and Deadwood and The Wire are long over. The two shows at the tail end of the Revolution- Mad Men and Breaking Bad- are on its last legs. Breaking Bad will finish its last season in a few months from now and Mad Men is sure to follow soon. For me, once Breaking Bad ends, the Golden Age of Television is over.

We are now in a new age of television. Previously, we had internet message boards and TV box sets to help with our television watching. Now we have blogs, On Demand, and Netflix. If we hear a show is great we can power through an entire season with the click of a finger and catch up instantly. I saw every single episode of Breaking Bad in 2012 thanks to Netflix and the internet (and AMC for airing an original season). Netflix is fully aware of how people watch television nowadays and decided to release every single episode of House Of Cards all at once. Instead of waiting for a new episode every week, viewers can watch new episodes like how they watched old ones- at their own leisure.