My thoughts on why Adam doesn't like TV Shows as much as we want him to

I think Adam's movie taste informs his dislike of most TV dramas.

We know that Adam is big into the presentation of film. It has to look and feel great in order to be a good film. It's a director's medium; if the director can't provide an illusion of reality via a strong directorial voice, the movie fails on some level.

Example: The Revenant doesn't have a rich cast of detailed characters, or a super intricate plot, but its presentation is so fucking stark, emotional, and beautiful, that it's a great movie. If Uwe Bowel had directed the same script, it'd be a piece of shit.

This is because film can elevate a script, and TV can't.

TV, on the other hand is a writer's and actor's medium first. TV writing and directing is almost always democratized; a show is very rarely the vision of a single person, because, frankly, it's much harder to juggle everything in the writing and photography process (more characters, arcs, plot threads, conflict).

When you don't have a singular directorial voice coming through, TV dramas can all start to feel the same, liked they've been "scrubbed" of individuality. Compare most shows to True Detective Season 1, which had one writer and one director. A single person's vision inevitably feels more human, less democratized, less "scrubbed".

Instead, most shows rely on the unique voice of the writer's room, which, I think, is a lot harder to pull off (e.g. The Wire and The Deuce are shows you can tell are helmed by David Simon; Rick and Morty has a unique voice, as well).

TLDR: Film is a director's medium which prioritizes unique presentation. TV is a writer's and actor's medium which prioritizes the writing and characters over presentation. A lot of shows "feel" the same from a presentation standpoint, and instead have to stand on having a strong writer's room voice. I think Adam probably just doesn't get as much out of the lack of directorial voice as TV critics and audiences.

^(Side note, I agree shows get way too much credit for their presentation. Seeing shows like Breaking Bad get praised for their AMAZING cinematography makes me think these people have never seen a movie.)