-- The Pyramid is the Pantheon and vice versa
Introduction: I saw an idea for wannabe bloggers like myself setting a timer and hitting publish on the post no matter the state of the writing once the time was up. The idea being to 1) discourage perfectionism and 2) encourage writing, even nonsense writing, because once the words start flowing creativity has the chance to flourish. Thus the below was written with a 30-minute timer as its overlord. Use this information as you wish while passing judgement on my efforts.
Season 4 of Stranger Things was my favorite of the series. I was consistently creeped out by Vecna’s bone-twisting, eye-socket vacuuming kills and the graveyard scene with Max and Kate Bush was an elite TV moment; regardless of how you felt about the series landing the plane in the finale, that song and that actress and that moment aren’t leaving the zeitgeist anytime soon. Plus how about that season finale? Steve and Robin hucking molotovs at Vecna while Nancy pumps lead into the monster was something straight out of Call of Duty, only without the preposterous sliding around and other omnimovement hijinks.
So enthralled was I with that season as a whole that it left me scrambling to reassess my TV pantheon. Had Stranger Things cracked the upper echelons? How did Steve and Dustin’s bromance compare to other pairings like Ryan and Seth or JD and Turk? Was Nancy growing more attractive or was she just stepping into the shoes of Lara Croft, reigniting feelings from days gone by? Had Stranger Things officially left Outer Banks in the dust in the race for Netflix’s best teenage originals?
And then, right as all this delicious momentum reached a crescendo, the show disappeared for three and half years.
A couple of things to note here before I continue with this time-censored post. I honestly don’t mind when shows/movies/video games take a long break between installments. In video games in particular I enjoy showing off my “Team Delay” jersey. What’s that you say, you need an extra 11 months to polish up GTA VI? Be my guest. I’m willing to wait for excellence.
But this one felt different. Three and a half years is so long that I simply stopped thinking about the show. Three and half years is nearly two missions, it’s more than half my youngest kid’s life. Three and half years ago the Jazz hadn’t jettisoned Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert in the absurd hope that they could acquire draft picks that would enable them to draft … the next versions of Mitchell and Gobert. Three and half years is such a gap between seasons that you can’t even look forward to the next one, much like the experience I had playing Axis and Allies. "Ok, that wraps up my turn, I'm going to go watch Fellowship of the Ring, let me know if my next turn will start before its over or if I should get Two Towers on deck."
And again, if that’s how much time it took to get the season right – which the internet would dispute, but I was certainly entertained throughout so I’ll call it a win – then so be it. I’m not mad. But I am wondering, more so than other shows I’ve watched, how my opinion of it as an all-timer would have changed had I discovered it in 2028 and binged it across a month or two. 11. To binge or not binge is a fan favorite discussion in my house. I love dragging out shows as long as possible so I can have something to look forward to the next day, while Jackie aligns with the consume til you pop mantra. One of my favorite things about HBO is that they retain the old school methodology of slowly dripping shows out one week at a time.
Perhaps in 30 years I’ll have the answer. By then I’ll have forgotten the key beats of this and many of my other favorite shows – except the Kate Bush grave scene, duh – and in our Bear Lake cabin, with snow falling against the windows, a bowl of guacamole next to our recliners, or perhaps grapefruit if we are seeking healthiness, Jackie and I will unleash the episodes at breakneck speed and this blog, then celebrating its 50th anniversary, will produce a lively, if not current, update on this topic.
Until then, this show is headed toward Floor 1, or what we call the entry level of my TV pantheon ranking system. How exactly does the pantheon work? Thanks for asking. As with almost all things on this blog, we must credit Bill Simmons, who introduced the pantheon concept as a means of ranking NBA players across history. His premise is that a Hall of Fame, or pantheon, should be a museum, shaped like a pyramid, and that as you climb from one floor to the next you naturally occupy a smaller space, entering rarified air, where the greats reside. Each level of the pyramid is smaller than the preceding floor, and each level contains a higher grade of player (or in our case, show) than the prior floor. The higher you go in the pyramid, the greater the content you find until you reach the top where the best of the best reside.
To translate, think of it like this:
Floor 1 of the pantheon is the bottom floor.22. Why am I calling this a pantheon instead of a pyramid, when pyramid makes so much more sense? I like the word pantheon more. It has space for 12 shows. However, it also has unlimited expansion opportunities which I will explain shortly.
Floor 2 of the pantheon is, believe it or not, the 2nd floor! There is only room for 8 shows here. Each of these shows is better than those on Floor 1, but worse than those on Floors 3 and 4. If in 2031 a new show qualifies for this floor, then an existing second floor show will have to be downgraded to floor 1 to make space for the newcomer. However, when that demoted show is relegated to Floor 1 it doesn't force an existing Floor 1 show out of the pantheon. The bottom floor simply expands from 12 shows to 13 shows. Or to put it another way, once you’re in the pantheon, you can’t drop out.
Floor 3 is smaller than floor 2 and as a result only 4 shows reach this tier. Like with floor 2, in order for a show to make it to this space it will have to force an existing member of the floor down a level, and so on until we relegate someone to floor 1.
Floor 4 is the final tier -- the top of the pyramid -- and it's the spot where the cream of the crop lives. Floor 4 has space for one show and one show only. Perhaps someday something so marvelous will come out that we are forced to expand this floor to include two TV products, but for now there is just one show, in my mind, that stands so clearly above the rest that it deserves a singular suite, a penthouse all to its own.
What is that show? Stay tuned for next week’s big Pantheon reveal.
In the meantime, shoutout to Stranger Things. You delighted me for almost a decade, even if the number of delightful days in that decade adds up to only 50 or so.
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