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The ##forth crumudeons were talking about the (supposed) recent decline of writing in books and TV series. One might expect this (supposed) trend to continue, especially if something begins to regurgitate a (supposedly) endless stream of statistically relevant Mammon-enhancing prose. Hence the cringe title of this posting.
Well-written series were mentioned; Babylon 5 versus Deep Space 9 maybe has shades of emacs versus vi about it, but both are reportedly good. (I never did watch DS9, maybe because it was on cable, or that my television watching ranges from sporadic to never. B5 episodes were meanwhile arriving on VHS. This was back before the "buffering... buffering... buffering..." of RealPlayer, for those of you who grew up with ready access to video streaming.)
The following list illustrates how closely the two shows mirrored one another in terms of concept and characterization. Although Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett, and other actors appeared on both series, this list pertains only to story-related similarities, as it’s quite common for actors to work on a number of different TV series.
On the other hand, Sturgeon's law is a thing, and complaining about the decline (of Rituals, the Roman republic, etc) was already old in some century BCE. Archaea: "cyanobacteria these days!"
That which must not be said also exists; these rules were quite explicit in the early days of television, though various restrictions written or otherwise do exist today. "Blazing Saddles" and "Conspiracy Theory Rock" come to mind. Where was that video... ah, here we go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMFoNZeZm0
by way of
gemini://idiomdrottning.org/art-that-broke-mold
There are still lists of "thou shalt nots" which probably are better than rules unwritten. But, given that the rules can be changed at any time, who knows what is safe to produce?
https://www.startrek.com/fan-films
The Master said: "If you use government to show them the Way and punishment to keep them true, the people will grow evasive and lose all remorse. But if you use Integrity to show them the Way and Ritual to keep them true, they'll cultivate remorse and always see deeply into things."
-- "The Four Chinese Classics". David Hinton. 2013.
This is some pretty binary thinking, but I suspect we're rather more towards the "punishment and shamelessness" side of the equation.
That which is said too often can also be problematic. Look, wolf!