Get the latest gossip
Dad TV Is for Everyone Now
In the streaming era, the irresistible optimism of a competent hero working to restore the social order defies age, gender, and parental status.
Think of shows like Reacher, The Night Agent, Jack Ryan, Tokyo Vice, FUBAR, and The Terminal List, where at some level there is “the government,” or “justice,” or “the way things should be,” a broader framework of status quo these series’ protagonists seek to support or restore. It began with For All Mankind, one of the platform’s earliest original shows, which starts from pristine Dadcore obsession with all things space-race related, then twists it through the distinctly girl-dad wife-guy prism of an alternate American history where women shape the most important developments in technology and ingenuity. The dark foil to all of this is Aggrieved Dad TV, the paternal model offered by Yellowstone and other Taylor Sheridan shows that depict men standing atop an empire they’ve fought to build, grappling with the knowledge that the future looks worse than the past.
Or read this on VULTURE