I'd say it's HBC and it's ilk that shifted things. Long story arc TV shows with the same artistic ambitions and standards as movies. It's debatable where it began. First I remember is Oz but I've read people claim it goes as far back as Hill St. Blues.
In the UK we had a series called GBH that blew me away as a young person. I keep meaning to rewatch it to see if it's as good as I remember.
I think the first artistically ambitious TV show I remember coming out of the US was 'Twin Peaks'.
I've watched GBH a few times since it aired and I think it still holds up. Certainly give it a go if you get the chance. The original UK TV version of 'Edge of Darkness' is also still very, very watchable. Some remarkable scenes and performances.
> In the UK we had a series called GBH that blew me away as a young person. I keep meaning to rewatch it to see if it's as good as I remember.
I've watched it recently, and it's super-fun, but not thoughtful or deep. It's just a LibDem/Tory slander against Militant starring a cartoon character sexually impotent lefty pol who pours campaign fund champagne over hookers while plotting petty revenge against his childhood enemies, slapping children and wetting the bed.
Watched it again a couple of years ago. It's not perfect (some episodes could be chopped without you noticing), but a Tory smear it ain't. Alan Bleasdale was "True Labour" (way to the left of The Third Way), he just had no time for the Derek Hattons of the world and believed Militant was an unwitting tool of the establishment (something he made explicit in the plot). Complicated by the fact he made Murray way more interesting than Hatton, ofc.
Nelson is Bleasdale's hero: long standing Labour member. Wants to teach kids, but would never cross a picket line. Doesn't use the personal stuff the establishment have dug up to discredit Murray. &c
Incidentally, I lived near Hatton back in the day. He had done extremely well financially out of his time at the council.
> It's just a LibDem/Tory slander against Militant
You can't reasonably accuse Alan Bleasdale of being anything close to a LibDem/Tory propagandist. Not without shifting the Overton window to a preposterous degree. There's a lot of space to place one's self in between Blair and Militant without because accused of betraying Labour's principles.
In the UK we had a series called GBH that blew me away as a young person. I keep meaning to rewatch it to see if it's as good as I remember.