Barry and Succession are leaving us, marking the end of a dazzling television period.

Barry and Succession Louis Chilton wonders if we should be concerned about running out of great TV after several other of the medium’s top shows, including “Atlanta” and “Better Call Saul,” had ended within the past year.

Keep a record of it. An era on television will come to an end at the end of this week. Succession, which has shown for four seasons on HBO in the US and Sky and NOW in the UK, will come to an end.

The comedy-drama, which centres on the acrimonious power battles among a family of media moguls, is currently one of the few contenders for the title of greatest television series of all time and is regarded as the best TV show of the last ten years.

Following that, Barry, the clever, twisty dramedy about a hitman turned actor, which likewise had only four seasons, will air its final episode on the same channel(s). The TV medium will severely deteriorate over night.

Barry and Succession

If you look at the TV landscape as a whole and ignore the current widespread writers’ strikes, it appears to be in good shape. The number of TV shows last year was higher than it has ever been, and many of them have enormous production costs and well-known movie stars. A number of good television series have already debuted this year, including The Last of Us, Poker Face, Party Down, and Jury Duty.

But none of these programmes can compete with Succession. In contemporary TV, there is a dearth of the genuinely excellent and an oversupply of very good programming. Barry hasn’t been especially close to being Succession’s main competitor.

How many of the “best shows currently on TV” from even just a year ago are still going to be around next week? The excellent Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul ended last year, as did Donald Glover’s Atlanta. Everything appears to be in the past tense.

Also Read : The Cold Reality of “Succession,” Laying on the Floor of an Aircraft

I suppose there are good reasons to smile. Barry is coming to an end, but Bill Hader, the show’s creator and only director for this final season, has established himself as a creative force to be reckoned with. For more than two decades, the former Saturday Night Live comic has been a welcome presence in films and television, but Barry was a revelation: who knew that the man best known for playing the silly manchild cop in Superbad harboured such dark, Coenesque depths? Barry is unquestionably an indication that huge things are on the horizon, regardless of whether Hader decides to make the switch from television to film.

(However, he earlier this year told The Independent that his first task after Barry was to go on his first vacation in ten years.) The same can be said about other members of the cast and crew, including Sarah Goldberg, who plays Bill Hader’s character’s troubled partner in a way that is nothing short of amazing, and Hiro Murai, who is one of the most assured and outstanding directors now working in the industry.

This argument also holds true for Succession, whose creator, Jesse Armstrong, also co-created Peep Show, one of the funniest British sitcoms ever produced. Succession frequently evokes images of contained lightning, but this is not always the case.

This is largely a credit to the quality of its writing because it was continually able to modify the characters and plot lines without ever losing any momentum. Great artists don’t just overnight start to get worse. Whatever follows after Succession won’t be as good, but who’s to say it won’t try?

For gloomy pessimists like me, this Sunday’s programming makes it simple to assume that there is a shortage of top-notch television. However, there will always be something to look forward to in such a big creative industry.

Amazing series like The Bear and Hacks may yet last for many seasons. Whether it’s a stand-alone miniseries (We Own This City; The Plot Against America) or a longer form show (The Deuce; Treme), The Wire’s David Simon constantly produces top-notch work.

The Gallows Pole, a new period drama from Shane Meadows in the UK, premieres next week; his body of work is as comprehensive and important as it comes. So certainly, Sunday could be the day when TV loses its crown jewels. It won’t file for bankruptcy anytime soon though.