Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/SHOWTIME
Remember when the phrase “prestige TV” meant something? It wasn’t all that long ago that we all turned into HBO and AMC each week to watch serial television at its highest form—less than a decade, if you think about it. The rise of the streamers briefly fooled us all with their instant gratification and wildly expensive series, suggesting that great, new television would forevermore be only the touch of a button away.
What a crock of shit. Streamers played audiences like a fiddle, and our greed for more of the best, in turn, increased demand. Long story short: There are now countless series dressed up to look like prestige television—most with a few big names and little-to-no pizazz—and few actual examples of work worthy of the title. I haven’t seen a single series all year legitimately deserving of that moniker (though I’ve certainly seen a few that have been gussied up to fool viewers with a less discerning eye).
That is, until now. Showtime’s Fellow Travelers—which begins streaming on Paramount+ Oct. 27 before airing on the network Oct. 29—heralds a new day, a bright sun rising over the wreckage of canceled and flailing television shows littering networks and streamers. The series, which follows two U.S. government employees (played with magnificent aplomb by Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey) who enter a torrid relationship amid 1950s McCarthyism, stands to briefly revive the golden age of TV. And it’s for one damn good reason: sex.