What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.

Put these two forces together — a rising level of talent and production competence on the one hand, the pressure to deliver versions of something viewers already like on the other hand — and what do you get? You get a whole lot of Mid.

MID IS NOT the mediocre TV of the past. It’s more upscale. It is the aesthetic equivalent of an Airbnb “modern farmhouse” renovation, or the identical hipster cafe found in medium-sized cities all over the planet. It’s nice! The furniture is tasteful, they’re playing Khruangbin on the speakers, the shade-grown coffee is an improvement on the steaming mug of motor oil you’d have settled for a few decades ago.

Mid is fine, though. It’s good enough.

Mid TV, on the other hand, almost can’t be bad for some of the same reasons that keep it from being great. It’s often an echo of the last generation of breakthrough TV (so the highs and lows of “Game of Thrones” are succeeded by the faithful adequacy of “House of the Dragon”).

As more people drop cable TV for streaming, their incentives change. With cable you bought a package of channels, many of which you would never watch, but any of which you might.

So where HBO used to boast that it was “not TV,” modern streamers send the message, “We’ll give you a whole lot of TV.” It can seem like their chief goal is less to produce standout shows than to produce a lot of good-looking thumbnails.

The race for the streamers to configure themselves as full-service production, distribution, and exhibition outlets has intensified the need for each to articulate a more specific brand identity.

What we are seeing with the streaming wars is not the emergence of a cluster of copy-cat services, with everyone trying to do everything, but the beginnings of a legible strategy to carve up the mediascape and compete for peoples’ waking hours.

Netflix’s penchant for character-centered stories with a three-act structure, as well as high production values (an average of $20–$50-plus million for award contenders), resonates with the “quality” features of the Classical era.

rom early on, Netflix cultivated a liberal public image, which has propelled its investment in social documentary and also driven some of its inclusivity initiatives and collaborations with global auteurs and showrunners of color, such as Alfonso Cuarón, Ava DuVernay, Spike Lee, and Justin Simien.

Quibi as short for “Quick Bites.” In turn, the promos wouldn’t so much emphasize “the what” of the programming as the interest and convenience of being able to watch it while waiting, commuting, or just taking a break. However, this unit of prospective viewing time lies uncomfortably between the ultra-brief TikTok video and the half-hour sitcom.

Peacock’s central obstacle moving forward will be convincing would-be subscribers that the things they loved about linear broadcast and cable TV are worth the investment.

One of the most intriguing and revealing of metaphors, however, isn’t so much related to war as celestial coexistence of streamer-planets within the “universe.” Certainly, the term resonates with key franchises, such as the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” and the bevvy of intricate stories that such an expansive environment makes possible. This language stakes a claim for the totality of media — that there are no other kinds of moving images beyond what exists on, or what can be imagined for, these select platforms.