In the opinion of media scholars, comedians and couch potatoes the world over, the last 10 years of television represents a second Golden Age. Despite (or perhaps due to) the fact the medium continuously proves itself difficult to effectively monetize in the digital millennium, TV has flourished creatively in this first tenth of the 'oughts, giving us some of the most sophisticated entertainment created in any narrative form over the same time span. Now more than ever, all of those disaffected hipster-types with their jauntily tipped hats and jewelled canes who rumble “I don't watch television” from their fashionable second mouths (Kyle has never seen a hipster in real life — Ed) deserve to be choked for anywhere between 10 to 15 seconds before brusquely being sent on their way.

Though there has always been and shall ever be a separation between pure escapism and entertainment that demands active intellectual engagement, the past 10 years have polarized the two to an incredible extent. On one side of planet television, we have the HBO drama. And on the other, reigning over the ratings from its volcanic lair, we have reality TV.

Having spent more hours than I'm comfortable with unironically watching The Dog Whisperer, I can't say I'm immune to reality TV's wiles, either. It's a well-known trick by now, but they appeal by framing reality with dramatic familiarity, creating an effective illusion of real life as adventure. It's the Holy Grail of escapist fantasy. Which American Idol viewer doesn't think they have some latent talent that they could develop and oh-if-only? Who hasn't watched Survivor and thought, “That doesn't look so tough”? Who hasn't, during one of their stranger moments, wished they were a tiny Hispanic man whose job it is to yell at idiots for not understanding the principles of animal domestication? Reality TV might be the cultural poison its most fervent detractors claim it to be, but like so many socially acceptable toxins, it is fun to consume.

Escapism has always sold well, and the recent glut of reality TV shows proves this is as true today as it ever was. Due partly to its recent burst of popularity, partly to its relatively lower cost to produce and partly to a format that makes viewing after-the-fact pointless, reality TV has dominated Nielsen ratings so thoroughly as to force traditional narrative shows into a position of secondary importance for network programmers. And this, if you haven't already guessed, is where I talk about HBO.

HBO is the undisputed king of dramatic programming for the decade, having raised the bar so high on production value with shows like The Wire, Deadwood, Carnivàle and Band of Brothers that, until very recently, an HBO drama was simply understood to exist on a plane so far above network shows that any attempt to compare them would probably have been interpreted as a joke. It has its contenders now with networks like AMC and Starz producing shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Party Down, but I'll argue that this wouldn't be the case if HBO hadn't first blazed the trail with its novelistic dramas.

Unlike a network, HBO doesn’t need to amass a great number of viewers to justify a program. They only need to produce one show, one idea that appeals to you strongly enough that you buy a subscription (or, increasingly, a DVD boxed set). Sure, it helps if that show is able to sustain your interest long enough that you don't cancel your subscription, but the format allows creators under HBO’s banner to produce content that appeals much more narrowly. It was general perception for a long time that something like The Sopranos — with its glacial pace, foul language and highbrow gallows humour — couldn't work on a traditional network business model, and so we saw that dramatic schism in programming content grow for years.

These HBO shows — and, to a lesser extent, the fringe network shows that aspire to HBO’s format —provide a pleasant alternative to that other ratings hog we've seen so much of in the recent past: the 42-minute, jump-cut-obsessed, one-liner-heavy whodunit. Network cop shows have been around since television became a viable dramatic medium and there have been some really, really good ones, even pre-HBO (see: Hill Street Blues, Homicide, NYPD Blue). But, it seems as though anyone with any interest in creating a cop show with intentions more lofty or complicated than squeezing out a cliché, wooden murder mystery that hits the reset button on every character dynamic at the end of each episode has long since gone on to, well, much better things. Shows like CSI and NCIS aren't just stylistically regressive, either. They ape the most obvious parts of more progressive television, conflating “dark” themes with maturity while treating their audience like dull children. They are network television's answer to people who want their escapism rendered like a “mature” drama, but ultimately still watch TV to turn their brains off for a while.

Ten years ago, this might have been an effective combination. But after the 10 years we've just had, the two are now pretty much immiscible.