Steven Spielberghas tried his hand at television as well as movies over his career, and he’s produced some beloved and acclaimed TV shows for his efforts.Steven Spielberg’s filmography is about as well-knownas any director’s, and as a filmmaker, he’s made hit after hit every decade sinceJawspremiered in 1975. However, Spielberg is not only a movie director, he’s a talented producer and executive, and when he’s worked outside of the film industry, venturing into TV land, he’s found success there as well. As an executive producer,Spielberg has racked up an impressive stable of TV shows.
Steven Spielberg was a co-founder of Amblin Entertainmentand DreamWorks, meaning he actually began working in television much earlier than you may have assumed. He has producing credits on animated series likeTiny Toon Adventures,Animaniacs,Pinky and the Brain, andFreakazoid!because of their associations with Amblin Entertainment. However, his hand can be better seen in the TV shows he’s helped produce in the 21st century. It’s these six shows that showcase his best producing work in the medium, and a few are ranked amongthe best TV shows ever.
Smashis a musical drama series that ran for two seasons on NBC and depicts a fictional New York City theater community who are in the process of putting on a new Broadway play. Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Katharine McPhee, and Christian Borle star in this ensemble that tracks the characters' chaotic personal lives along with their busy professional ones. The series manages to capture the grand, explosive aspects of Broadway theater but does not get lost in the pomp.
Characters and smaller storylines are given more time to breathe, and it’s clear that the creators have a true love for the form.The pilot in particular is exceptional, and though the series starts to meander as the show goes on, it still has its bright spots.Smashearned six Emmy nominations, winning once, and it had one Golden Globe nomination.
Steven Spielberg’sTerra Novaonly lasted for one seasonbefore it was canceled, but it has lingered long after as a unique story and an incredible feat of television special effects work. Special effects on television are notoriously worse than those found in movies, but the ones inTerra Novastand up to a lot of what Hollywood put out at the time. The series is set in 2149 on an overpopulated Earth. To solve the crisis, scientists open a temporal rift to a parallel time stream that sends humans to a world resembling Earth in the Cretaceous Period.
A group of “pilgrims” is sent there to see if life is possible, encountering trials and dangerous dinosaurs along the way.It’s likeThe Swiss Family RobinsonmeetsJurassic Park, which is a conflation of all the themes and ideas that Spielberg is most interested in. While it ended abruptly, the 13 episodes of season 1 tell a thrilling and engaging tale.
Masters of the Airwas a welcome surprise for fans of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’Band of BrothersandThe Pacific. The 2024 show follows another front of World War II, the aerial one. The 100th Bomb Group is a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress that flew missions over German-occupied Europe in the latter part of the conflict. Like its two companion shows,Masters of the Airfeatures an impressive cast including Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, and Callum Turner.
With the U.S. Marines and Army already covered by Steven Spielberg, the Air Force must have seemed like a natural next area of focus.The production design is as great as you may expect from a Spielberg series, and it’s as thrilling as any of the other shows in the pseudo-trilogy. There is an old-fashioned aspect toMasters of the Airthat does feel authentic, but is also slightly stuffy, which makes it a bit more Hollywood, and not quite as grounded asBand of BrothersandThe Pacific.
Based on an idea by Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw,United States of Tarais a black comedy drama centered on a mother, Tara (Toni Collette), coping with dissociative identity disorder (viaNYT). The story follows Tara, a wife and mother of two who has been diagnosed with DID. After finding that her medication causes her to lose motivation in the things she loves, Tara decides to discontinue the medication and allow her multiple personalities to emerge.
The series is also careful to never mock mental illness or frame it in a way that’s untrue or misrepresentative.
It’s a fantastic performance by Collette, who naturally channels all the aspects of Tara’s personalities to make them feel apart but also still connected to one another. The series is also careful to never mock mental illness or frame it in a way that’s untrue or misrepresentative. It’s a feat of storytelling and writing thatUnited States of Taracan pull so much comedy out of so dark a subject and not be cruel.
A companion piece toBand of Brothers, and produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks,The Pacifichas the difficult task of following up one of the most acclaimed war TV shows ever, and it very nearly takes the top spot from that Europe-centric series.The Pacificis even less heroic thanBand of Brothersas it follows different members of the 1st Marine Division during the Pacific War. It’s a bloody, hot, terrifying affair where danger is around every corner and each man comes out of it having left a piece of themselves behind.
Because not every storyline is connected,it’s a bit harder to connect with the characters as a unit in the same way we connect with the 101st Airborne Division inBand of Brothers, but that doesn’t mean the series is any less affecting. In some ways, it’s a harder watch. There’s less of a sense of victory or purpose inThe Pacific, and watching the young men come to terms with that is haunting, but also as honest as a war series gets.
Band of Brotherswas created and produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg three years after they worked together on the Academy Award-winning WWII epic,Saving Private Ryan. That film must have kick-started a drive in both men to tell as many of these stories as they could with as honest a recreation as possible.Band of Brothersmay not seem as grim and naturalistic as the war movies that come out now, but when it did, it was downright frightening.
The show is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by historian Stephen E. Ambrose.
There’s an intensity toBand of Brothersthat the camaraderie between the men alleviates to an extent but never completely erases, and that’s the point.Well-acted with a shockingly recognizable cast,Band of Brothersis often ranked among the best TV shows ever.Stephen Spielberg’sseries is well-paced, thrilling at the right moments, exhausting and terrifying in others, and is the gold standard for what a war epic should look like.
