朋友们,我们别再谈电视剧了行吗?

When 21-year-old Stuart Goldberg went into a job interview last fall with a partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., the University of Pennsylvania senior expected to discuss his 3.8 grade-point average, his internships in private equity or the data-crunching he'd done for the Philadelphia Eagles. Instead, the interviewer went straight for a different bullet point on Mr. Goldberg's resume: his interest in the cable-television series 'Breaking Bad.'
去年秋季，在接受咨询公司麦肯锡(McKinsey &Co.)的一位合伙人的面试时，21岁的宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)大四学生斯图亚特•戈德伯格(Stuart Goldberg)本以为他们会讨论他3.8的平均学分绩、他在私募股权基金的实习经历或是他曾为费城老鹰队(Philadelphia Eagles)做过的数据分析等，反之，面试官直接跳到了他简历上的另外一项：他对电视连续剧《绝命毒师》(Breaking Bad)的兴趣。

They spent 10 of the interview's 45 minutes discussing the dark drama about a high-school teacher who becomes a methamphetamine kingpin, Mr. Goldberg recalls. 'I was shocked that he wanted to allocate so much time to that.'
戈德伯格回忆说，在那次为时45分钟的面试中，他们花了10分钟时间讨论这部讲述一名中学老师成为一个冰毒毒枭的犯罪类剧集。他说：“他想在那个话题上花这么多时间，这让我很是惊讶。”

The candidate was also pleased that his strategic decision to represent himself with a 'popular yet relatively highbrow' TV show had worked. He starts as a business analyst at McKinsey this summer, the consulting firm confirms.
让求职的戈德伯格感到欣喜的是，他策略性地决定以一部“热播但格调相对较高”的电视剧来展现自己，并起到了正面作用。麦肯锡证实，戈德伯格将于今年夏季在该公司开始商业分析师工作。

Everywhere you go it seems as if all anyone wants to talk about is TV. Watching the boob tube used to be the couch potato's hobby, hardly a subject to trot out over cocktails. Now, that stigma has vanished, and a few knowing remarks about 'House of Cards' can confer gravitas. Ever since fictional mob boss Tony Soprano had an existential crisis over the ducks in his swimming pool in 1999, viewers have been feasting on a growing bounty of high-quality dramas.
无论你走到何处，似乎大家想讨论的都只是电视节目。看电视以往就是整天躺在沙发上的电视迷的爱好，绝非可以在鸡尾酒会上大谈特谈的话题，而如今，这一污名已经消失，就《纸牌屋》(House of Cards)发表几句有见解的评论能让人显得庄重。自从虚构的黑帮老大托尼•索普拉诺(Tony Soprano)因为自己泳池中的鸭子而产生存在感危机后，观众们饱览了越来越多的高质量剧集。

The result is that TV has infiltrated almost every setting, from dinner parties to the torrent of tweets on Sunday nights. That's when a glut of good shows air, causing twice the amount of TV-related activity on social media than on Mondays, the next busiest night. Major publications (including this one, which has a law professor and Supreme Court advocate leading a 'Mad Men' discussion online) recap every plot development, even of ratings-challenged shows.
其结果是，电视剧渗透进了几乎每一个场合中，从晚宴到周日晚间大量涌现的推文均如此。周日晚间正是大量优质剧集播出之时，这使得当晚社交媒体上与电视剧相关的消息数量比繁忙度次之的周一高出一倍。一些主要刊物（包括请了一名法学教授兼最高法院律师在网上引导对《广告狂人》(Mad Men)的讨论的这本刊物）重述每一个情节，甚至也讨论收视率不佳的剧集。

Some people are ready to change the subject. Art adviser Elizabeth Jacoby is a dedicated follower of 'Suits' (USA), 'Mr. Selfridge' (PBS) and 'Shameless' (Showtime). But the vice president of New York consulting firm BSJ Fine Art has lost patience with certain shows that hog more than their fair share of discussion time among friends and colleagues.
有些人则愿意换换话题。纽约咨询公司BSJ Fine Art的副总裁、艺术顾问伊丽莎白•雅各比(Elizabeth Jacoby)是《金装律师》(Suits，USA电视台出品)、《塞尔福里奇先生》(Mr. Selfridge，PBS电视台出品)和《无耻之徒》(Shameless，Showtime电视台出品)的忠实粉丝。尽管如此，她也忍受不了某些剧集在朋友及同事的谈话间占据了过多的时间。

'I begrudgingly read Plutarch for college, and I begrudgingly watched 'Girls' to know what all the fuss was about. But I don't want to talk about Plutarch, and I don't want to talk about 'Girls, '' she says, referring to the HBO series created by and starring Lena Dunham. The comedy, featuring lots of cringe-worthy sex, stifling jobs and frequent nude appearances by Ms. Dunham, made a big splash with critics and pundits that was disproportionate to its relatively puny viewership.
雅各比说：“我在大学时不情愿地读了普鲁塔克(Plutarch)，后来又勉强自己看了《都市女郎》(Girls)以了解这些乱七八糟的东西都在讲些什么。但是我不想讨论普鲁塔克，也不想讨论《都市女郎》。”她口中所说的这部HBO电视台的剧集由莉娜•杜汉姆(Lena Dunham)编剧和主演。这部喜剧有大量让人尴尬的性场景、沉闷压抑的工作描述以及杜汉姆本人频频裸体出镜的画面，这在评论家和知识界种引起了轩然大波。而相对于该剧规模较小的观众群体来说，这些人所占的比例有些超常。

Recent months have seen additions to the ranks of obsessively watched shows, including FX's 'The Americans, ' about married Soviet spies embedded in an American suburb at the peak of the Cold War, and, on the frothier side, ABC's 'Scandal, ' a series about a Washington fixer that goes to outlandish lengths to live up to its title.
最近几个月，吸引观众沉迷其中的剧集又有了新成员，其中包括FX电视台的《美国谍梦》(The Americans)以及由ABC电视台出品、更浅薄一些的《丑闻》(Scandal)。前者讲述了前苏联一对间谍夫妇在“冷战”高峰期潜伏在美国某郊区的故事，后者则讲述了华盛顿某专门帮人解决丑闻危机的公关公司的故事，其中无所不用的手段无愧于它的片名。

Throughout the year, networks (and now upstarts like streaming-media services) are rolling out series that seem meaty enough to merit at least a first round of sampling and debate. This week, the Sundance Channel introduced 'Rectify, ' a simmering drama about a man released into his small hometown after 20 years in prison for a heinous crime. On May 26, Netflix will unveil 15 new episodes of a densely woven comedy that disappeared from network TV seven years ago, 'Arrested Development.'
在这一整年里，各大电视台（现在流媒体等新兴平台也加入其中）推出了似乎内容足够有料、至少值得头一轮品鉴和辩论的剧集。其中，Sundance电视台前不久推出了《昭雪》(Rectify)一剧，这部逐渐升温的剧集讲述了一名男子因一项弥天大罪蹲了20年监狱，出狱后回到自己的家乡──一个小城镇──后发生的故事。此外，Netflix将于5月26日开始播出一部七年前从电视上消失的喜剧──《发展受阻》(Arrested Development)的15集新剧集。

A new halo of prestige now floats over serialized dramas. Recently the Paris Review, the 60-year-old literary journal whose 'Writers at Work' feature has included Capote, Hemingway and Nabokov, commissioned the first-ever interview in that series with a television writer: Matthew Weiner, creator of 'Mad Men.'
现在连续剧的上空又悬浮着一个新的权威光环。前不久，《巴黎评论》(Paris Review)，这本拥有60年历史的文学期刊的《作家访谈录》(Writers at Work)栏目有史以来第一次对一名电视编剧、《广告狂人》的编剧马修•威纳(Matthew Weiner)进行了采访。该专栏曾报道过的名人包括卡波特(Capote)、海明威(Hemingway)和纳博科夫(Nabokov)等。

'The stuff is art, ' says editor Lorin Stein. He still doesn't own a TV set. ('The day is short. I love to read.') But the 40-year-old has polished off a select group of series on his computer or with friends. To discuss, say, the themes of masculinity in the moody FX comedy 'Louie' is an instinctive part of the experience, he says.
该期刊总编洛林•斯坦恩(Lorin Stein)称，采访的内容是关于艺术的。今年40岁的斯坦恩现在依然没有电视。（“日子很短，我喜欢读书。”）不过，他在电脑上或与几位朋友一起粗略看完了一批精选出的电视剧。他说，比如讨论FX电视台情感类喜剧《路易的故事》(Louie)中的男性气概主题便是看电视过程中的一种本能行为。