J. Clarke articles

There was a time when TV was the “cheap” sibling of cinema. You flipped it on, watched a multi-cam sitcom or a cop show, and nobody was dropping blockbuster-level money to make it happen. Now? Some episodes cost more than classic movies.

Hip-hop didn’t just grow because a few big personalities took over the mic—it evolved because a whole generation of women decided they weren’t waiting for permission. They carved out space, battled anyone who stepped in their way, and dropped verses that still echo across the genre. Some got the spotlight they deserved. Others, history had to catch up to. But together, they built the foundation modern rap stands on today.

Some movies end and you move on. Others roll credits and suddenly you’re in a ten-minute monologue about symbolism while your friends pretend to look for parking validation. These are the films that refuse to land cleanly—they hand you a puzzle and disappear, leaving decades of debate in their wake.

Some historical shows keep things polite—corsets, candlelight, a couple polite wars in the background. The 22 shows on this list are not those shows. These are the ones that make the past feel so close you can practically smell the gunpowder, feel the political tension in your shoulders, and start wondering if you’ve somehow time-traveled without signing a release form.

Florence Ballard’s story is one of those rare music tragedies that manages to be both breathtakingly inspiring and heartbreakingly unfair. She helped build one of the most successful groups in pop history, only to watch her spotlight dim long before the applause ever should have stopped. It’s a story filled with big dreams, bigger voices, and the biggest reminder of all: fame can crown someone one minute and quietly abandon them the next.

Black sitcoms didn’t just fill time slots—they redefined them. From family chaos to workplace antics to magical realism on a Brooklyn brownstone stoop, these shows shifted television culture. They shaped humor, reframed representation, and gave generations of viewers characters who felt like family.

For all the mythmaking rock musicians do, sometimes the drama writes itself. In the late 1960s, a model named Patti Boyd somehow became the gravitational center of two of the greatest guitarists of the century. George Harrison was her husband, Eric Clapton was his best friend, and somewhere in the middle sat a love story that was about to get loud. What followed was heartbreak, obsession, hopeless longing—and “Layla”, one of rock’s most explosive masterpieces.

For decades, television treated mental illness like a twist, a joke, or a temporary crisis conveniently resolved before the credits rolled. Then something shifted. Writers stopped glossing over the mess and started showing the parts of mental health that are slow, uncomfortable, and often painfully human.

Christine McVie’s departure from Fleetwood Mac in 1998 didn’t feel like just another band shake-up. It hit like a soft heartbreak—the kind that sneaks up on you years later when a familiar song plays on the radio. She wasn’t the flashiest member, nor the most mythologized, but she was the band’s heartbeat. And when she walked away, many fans assumed the pulse had faded for good. They were wrong. This is the unlikely, long-delayed, thoroughly satisfying tale of one of rock’s gentlest comebacks.