RALEIGH – We’ve had two exhausting weeks of political drama in North Carolina. One featured a long, contentious debate about an issue of great public importance, culminating in a majority-line vote that left the outvoted minority insulting, threatening, and committing acts of vandalism against the elected officials in the majority.

The other drama surrounded the House Democrats enacting ObamaCare.

What was the first drama? The Wake County school board’s vote to end forced busing, naturally.

There’ll be plenty of time to continue debating student assignment policies and health care reform. Neither matter has, in fact, been settled. In both cases, elected majorities have enacted their policies but it will take months for officials to issue the specific plans and regulations required to implement those policies. There may also be litigation in both cases, as well as opportunities for disgruntled voters to elected different representatives to revisit the issues in the coming years.

For today, then, let’s declare a politics-free zone and ponder another trend that affects most of us in one way or the other: the twilight of the scripted drama on network television.

While some viewers continue to insist that the medium’s greatest years lay far in the past, when there were only three networks and fewer entertainment choices apart from broadcast TV, I submit it is objectively true that the past few years have produced an unprecedented outpouring of television excellence, particularly in the form of scripted drama.

Including thrillers such as 24, sci-fi sagas such as Lost, period pieces such as Mad Men, and a host of police procedurals, gangster shows, and provocative content on pay networks, the scripted drama has reached heights of quality and daring that could only be dreamed of in past eras of Mannix, To Catch A Thief, or Fantasy Island. While past shows often had intriguing situations and compelling characters, they rarely were allowed to sustain the complex story arcs, explore the controversial subjects, or create the real suspense that today’s shows routinely exhibit.

The older shows often had great episodes. The newer shows have had great seasons.

But there is reason to believe that this Golden Age of TV drama may be coming to a close. Several of the best shows have ended or will soon end their runs this year. Replacement dramas have yet to show the same promise, and all too often scripted dramas on major networks are being replaced with lower-cost reality shows that aim for the lowest-common denominator.

I’m hardly a reality-TV scold. I’ve enjoyed American Idol since the first season, and I count Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance among my top viewing choices during its summer and fall runs. In a former life I judged a lot of song and dance auditions, so I really just can’t help but dig these programs. But I also value scripted dramas of high quality, shows that require some concentration and contemplation to appreciate. I’m thinking of shows like Lost, which is ending its five-year run in epic style with explorations of such issues as human free will and the nature of evil, and 24, which revolutionized the presentation of suspense on television.

Pay channels will continue to produce good content, albeit often with more gratuitous obscenity than is necessary to service the plot. But as media-consumption patterns change, the economics of producing scripted drama for a mass audience are becoming harder to fathom and master.

I hope that a combination of DVD sales, product placement, merchandising, and supplemental webisodes can sustain the production of new programming to replace the shows taking their final bows. The likes of Superninny and The Accomplice are not my ideas of a good time.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation