We are in a new era of television. One only needs to look at the weekly lineups of MTV or VH1 to see this. With shows like “Mario Lopez: Saved By the Baby” and “Jersey Shore,” it’s clear that something has changed. Gone are the days of “Charles in Charge” and “Dynasty,” and in their stead has dawned the age of reality TV.

But that’s not all that modern television has to offer, and reality TV isn’t all that evil, as it’s so often made out to be. This new age is not really a hell at all. In fact, some may argue we are in a new Golden Age of television.

With such a huge diversity of television programming today, there is now something for everyone. It is a time when the viewer reigns supreme as the one who dictates the shows that are created. And as much as viewers would like to put down reality TV as being of a lower quality, there is something in that lower quality that is undeniably entertaining.

Binghamton University professor Ryan Vaughan, who currently teaches Television in American Culture, offered his insights on the subject of reality TV.

“Viewers watch for one of two reasons: Either to say, ‘I wish I was them,’ or to say, ‘I pity that person,'” Vaughan said.

It may seem negative to watch for fantasy or out of a desire to judge these people as lower than us, but isn’t that really what all of us do? We enjoy the escape, and it provides mindless entertainment. Sometimes that’s all we need.

There are rarely better occasions for a nice episode of “Teen Mom” (or one of the rare reruns of “Room Raiders”) than coming back from class and turning on the TV after a stressful day. Many love to watch “real” people in such emotional peril.

Reality TV may indeed be a lower art form, but when it comes to pleasing an audience, few forms of entertainment can do better.

Syracuse University professor Robert Thompson, who is the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse and trustee professor of television and popular culture at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, explained the public interest in reality TV.

“When it’s done well, even stupid reality TV can be compelling TV. ‘Jersey Shore,’ for example, is a pleasure to watch,” Thompson said.

While many people get their fill of mindless fun from reality shows, modern television has also hit new levels of writing, directing and acting with recent ventures into drama, going as far back as “The Sopranos” or “The Wire,” and even in more recent shows like “Boardwalk Empire,” “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.”

TV dramas have never before provided the public with such a cinematic approach.

“The best of TV drama is now better than film drama,” Thompson said. “We are provided with such fully realized characters and such psychological depth. These are shows that force us to think, as they provide us with new insights on our world. They push the envelope of what it means to be a half-hour or hour-long television show.”

This dynamic, the combination of the less intellectual reality TV and the higher-art TV drama, is precisely what has made up so many previous golden ages. It seems to be the necessary qualification for what creates a media renaissance.

Looking back to the films of the 1970s, we find a similar landscape.

Exploitation films were being churned out by the dozen, with films like “Blacula” and “Vanishing Point.” They weren’t trying to be critical masterpieces; they were merely trying to give the audience what it wanted to see and provide an entertaining escape.

And since there is a viewership being provided with mindless entertainment from time to time, it allows for people to experiment with the medium itself. In the 1970s, as with the drama of today, it was possible to push the boundaries with films like “The Godfather” and “Dog Day Afternoon.”

We live in an era with reality TV at the forefront, and there’s seemingly no end in sight to this relatively young genre. But with such brilliantly crafted dramas airing with them, side by side, it becomes clear that television does need both of them — the lower art of pure entertainment in unison with creative and intelligent masterpieces of drama. For us to be able to live in an era with such a diversity of programming is an incredible thing. The boundaries of media have been pushed further once again.