Duncan Greive: Empire injects hip hop into 80s dynasty genre

Terrence Howard and Taraji P Henson star in Empire on Tuesday's TV2.

The past decade or so has come to be known as the "golden age" of television - an era in which the form, at its creative peak, has replaced the novel as the place where popular cultural importance meets intellectual aspiration.

It's a cliche, but it's also undeniable that shows like Mad Men and The Wire have felt like the most potent commentary on our time.

But where once those truly exceptional novelistic shows could be counted on the fingers of one or maybe two hands, lately there's been a surfeit, with Sky's SoHo, and online providers like Lightbox, Netflix and Neon over-stuffed with moodily lit hour-long dramas, mostly united by a tortured, taciturn, brilliant male protagonist.

Empire, currently screening Tuesdays on TV2, retains the difficult, brilliant male protagonist, but Lucious Lyon is anything but taciturn. He's a CEO and ex-rapper, so his currency is well-chosen words, not brooding silences.

He's also black, flashy, comparatively young and certainly not tortured. If anything he relishes how uncomfortably his opinions Empire juggernaut proves lazy assumptions wrong are received, and the near limitless extent of his power.

Lyon, played with smooth menace by Terrence Howard, is head of Empire Entertainment, a vast fictional record company on the verge of a sharemarket listing.

It's a family business, despite its scale, with his three sons growing up and attempting to figure out their roles in the family, the business and the world.

There's Hakeem, an impetuous, talented but lazy rapper; Jamal, immensely talented as a writer and singer, but disdained by his father due to his homosexuality; and Andre, the company's smart, handsome, bi-polar CFO.

Add to them Cookie, played with electric charisma by Taraji P Henson, the children's mother, sharp as a tack and recently released from a 17-year stint in prison for the drug dealing which helped finance the company's early growth.

The kicker is that Lucious is suffering from a fatal degenerative disorder which demands he pick an heir.

The characters and plot are intentionally, soapily over-the-top, but in an appealingly knowing style. Where the golden age shows revel in murk and nuance, Empire feels fresh by reviving the kind of bullish ruthlessness of the 80s state-of-the-art drama, Dallas.

Like the Texan classic, Empire pivots around a single rich, powerful, deeply messed-up family. And the pacy machinations of the plot - murders, sex-for-political-favour, extortion - make it feel entirely composed of cliffhangers, and thus immensely moreish.

It's also not afraid to confront social issues. Jamal's sexuality is approached with a hard edge - Lucious essentially tells his son he'll be cut off and inevitably fail should he come out.

But, unlike most TV homophobes, the flawed-but-likeable Lucious is not simply a cartoon villain. Just an ageing man struggling to retain currency with a music and a culture which has accelerated past him while his back was turned.

But more than the plot and style, it's the ethnicity and culture which really sets the show apart. Despite being the dominant driver of pop music for three decades, hip-hop has never had any kind of dramatic television treatment.

That's despite the most familiar narrative - from grim rowhouses to immense riches - being over-ripe with possibilities. The argument from network execs in the US has never really been expressed publicly, but goes something along the lines of "white people won't watch it".

This despite white people consuming hip-hop voraciously since the day it was born. Happily, Empire has proven the lazily racist assumption wrong, becoming a ratings juggernaut in a way only the big reality TV franchises approach.

This has given them a second season, with bigger budgets, and a queue for guest-spots. Here's hoping fame doesn't change Empire - corny dialogue, hokey plotlines and all - because this family saga is the most entertaining new drama of the year.

* What do you think of Empire? Post your comments below.