Mike Fazioli If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. If you took the evolution drawing showing the progress from ape to man and replaced it with televisions, it would be a long line of large, heavy monkeys for about 60 years, and then a very rapid transformation to the slim, upright human that is today’s Smart TV. Even that plasma TV you owned a mere dozen years ago would be a hairy knuckledragger.