I haven't watched ER regularly in quite a while. In fact I haven't watched ER at all since the season when they killed Mark Greene off. Let's see, that would be around the 2001-02 season. Oh wait I take that back; the last episode I watched was the one that crossed over with Third Watch but only because I was watching Third Watch a lot that year and wanted to see the complete story. Suffice it to say then that I haven't watched the show in a while. It used to be must see TV for me (yeah I know that's a commercial tag line but it doesn't make it any less valid) but increasingly it became less about medicine with the private lives of the doctors taking a back seat. That's what made some episodes that focussed on the doctors - like the one where Doug Ross and Mark Greene drive to San Diego to visit Mark's parents - special. By the time I decided that I didn't care about the show enough to even watch the tapes that I'd made the show had become about the doctors rather than the doctoring.
Still, I decided to tape last night's show (or as it turned out tape most of it - the tape ran out before the end of the episode) for a couple of reasons. First, Cynthia Nixon was in the episode and I have been in lust with her since the first time she took her clothes of in Sex and the City. Secondly the description of the episode made it sound as if the show was actually going to try something edgy by having the episode seen through the eyes of a patient with a massive stroke. ER used to do edgy really well. There was the "live" episode, and there was the episode that showed us the last days of Mark Greene. This episode wasn't what I expected, or wanted. The parts with Cynthia Nixon were excellent. They brilliantly captured the confusion, the panic and the various stages of grief that a patient who has suffered a sudden unexpected medical trauma through the use of voice-overs by Nixon's character "Ellie". (I particularly liked Ellie immediately falling into a state of lust over Goran Visnjic's "Luka"). The problem was that Ellie's story wasn't the whole episode, and her perspective wasn't even used for the whole episode. Instead you had the apparently continuing storyline of the resident who is also a major jerk and proves it by assuming that a patient innocently caught up in a protest that turned violent is in fact a drugged out looter, and another storyline about three kids - one of whom has been injured - and the secret they're keeping. And there were relationships! By the gods there were relationships: Abby's, Luka's, Carter's. In fact the only reason that Carter seemed to be in the episode was apparently to have his current relationship turn to crap.
The thing is that a lot of this stuff didn't have to be sacrificed to tell the whole episode from Ellie's point of view. If they had to have these other plots they could have been presented from Ellie's perspective, with or without here comments on the situation. It's not as if it hasn't been done before. In the seventh season of M*A*S*H there was an episode called "Point of View" in which everything, from the time the soldier was wounded through his being brought to the 4077th to his eventual departure to an Evac hospital was literally seen through the soldier's eyes. In that half hour they didn't restrict other actions. There was the same byplay between regular characters, and the same sort of medical emergencies that typified the series normally. The difference was that it was all seen through the eyes of the wounded soldier. It was good television and the memory of that episode and that sort of risk taking is what makes last night's episode of ER so disappointing. Not only did they steal the idea but the execution wasn't as daring as the original. Too bad.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Thoughts For An Afternoon Before Survivor
Do you remember the first person that you had sex with? You probably do, and not just the person but all the sticky, sweaty, frequently inept details. How about the second? You probably remember this one too, although a more of the details may escape you. Now how about the third. The fifth? The ninth? Unless they were spectacularly memorable or recent the details are probably increasingly foggy. That's how I've come to feel about Survivor.
The first time really was the best and most memorable. Back then no one knew how to play the game except Richard Hatch. He was the guy who took a look at the show logo and figured that to "outlast" you didn't necessarily need to "outplay" but you did need to "outwit" and the best way to outwit people was to put together an alliance when none of the other people had one. None of the others worked that one out and it gave him an advantage. Most of them thought the show really was about surviving in the wilderness and were picked off by Richard's group one by one and didn't even know what was happening. The people and events were memorable too. Who can forget pretty but doomed Colleen Haskell, Sue Hawk's "snakes and rats" speech at the final Tribal Council, and of course the opinionated but lovable old Navy Chief Rudy Boesch whose homophobia was overcome by the fact that he got along well with the gay guy. Newspapers ran weekly columns about the show - although that happened more in the second season - and it was water cooler conversation after every episode. There were Survivor themed parties on finale night, which apparently was enough for the network to include a reunion show that meant that Survivorwas featured for an entire night. That's what made the first series of Survivor the big hit that it wasn't supposed to be (if you can believe it Big Brother was supposed to be the big show that summer; instead it ended up dropping the viewer phone-in aspect for picking who got eliminated and adopting the players voting each other out method that survivor had). It got all of the players guest shots on prime time TV shows, and turned Survivor from a summer replacement into a weekly September through May series.
The second Survivor had it's moments. I can't forget Kel Gleason - at the time an Army intelligence officer and the closest thing to a Canadian ever to appear on a major network reality show - being accused of having a non-existent secret stash of beef jerky and being booted because of it. (Just as a follow-up Gleason left the US Army soon after the end of the show and moved back to Canada where his parents live. In 2002 Gleason was stabbed repeatedly with a broken bottle in a Toronto bar for being "that Indian on Survivor." He was badly injured but lived.) There the guy who fell into the fire, Keith Famie, the chef who couldn't cook rice,and Elizabeth Filarski, who parlayed her time on Survivor into a full-time TV career as one of the hosts of The View. The winner was Tina Wesson who won because Colby Donaldson - who dominated the individual competitions, picked the well-liked Wesson for the final Tribal Council over the poorly liked Famie.
The biggest thing that I remember about the second Survivor and the ones that followed it is that now everyone understood how the game was played - or thought they did - and proceeded with varying degrees of ability to lie, backstab and talk behind each others backs. There have been memorable incidents and people, like Rupert Boneham and "Johnny Fairplay" in the Pearl Islands season, or the girls who went topless for chocolate and peanut butter in the Amazon. In the Amazon series we learned that not only didn't you have to be a rocket scientist to be on the show, but being a rocket scientist was actually a detriment. To tell you the truth though, I have a hard time remembering who won the show last season (his name was Chris and he worked on a road crew and I swear that most of the people on the jury would have voted "none of the above" if they had an option). I'll still watch every episode of this season's Survivor and enjoy it but I think that for me and for most people it's going to be entertainment rather than a must see event.
The first time really was the best and most memorable. Back then no one knew how to play the game except Richard Hatch. He was the guy who took a look at the show logo and figured that to "outlast" you didn't necessarily need to "outplay" but you did need to "outwit" and the best way to outwit people was to put together an alliance when none of the other people had one. None of the others worked that one out and it gave him an advantage. Most of them thought the show really was about surviving in the wilderness and were picked off by Richard's group one by one and didn't even know what was happening. The people and events were memorable too. Who can forget pretty but doomed Colleen Haskell, Sue Hawk's "snakes and rats" speech at the final Tribal Council, and of course the opinionated but lovable old Navy Chief Rudy Boesch whose homophobia was overcome by the fact that he got along well with the gay guy. Newspapers ran weekly columns about the show - although that happened more in the second season - and it was water cooler conversation after every episode. There were Survivor themed parties on finale night, which apparently was enough for the network to include a reunion show that meant that Survivorwas featured for an entire night. That's what made the first series of Survivor the big hit that it wasn't supposed to be (if you can believe it Big Brother was supposed to be the big show that summer; instead it ended up dropping the viewer phone-in aspect for picking who got eliminated and adopting the players voting each other out method that survivor had). It got all of the players guest shots on prime time TV shows, and turned Survivor from a summer replacement into a weekly September through May series.
The second Survivor had it's moments. I can't forget Kel Gleason - at the time an Army intelligence officer and the closest thing to a Canadian ever to appear on a major network reality show - being accused of having a non-existent secret stash of beef jerky and being booted because of it. (Just as a follow-up Gleason left the US Army soon after the end of the show and moved back to Canada where his parents live. In 2002 Gleason was stabbed repeatedly with a broken bottle in a Toronto bar for being "that Indian on Survivor." He was badly injured but lived.) There the guy who fell into the fire, Keith Famie, the chef who couldn't cook rice,and Elizabeth Filarski, who parlayed her time on Survivor into a full-time TV career as one of the hosts of The View. The winner was Tina Wesson who won because Colby Donaldson - who dominated the individual competitions, picked the well-liked Wesson for the final Tribal Council over the poorly liked Famie.
The biggest thing that I remember about the second Survivor and the ones that followed it is that now everyone understood how the game was played - or thought they did - and proceeded with varying degrees of ability to lie, backstab and talk behind each others backs. There have been memorable incidents and people, like Rupert Boneham and "Johnny Fairplay" in the Pearl Islands season, or the girls who went topless for chocolate and peanut butter in the Amazon. In the Amazon series we learned that not only didn't you have to be a rocket scientist to be on the show, but being a rocket scientist was actually a detriment. To tell you the truth though, I have a hard time remembering who won the show last season (his name was Chris and he worked on a road crew and I swear that most of the people on the jury would have voted "none of the above" if they had an option). I'll still watch every episode of this season's Survivor and enjoy it but I think that for me and for most people it's going to be entertainment rather than a must see event.
The West Wing - February 16
I mentioned in an earlier post that this season of The West Wing has split its focus between the last days of the Bartlet presidency and the campaign to replace Bartlet. Last week's episode was a "White House" episode while tonight's episode was a "Campaign" episode. While I don't intend to describe one type of episode as better than the other, I do think that the campaign episodes tend to illustrate what viewers liked about the show initially.
At one point Aaron Sorkin apparently said that the Bartlet administration was meant to represent an idealised version of the Presidency. I even recall that he - or someone associated with the show - was more specific and said that The West Wing was meant to depict what the Clinton presidency should have been. The campaign episodes seem to be an effort to get back to this sort of view. It seems clear that in the depiction of the Santos campaigns what we're seeing is the sort of political campaign that people want (or at least say they want until they don't vote for politicians who try to run that sort of campaign).
In Wednesday's episode, Josh Lyman is desperately trying to get his candidate noticed. His problem is that he doesn't have the money to compete against the advertising dollars that the two leading candidates, former Vice President John Hoynes (who resigned his office in disgrace) and current Vice President "Bingo" Bob Russell, have. The crisis point is that the New Hampshire newspaper that is sponsoring the final debate before the primary day only wants the two leading candidates not all "seven dwarfs" (a phrase coined by Amy Gardner, Josh's ex-girlfriend, which refers to all of the Democratic candidates including Hoynes and Russell although neither of them thinks the phrase refers to them). Josh wants to do everything he can to get his man into the debates including court challenges and sending two guys in chicken suits to campaign stops of the two major candidates asking why they won't debate; in short he wants to play politics as usual. Santos doesn't want a court case, doesn't want guys in chicken suits, doesn't want debates that are merely beauty contests and opportunities for the big candidates to spout their selected sound bites, and if he loses then at least he did it his way. Meanwhile we are treated to some of the campaign ads that Russell and Hoynes are throwing at each other. Instead talking about policy they are attacking each others supposed record, trying to show who is less suitable to be president. Following the Russell campaign, which is after all being run by regular cast members Will Bailey and Donna Moss we see politics as usual, the candidate doing all of the expected things and telling - and retelling to the next audience - all the same jokes that other candidates have used over the years.
Things come to a head when Josh unveils the ad that he wants to use to resurrect the campaign; an attack ad using the chicken motif and asking why the leading candidates didn't want to debate the five candidates who are described as having no chance, including Santos. Santos refuses to approve it. After some discussion with one of his aides about the meaning of the "Presidential voice" Santos decides to go to he one TV station that they were able to buy time on and do a one minute live ad explaining exactly why he's running and promising that as long as he's in the campaign he'll never use a negative ad and will always be honest about his positions. By the time they get back to their campaign headquarters the phones are ringing off the hook with campaign contributors, the media is asking Santos all of the pertinent questions, and an alternate debate that Josh had set up as a ploy to get Hoynes and Russell to let the minor candidates into the big show (and which no one, even the minor candidates wanted to be part of) suddenly has all six of the other candidates falling over themselves to get in, even if it does use Santos's rules.
The episode has some references to a couple of real incidents. The fight over who would be invited to the debates refers to the 1980 incident where the Nashua Telegraph set up a debate between George Bush and Ronald Reagan. Bob Dole complained to the Federal Elections Commission, claiming that this constituted an illegal campaign contribution (just as Josh wanted to do in this episode) and the Commission agreed. Reagan then offered to pay for the debates himself and invited the other candidates to attend. When they arrived at the hall they found Bush, a table and two chairs, and Bush's campaign chief, James Baker, said that unless the other candidates left Bush would not debate. When the crowd started reacting to the attempts to remove the other candidates, Reagan tried to explain only to have an editor from the Telegraph tell the sound man to turn off Reagan's microphone, which led to Reagan's outburst: "I'm paying for this microphone."
The other incident relates to the title of the episode, "Freedonia". In the episode Josh tells Santos of an incident in a New Jersey Senate campaign in which a candidate was asked to comment about some incident in Freedonia and the candidate did. The next day there was nothing in the press about what the candidate had said. This probably refers to an incident in the 2000 when Canadian satirist Rick Mercer asked candidate George W. Bush to comment on an endorsement given to him by Canada's Prime Minister Poutine. Bush said that he was happy to hear about the endorsement. Of course the Prime Minister of Canada was not Mr. Poutine - "Poutine" is a popular food item popular in Quebec consisting of French Fries topped with cheese curds and gravy - but while Bush's not knowing who the Prime Minister of Canada was got lots of play in the Canadian media, it was barely acknowledged in the United States.
The whole thing is an idealised vision of reality of course. People say they want candidates who talk about the issues. They say they want candidates who don't use negative campaigning. They say that they want smart, well informed candidates. They say that they want campaigns that aren't won by the guys with the most money in their war chest. They say they want real debates not shows designed to generate sound bites that can be spun to make a candidate look good. But, look at who they vote for. The West Wing is providing an idealised vision of a campaign where people will vote for candidates who are straight shooters, who speak their minds and are partners with their handlers not products packaged by them who at the end of the election ask, as Robert Redford's character in The Candidate asked "What do we do now?"
At one point Aaron Sorkin apparently said that the Bartlet administration was meant to represent an idealised version of the Presidency. I even recall that he - or someone associated with the show - was more specific and said that The West Wing was meant to depict what the Clinton presidency should have been. The campaign episodes seem to be an effort to get back to this sort of view. It seems clear that in the depiction of the Santos campaigns what we're seeing is the sort of political campaign that people want (or at least say they want until they don't vote for politicians who try to run that sort of campaign).
In Wednesday's episode, Josh Lyman is desperately trying to get his candidate noticed. His problem is that he doesn't have the money to compete against the advertising dollars that the two leading candidates, former Vice President John Hoynes (who resigned his office in disgrace) and current Vice President "Bingo" Bob Russell, have. The crisis point is that the New Hampshire newspaper that is sponsoring the final debate before the primary day only wants the two leading candidates not all "seven dwarfs" (a phrase coined by Amy Gardner, Josh's ex-girlfriend, which refers to all of the Democratic candidates including Hoynes and Russell although neither of them thinks the phrase refers to them). Josh wants to do everything he can to get his man into the debates including court challenges and sending two guys in chicken suits to campaign stops of the two major candidates asking why they won't debate; in short he wants to play politics as usual. Santos doesn't want a court case, doesn't want guys in chicken suits, doesn't want debates that are merely beauty contests and opportunities for the big candidates to spout their selected sound bites, and if he loses then at least he did it his way. Meanwhile we are treated to some of the campaign ads that Russell and Hoynes are throwing at each other. Instead talking about policy they are attacking each others supposed record, trying to show who is less suitable to be president. Following the Russell campaign, which is after all being run by regular cast members Will Bailey and Donna Moss we see politics as usual, the candidate doing all of the expected things and telling - and retelling to the next audience - all the same jokes that other candidates have used over the years.
Things come to a head when Josh unveils the ad that he wants to use to resurrect the campaign; an attack ad using the chicken motif and asking why the leading candidates didn't want to debate the five candidates who are described as having no chance, including Santos. Santos refuses to approve it. After some discussion with one of his aides about the meaning of the "Presidential voice" Santos decides to go to he one TV station that they were able to buy time on and do a one minute live ad explaining exactly why he's running and promising that as long as he's in the campaign he'll never use a negative ad and will always be honest about his positions. By the time they get back to their campaign headquarters the phones are ringing off the hook with campaign contributors, the media is asking Santos all of the pertinent questions, and an alternate debate that Josh had set up as a ploy to get Hoynes and Russell to let the minor candidates into the big show (and which no one, even the minor candidates wanted to be part of) suddenly has all six of the other candidates falling over themselves to get in, even if it does use Santos's rules.
The episode has some references to a couple of real incidents. The fight over who would be invited to the debates refers to the 1980 incident where the Nashua Telegraph set up a debate between George Bush and Ronald Reagan. Bob Dole complained to the Federal Elections Commission, claiming that this constituted an illegal campaign contribution (just as Josh wanted to do in this episode) and the Commission agreed. Reagan then offered to pay for the debates himself and invited the other candidates to attend. When they arrived at the hall they found Bush, a table and two chairs, and Bush's campaign chief, James Baker, said that unless the other candidates left Bush would not debate. When the crowd started reacting to the attempts to remove the other candidates, Reagan tried to explain only to have an editor from the Telegraph tell the sound man to turn off Reagan's microphone, which led to Reagan's outburst: "I'm paying for this microphone."
The other incident relates to the title of the episode, "Freedonia". In the episode Josh tells Santos of an incident in a New Jersey Senate campaign in which a candidate was asked to comment about some incident in Freedonia and the candidate did. The next day there was nothing in the press about what the candidate had said. This probably refers to an incident in the 2000 when Canadian satirist Rick Mercer asked candidate George W. Bush to comment on an endorsement given to him by Canada's Prime Minister Poutine. Bush said that he was happy to hear about the endorsement. Of course the Prime Minister of Canada was not Mr. Poutine - "Poutine" is a popular food item popular in Quebec consisting of French Fries topped with cheese curds and gravy - but while Bush's not knowing who the Prime Minister of Canada was got lots of play in the Canadian media, it was barely acknowledged in the United States.
The whole thing is an idealised vision of reality of course. People say they want candidates who talk about the issues. They say they want candidates who don't use negative campaigning. They say that they want smart, well informed candidates. They say that they want campaigns that aren't won by the guys with the most money in their war chest. They say they want real debates not shows designed to generate sound bites that can be spun to make a candidate look good. But, look at who they vote for. The West Wing is providing an idealised vision of a campaign where people will vote for candidates who are straight shooters, who speak their minds and are partners with their handlers not products packaged by them who at the end of the election ask, as Robert Redford's character in The Candidate asked "What do we do now?"
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Remarkably Unremarkable
Most new TV shows get cancelled within their first year. A few TV shows get critical acclaim, awards, and run as long as the producers and actors feel like sticking around. Then there are shows that go about their business in a quiet unassuming manner and just last. NCIS is one of those. In its second season the show has been first or second in it's time 7 p.m. CST time slot and it has usually taken something big - like baseball playoffs or American Idol - to move it out of first place. The show normally has a rating of between 10 and 11 and an average share of 15. It does less well in the key 18-49 year old demographic but usually finishes second and occassionally first.
What makes NCIS enough of a favourite to draw such numbers? The biggest factor is that it's produced by Donald Bellisario. While Bellisario has had some missteps (does anyone remember Tequilla and Bonetti because I sure don't) he has a good track-record for produces solid interesting shows. He was the man behind Magnum P.I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap and of coure JAG. Even his failures, like Tales of the Gold Monkey and First Monday are usually interesting and watchable. The next element is a recognisable lead player in Mark Harmon, playing Agent Gibbs. He's been around as a leading man since the early 1980s and is a reasonably good actor. The subject matter is at once familiar and slightly exotic. It's basically a cop show, but in this case the cops work for the Navy and get involved in story lines that go beyond ordinary cop stuff. The real NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service has responsibilities that include but aren't limited to investigating crimes, providing security for naval instalations and personel and both counter-terrorism and anti-terrorism. With this as base material, there are a lot of directions that the show can go in.
The supporting cast of any show is important. As is frequently the case in a show produced by Bellisario, the supporting cast of NCIS is full of quirky characters. The main supporting characters are the investigators who work with Gibbs: Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander), and Tim McGee (Sean Murray). While each is a solid investigator they byplay between them injects a cetain amount of humour into the episodes. Rounding out the main cast are Coroner Donald "Ducky" Mallard and forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. If anything these characters are walking quirks. Ducky, played by David McCallum, is the only person to use Gibbs' middle name, Jethro. (Bellisario seems to have a thing about the name Jethro; on JAG Admiral A.J. Chegwidden was Albert Jethro, while Gibbs is Leroy Jethro.) Everyone else calls him "Boss" or "Gibbs". As for Abby, played by Pauly Perrette, what can one say about a forensic investigator who is also a Goth Chick with a caffiene addiction who sleeps in a coffin and has a spider web tatto on her neck. The show is worth watching just to see her. (I admit it, she's my favourite character in the show.)
Finally there's the writing. It's probably never going to win an Emmy, but the storylines have their own sort of richness and the writers know the regular characters they're writing about. Inevitably the plots have subte twists that are difficult to aniticpate. Just occassionally they hit a home run. The episode "Call of Silence" starring Charles Durning is a touching portrait of an elderly man mixed with an old and perplexing mystery. Charles Durning turns in a great performance as the elderly Medal of Honour winner which should receive an Emmy nomination but probably won't.
NCIS is one of those shows is one of those shows that is just going to tick along in it's own quiet way, charming the people who watch it, while it's popularity will continue to mystify those who don't. If you give it the time - and it doesn't necessarily take a long time - you can get hooked by it's charm.
What makes NCIS enough of a favourite to draw such numbers? The biggest factor is that it's produced by Donald Bellisario. While Bellisario has had some missteps (does anyone remember Tequilla and Bonetti because I sure don't) he has a good track-record for produces solid interesting shows. He was the man behind Magnum P.I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap and of coure JAG. Even his failures, like Tales of the Gold Monkey and First Monday are usually interesting and watchable. The next element is a recognisable lead player in Mark Harmon, playing Agent Gibbs. He's been around as a leading man since the early 1980s and is a reasonably good actor. The subject matter is at once familiar and slightly exotic. It's basically a cop show, but in this case the cops work for the Navy and get involved in story lines that go beyond ordinary cop stuff. The real NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service has responsibilities that include but aren't limited to investigating crimes, providing security for naval instalations and personel and both counter-terrorism and anti-terrorism. With this as base material, there are a lot of directions that the show can go in.
The supporting cast of any show is important. As is frequently the case in a show produced by Bellisario, the supporting cast of NCIS is full of quirky characters. The main supporting characters are the investigators who work with Gibbs: Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander), and Tim McGee (Sean Murray). While each is a solid investigator they byplay between them injects a cetain amount of humour into the episodes. Rounding out the main cast are Coroner Donald "Ducky" Mallard and forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. If anything these characters are walking quirks. Ducky, played by David McCallum, is the only person to use Gibbs' middle name, Jethro. (Bellisario seems to have a thing about the name Jethro; on JAG Admiral A.J. Chegwidden was Albert Jethro, while Gibbs is Leroy Jethro.) Everyone else calls him "Boss" or "Gibbs". As for Abby, played by Pauly Perrette, what can one say about a forensic investigator who is also a Goth Chick with a caffiene addiction who sleeps in a coffin and has a spider web tatto on her neck. The show is worth watching just to see her. (I admit it, she's my favourite character in the show.)
Finally there's the writing. It's probably never going to win an Emmy, but the storylines have their own sort of richness and the writers know the regular characters they're writing about. Inevitably the plots have subte twists that are difficult to aniticpate. Just occassionally they hit a home run. The episode "Call of Silence" starring Charles Durning is a touching portrait of an elderly man mixed with an old and perplexing mystery. Charles Durning turns in a great performance as the elderly Medal of Honour winner which should receive an Emmy nomination but probably won't.
NCIS is one of those shows is one of those shows that is just going to tick along in it's own quiet way, charming the people who watch it, while it's popularity will continue to mystify those who don't. If you give it the time - and it doesn't necessarily take a long time - you can get hooked by it's charm.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Whatever Happened To? (#1 of a series)
Whatever happened to the half hour drama? The last producer to really use the half-hour drama as a form was probably Jack Webb and even he abandoned it eventually. Webb produced the half hour Adam-12 with Kent McCord and Martin Milner which ran until 1975 (and outlasted Lassie by a year), but when Web came to create his next series Emergency in 1972 it was in the hour long form. Since then there hasn't been a half hour long drama network series made for American television.
The half hour drama has a long and storied history. Most drama's in "old-time radio" were half-hour programs. For a radio program to last an hour it had to be special, usually a play created specifically for radio or an adaptation of a theatrical movie on a show like the Lux Radio Theater but even that wasn't always the case. Some daily serials in the "Golden Age of Radio" like The Adventures of Superman and the last incarnations of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar were as short as fifteen minutes long - with commercials. Just about every other show - comedy, drama, anthology or variety program - was a half hour long.
Most of these conventions survived into the first decade of television. Variety shows got longer, but they were providing a wide range of entertainment, and the stars usually welcomed the additional time. But most of the shows were a half hour in length. The prime time schedule (at the time 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern) for the three US networks 1956 - the year I was born - shows 28 hour or longer programs, and 81 half hour shows (plus an assortment of shows at odd lengths). Of the long form (one hour and longer) series, 12 were variety shows, 12 were anthologies 2 were sports shows, 1 was a movie. One, Wire Service was a drama with a continuing cast of characters. Among the half hour dramas were Dragnet, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon and The Adventures of Jim Bowie. Ten years later, in 1966 (when prime time most nights ran from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern), there were 47 shows of one hour or longer, and 44 half hour shows of which only 8 could be classified as dramas (10 if you countBatman as a drama; I don't). What happened in those ten years?
I don't know. If you were to ask people why the half hour drama vanished, some would probably say that drama needs longer to develop suspense. Others would say that the extra time is need to develop complexity. Still others would say that dramas need larger casts and need more time to develop the relationships between people than situation comedies, where the relationships are usually clearly defined. Some of those arguments have validity, particularly the one about complexity. Still that suggests that the people who made television dramas to fill a half hour time slot were either doing something inferior or something simplistic. If you get a chance to see some of these shows - just as an example, there are several DVD collections of the original Dragnet (of varying quality) on the market - you would discover that producers who understood the form could do a lot with a half hour.
The half hour drama has a long and storied history. Most drama's in "old-time radio" were half-hour programs. For a radio program to last an hour it had to be special, usually a play created specifically for radio or an adaptation of a theatrical movie on a show like the Lux Radio Theater but even that wasn't always the case. Some daily serials in the "Golden Age of Radio" like The Adventures of Superman and the last incarnations of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar were as short as fifteen minutes long - with commercials. Just about every other show - comedy, drama, anthology or variety program - was a half hour long.
Most of these conventions survived into the first decade of television. Variety shows got longer, but they were providing a wide range of entertainment, and the stars usually welcomed the additional time. But most of the shows were a half hour in length. The prime time schedule (at the time 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern) for the three US networks 1956 - the year I was born - shows 28 hour or longer programs, and 81 half hour shows (plus an assortment of shows at odd lengths). Of the long form (one hour and longer) series, 12 were variety shows, 12 were anthologies 2 were sports shows, 1 was a movie. One, Wire Service was a drama with a continuing cast of characters. Among the half hour dramas were Dragnet, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon and The Adventures of Jim Bowie. Ten years later, in 1966 (when prime time most nights ran from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern), there were 47 shows of one hour or longer, and 44 half hour shows of which only 8 could be classified as dramas (10 if you countBatman as a drama; I don't). What happened in those ten years?
I don't know. If you were to ask people why the half hour drama vanished, some would probably say that drama needs longer to develop suspense. Others would say that the extra time is need to develop complexity. Still others would say that dramas need larger casts and need more time to develop the relationships between people than situation comedies, where the relationships are usually clearly defined. Some of those arguments have validity, particularly the one about complexity. Still that suggests that the people who made television dramas to fill a half hour time slot were either doing something inferior or something simplistic. If you get a chance to see some of these shows - just as an example, there are several DVD collections of the original Dragnet (of varying quality) on the market - you would discover that producers who understood the form could do a lot with a half hour.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
I have another confession to make: I'm not that hot on the Law & Order franchise shows. I don't think I've watched the original Law & Order on a regular basis since before Jill Hennessy left the show. If I see one or two episodes in a year I'm exceeding my usual contact with it. As for the spin-off Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, I can honestly tell you that I saw the pilot and that's it. And that's more episodes than I've seen of the summer reality series sometimes known as Law & Order: Crime & Punishment (which based on what I've read on IMDB probably shouldn't be included). Why then am I writing about Law & Order: Criminal Intent? Simple; I watch that one, and I watch it for one reason, Vincent D'Onofrio's performance as Detective Bobby Goren.
For me he is the show. Don't get me wrong the other regular performers on this show are excellent, particularly Kathryn Erbe as Goren's long suffering partner Detective Eames, but they all play supporting roles feeding into D'Onofrio. His detective Goren is by turns annoying, disturbing, and brilliant. There are little touches that he adds which make you realise that his sanity and his genius are held in a delicately balance. From time to time he stutters - not in a blatant "Porky Pig" style, but just as though he has a little difficulty getting his word out - that makes you think that his brain is racing too fast for his mouth to keep up. His mind is always poking into different areas. He's rarely physical but always active even when he's sitting down. As an interrogator he bores relentlessly at his target, as if it would be a personal affront if he didn't break him. When D'Onofrio is in a scene, and he's in a great many scenes, he dominates it.
Earlier I mentioned Kathryn Erbe's Detective Eames. She's essential to his functioning as a detective. She is friend, foil, doubter, and defender. She is Watson to his Holmes, and the anchor for his mania. Her practicality matches and meshes with his impracticality. In an odd way she even be considered Mindy to his Mork. She completes him.
Sunday night's episode introduced a new component into the mix in the form of Chris Noth's Detective Mike Logan. In November 2004 D'Onofrio fainted several times on the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. This led the gossip column of that bastion of the Raving Right (the Right Wing equivalent of the Loony Left, and yes I think both exist) the New York Post to claim that D'Onofrio's "illness" (their quotes) was a direct result of John Kerry's defeat in the 2004 election, that everyone on the set hated him, and that D'Onofrio was on the verge of being fired. (The Post article is available from their website if you are willing to pay for it. This site has the text of the article for free.) Subsequently it was found that D'Onofrio was suffering from exhaustion. It was reported by The Post in late November that Chris Noth would be replacing him permanently. In fact (as opposed to what The Post reported) it was announced that Noth's Mike Logan and D'Onofrio's Goren would alternate as leads in the show beginning with the show's fifth season. This would mark Noth's return to the franchise that he left ten years ago (in 1995). Each actor will do eleven episodes, not unlike the way that James Garner and Jack Kelly initially split the lead position on the original version of Maverick.
Based on his performance Sunday night, I suspect that episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent featuring Mike Logan won't perform as well in the ratings as the episodes with Bobby Goren. Chris Noth is an excellent actor but the Logan character is nowhere near as compelling as Goren. Even worse in my opinion would be any attempt to pair Logan with Eames. They don't complement each other in the way that Goren and Eames do - Logan doesn't "need" her to be an effective detective and won't be a better detective working with her. Hopefully they won't just write "Goren" scripts and stick Logan into them. They are two very different, established, characters and if they try doing something like that the series will suffer and this season's declining ratings (courtesy of Desperate Housewives) will worsen further.
As for me, I'll probably give the new entry in the Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Trial by Jury a try when it debuts on March 3, but I offer no guarantees that I'll watch it beyond the time I need to review it.
For me he is the show. Don't get me wrong the other regular performers on this show are excellent, particularly Kathryn Erbe as Goren's long suffering partner Detective Eames, but they all play supporting roles feeding into D'Onofrio. His detective Goren is by turns annoying, disturbing, and brilliant. There are little touches that he adds which make you realise that his sanity and his genius are held in a delicately balance. From time to time he stutters - not in a blatant "Porky Pig" style, but just as though he has a little difficulty getting his word out - that makes you think that his brain is racing too fast for his mouth to keep up. His mind is always poking into different areas. He's rarely physical but always active even when he's sitting down. As an interrogator he bores relentlessly at his target, as if it would be a personal affront if he didn't break him. When D'Onofrio is in a scene, and he's in a great many scenes, he dominates it.
Earlier I mentioned Kathryn Erbe's Detective Eames. She's essential to his functioning as a detective. She is friend, foil, doubter, and defender. She is Watson to his Holmes, and the anchor for his mania. Her practicality matches and meshes with his impracticality. In an odd way she even be considered Mindy to his Mork. She completes him.
Sunday night's episode introduced a new component into the mix in the form of Chris Noth's Detective Mike Logan. In November 2004 D'Onofrio fainted several times on the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. This led the gossip column of that bastion of the Raving Right (the Right Wing equivalent of the Loony Left, and yes I think both exist) the New York Post to claim that D'Onofrio's "illness" (their quotes) was a direct result of John Kerry's defeat in the 2004 election, that everyone on the set hated him, and that D'Onofrio was on the verge of being fired. (The Post article is available from their website if you are willing to pay for it. This site has the text of the article for free.) Subsequently it was found that D'Onofrio was suffering from exhaustion. It was reported by The Post in late November that Chris Noth would be replacing him permanently. In fact (as opposed to what The Post reported) it was announced that Noth's Mike Logan and D'Onofrio's Goren would alternate as leads in the show beginning with the show's fifth season. This would mark Noth's return to the franchise that he left ten years ago (in 1995). Each actor will do eleven episodes, not unlike the way that James Garner and Jack Kelly initially split the lead position on the original version of Maverick.
Based on his performance Sunday night, I suspect that episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent featuring Mike Logan won't perform as well in the ratings as the episodes with Bobby Goren. Chris Noth is an excellent actor but the Logan character is nowhere near as compelling as Goren. Even worse in my opinion would be any attempt to pair Logan with Eames. They don't complement each other in the way that Goren and Eames do - Logan doesn't "need" her to be an effective detective and won't be a better detective working with her. Hopefully they won't just write "Goren" scripts and stick Logan into them. They are two very different, established, characters and if they try doing something like that the series will suffer and this season's declining ratings (courtesy of Desperate Housewives) will worsen further.
As for me, I'll probably give the new entry in the Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Trial by Jury a try when it debuts on March 3, but I offer no guarantees that I'll watch it beyond the time I need to review it.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Galactica, Then And Now
I remember the original Battlestar Galactica and not without a certain fondness. It was on the whole awful but on the whole it was a good sort of awful. The whole show was full of stock characters and they were one dimensional characters at that (to be honest that is an insult to one dimensional characters everywhere). It was formulaic. Take one handsome heroic type (the Richard Hatch who didn't get naked on Survivor), mix in a lovable rogue with a heart of gold as a sidekick (Dirk Benedict who took much the same character over to The A-Team) and a great mass of patriarch (Lorne Greene of course, playing the sort of character that he had been typecast as and had come to despise). Kick in some women who act solely as love interests for the younger males (one for the steadfast hero, two for the rogue with a heart of gold) and some generic supporting characters who only exist so that the hero and the sidekick can look good. As a villain bring on a scenery chewing traitor (Lord Baltar played by John Colicos who in real life was one of Lorne Greene's closest friends) backed by a bunch of faceless minions. Mix well and top with a cute kid and dog (or in this case a robot dog). As for the writing, the less said about that the better. It was usually a set of stock plots guaranteed to get a lot of action and not draw too much attention to the one dimensional nature of the characters. You want examples? Try these: hero separated from the group forced to combat one or more of the enemy in strange circumstances and emerge victorious; rogue with heart of gold searches for his "real" father and finds someone who says he is but then reveals he isn't except of course he is but doesn't feel worthy of his son; hero or rogue gets accused of murder he didn't commit and has to rely on his best friend to help him escape custody and find the real killer; etcetera etcetera. As for special effects, well let's just say that they blew most of the effects budget in the three hour pilot movie and reused every bit of spaceship footage and explosion footage (and even footage of the Cylons in their spaceships) that they could. When needed they even cut in footage from other Universal productions. In one episode I recall them using firefighting scenes from The Towering Inferno. It was a typical product of Universal Television in the 1970s, memorable but mostly for the wrong reasons.
The less said about Galactica 1980 the better. Let's just say "invisible flying motorcycles" and "super-scouts" and leave it at that. Oh yeah, it starred Kent McCord. That should tell you everything you need to know.
You can understand from that diatribe that I was looking toward the revival of Battlestar Galactica but not necessarily because I was overly fond of the original. My theory was that they couldn't possibly make anything worse and I wanted to see how much better it could be. The answer is a lot better starting with the theme music. The original Battlestar Galactica theme by Stuart Phillips and Glenn Larson was symphonic and heroic, as fitted the times but not necessarily the subject matter, while the melancholic new theme music reinforces the notion that this is the story of a people defeated and on the run. The casting is far tighter since one of the problems the original series suffered from was cast bloat - too many characters with very little to do - and the result has been to develop other characters and give them more depth. Making Starbuck into a woman while retaining the rogue with a heart of gold aspect, has eliminated the need for romantic entanglement for the two lead characters, even if that aspect is never developed. Adama as interpreted by Edward James Olmos is far less patriarch and much more a military leader, while his chief aide, Colonel Tigh, actually has a character (a troubled one), which couldn't be said for the corresponding character in the original series. The heroic characters are given a more "warts and all" characterization; they aren't perfect, they have flaws and more importantly they have conflicts. Indeed the show is is far more oriented to the characters rather than the action.
As for the villains, the basic run of Cylons are character-free automatons, as they should be. They aren't being commanded (badly) by a human traitor like the original Lord Baltar and indeed we know nothing of why they do what they do. Instead of being the robotic creations of a lizard-like species (a fiction dictated by the network or the studio during one of the periods when TV violence was under attack - shooting a robot is not as "violent" as shooting a living creature) the Cylons were originally created as a robotic workforce for humanity which rebelled, warred against their creators then disappeared to their own worlds until evolution allowed them to return to destroy humanity. The villains are more than adequately represented by the various "Cylon moles" - Cylons who look like humans and may not even know what they are - who have motives most of which we can't fathom. There is a interesting exchange between two of the Cylons in human form: "We are Humanity's children. They are our parents in a sense." "True, but parents have to die eventually. It's the only way children come into their own." For the most part, so far at least, the Cylons are like Winston Churchill's description of the Soviet Union: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".
Which brings us to perhaps the most interesting creation in the new series: Dr. Gaius Baltar. Instead of being a conventional traitor willingly selling out humanity for personal gain as in the original series, the Baltar on the current show is an inadvertent traitor, seduced - literally - by the Cylons. Baltar has survived the Cylon attack through a combination of circumstances, but he's been left emotionally unstable. He's torn between guilt over what he's done and fear of being discovered leaving self-preservation as his one overriding priority. His instability is exacerbated by a presence that only he can see, his Cylon lover, known as Number 6. We, and Baltar, don't know what she is. Is she merely an expression of Baltar's psyche, or is she a Cylon projection into his mind which is guiding him. For that matter is Baltar a human or is he a Cylon who doesn't know that he's a Cylon - something that's not entirely impossible given that Baltar survived the shockwave from a nuclear blast that destroyed his home and killed one of the bodies of his Cylon lover - and the vision of Number 6 is merely his way of interpretation of the instructions that are being sent to him. Whatever the reality, it causes Baltar to seem to the viewer to be almost schizophrenic with major swings in mood and attitude. In a solid cast, James Callis's performance as Baltar stands out.
Battlestar Galactica is one of those rarities, a old show that has not only been successfully revived but has been significantly improved in the revival. Well worth the effort to find and see.
The less said about Galactica 1980 the better. Let's just say "invisible flying motorcycles" and "super-scouts" and leave it at that. Oh yeah, it starred Kent McCord. That should tell you everything you need to know.
You can understand from that diatribe that I was looking toward the revival of Battlestar Galactica but not necessarily because I was overly fond of the original. My theory was that they couldn't possibly make anything worse and I wanted to see how much better it could be. The answer is a lot better starting with the theme music. The original Battlestar Galactica theme by Stuart Phillips and Glenn Larson was symphonic and heroic, as fitted the times but not necessarily the subject matter, while the melancholic new theme music reinforces the notion that this is the story of a people defeated and on the run. The casting is far tighter since one of the problems the original series suffered from was cast bloat - too many characters with very little to do - and the result has been to develop other characters and give them more depth. Making Starbuck into a woman while retaining the rogue with a heart of gold aspect, has eliminated the need for romantic entanglement for the two lead characters, even if that aspect is never developed. Adama as interpreted by Edward James Olmos is far less patriarch and much more a military leader, while his chief aide, Colonel Tigh, actually has a character (a troubled one), which couldn't be said for the corresponding character in the original series. The heroic characters are given a more "warts and all" characterization; they aren't perfect, they have flaws and more importantly they have conflicts. Indeed the show is is far more oriented to the characters rather than the action.
As for the villains, the basic run of Cylons are character-free automatons, as they should be. They aren't being commanded (badly) by a human traitor like the original Lord Baltar and indeed we know nothing of why they do what they do. Instead of being the robotic creations of a lizard-like species (a fiction dictated by the network or the studio during one of the periods when TV violence was under attack - shooting a robot is not as "violent" as shooting a living creature) the Cylons were originally created as a robotic workforce for humanity which rebelled, warred against their creators then disappeared to their own worlds until evolution allowed them to return to destroy humanity. The villains are more than adequately represented by the various "Cylon moles" - Cylons who look like humans and may not even know what they are - who have motives most of which we can't fathom. There is a interesting exchange between two of the Cylons in human form: "We are Humanity's children. They are our parents in a sense." "True, but parents have to die eventually. It's the only way children come into their own." For the most part, so far at least, the Cylons are like Winston Churchill's description of the Soviet Union: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".
Which brings us to perhaps the most interesting creation in the new series: Dr. Gaius Baltar. Instead of being a conventional traitor willingly selling out humanity for personal gain as in the original series, the Baltar on the current show is an inadvertent traitor, seduced - literally - by the Cylons. Baltar has survived the Cylon attack through a combination of circumstances, but he's been left emotionally unstable. He's torn between guilt over what he's done and fear of being discovered leaving self-preservation as his one overriding priority. His instability is exacerbated by a presence that only he can see, his Cylon lover, known as Number 6. We, and Baltar, don't know what she is. Is she merely an expression of Baltar's psyche, or is she a Cylon projection into his mind which is guiding him. For that matter is Baltar a human or is he a Cylon who doesn't know that he's a Cylon - something that's not entirely impossible given that Baltar survived the shockwave from a nuclear blast that destroyed his home and killed one of the bodies of his Cylon lover - and the vision of Number 6 is merely his way of interpretation of the instructions that are being sent to him. Whatever the reality, it causes Baltar to seem to the viewer to be almost schizophrenic with major swings in mood and attitude. In a solid cast, James Callis's performance as Baltar stands out.
Battlestar Galactica is one of those rarities, a old show that has not only been successfully revived but has been significantly improved in the revival. Well worth the effort to find and see.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
The Final Frontier is Cancellation
There is something sadly frustrating in the fact that Star Trek: Enterprise will be ending at the end of its fourth season. The sad part is that they are ending the series just as many of the problems that have dogged it over the years are beginning to be remedied. It was probably too late - UPN had reduced the amount they were willing to pay for the show and had moved it to Friday nights. The frustrating part is that I'm not sure whether anyone at Paramount or Viacom really realises what was wrong in the first place. There's even a bit of irony in that, if the show had been cancelled after the third season I doubt that there'd be much regret; the dominant emotion might perhaps have been relief.
In looking at the various modern Star Trek provides a certain perspective on Enterprise (as the show was originally known). The first season started well enough. Indeed in my opinion (and let's face it,all I have to offer here is my opinions) the early episodes of Enterprise were better than most of the first season episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. People looking at The Next Generation with rose coloured glasses that time provides tend to forget just how wretched much of that first season was. If the show hadn't been carried in so many markets and received such high ratings from people who were willing to cut it some slack because it was Star Trek on logic that "any Trek on TV is better than no Trek", the whole thing might have been written off as a very bad idea. The difference between The Next Generation and Enterprise is that the earlier show improved with age. The second season was better than the first and the third season and beyond gave us more strong episodes and fewer clinkers. Through it's first three years Enterprise didn't improve much and the ratio of poor episodes to good ones was depressingly bad. Many people have said the same about Star Trek: Voyager although even that show improved somewhat over time.
Star Trek fans, be they "Trekkies", "Trekkers" or people like me who just like to watch the shows without getting into philosophical discussions about the "big issues" (in Klingon of course) or dress up in pointy ears and home made uniforms, tend to point the finger of blame for the deterioration of the Star Trek franchise on Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. They were the Executive Producers - the "show runners" - for Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise after rising to leading positions on Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were also heavily involved with the writing process on all of Voyager and much of the first three seasons of Enterprise. By way of comparison, Berman and Braga had little to do with the other series in the franchise Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which I at least consider to be the best of the modern series. Although Berman carried an Executive Producer credit on Deep Space Nine the real "show runner" was Ira Steven Behr, who was also deeply involved in the writing process. In the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise, the "show runner" has been Manny Coto, who has also been highly involved in writing many of the fourth season episodes. The change has been visible.
A lot of fans of Doctor Who place the blame for that series decline squarely on the head of the show's final producer, John Nathan Turner. Turner stayed on Doctor Who as producer for nine years. Previously the longest period of time anyone had stayed on as producer of the show was five years and the average tenure was about three. The accusation made against Turner is that he stayed too long, well after his creative vision for the project had been exhausted. The same can be said about Berman and Braga with regard to Star Trek. Combining their periods on Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise they have been running the franchise on a day to day level for ten years and Berman has been doing it for closer to fifteen years. It is almost impossible not to believe that their creative vision on this particular front has long since been exhausted. If people with a different perspective on the property, like Manny Coto and Ira Behr before him, had been involved with Star Trek: Enterprise from the start, UPN might not have moved it to the Friday night "death slot" or cancelled it for failing to perform.
In looking at the various modern Star Trek provides a certain perspective on Enterprise (as the show was originally known). The first season started well enough. Indeed in my opinion (and let's face it,all I have to offer here is my opinions) the early episodes of Enterprise were better than most of the first season episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. People looking at The Next Generation with rose coloured glasses that time provides tend to forget just how wretched much of that first season was. If the show hadn't been carried in so many markets and received such high ratings from people who were willing to cut it some slack because it was Star Trek on logic that "any Trek on TV is better than no Trek", the whole thing might have been written off as a very bad idea. The difference between The Next Generation and Enterprise is that the earlier show improved with age. The second season was better than the first and the third season and beyond gave us more strong episodes and fewer clinkers. Through it's first three years Enterprise didn't improve much and the ratio of poor episodes to good ones was depressingly bad. Many people have said the same about Star Trek: Voyager although even that show improved somewhat over time.
Star Trek fans, be they "Trekkies", "Trekkers" or people like me who just like to watch the shows without getting into philosophical discussions about the "big issues" (in Klingon of course) or dress up in pointy ears and home made uniforms, tend to point the finger of blame for the deterioration of the Star Trek franchise on Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. They were the Executive Producers - the "show runners" - for Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise after rising to leading positions on Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were also heavily involved with the writing process on all of Voyager and much of the first three seasons of Enterprise. By way of comparison, Berman and Braga had little to do with the other series in the franchise Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which I at least consider to be the best of the modern series. Although Berman carried an Executive Producer credit on Deep Space Nine the real "show runner" was Ira Steven Behr, who was also deeply involved in the writing process. In the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise, the "show runner" has been Manny Coto, who has also been highly involved in writing many of the fourth season episodes. The change has been visible.
A lot of fans of Doctor Who place the blame for that series decline squarely on the head of the show's final producer, John Nathan Turner. Turner stayed on Doctor Who as producer for nine years. Previously the longest period of time anyone had stayed on as producer of the show was five years and the average tenure was about three. The accusation made against Turner is that he stayed too long, well after his creative vision for the project had been exhausted. The same can be said about Berman and Braga with regard to Star Trek. Combining their periods on Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise they have been running the franchise on a day to day level for ten years and Berman has been doing it for closer to fifteen years. It is almost impossible not to believe that their creative vision on this particular front has long since been exhausted. If people with a different perspective on the property, like Manny Coto and Ira Behr before him, had been involved with Star Trek: Enterprise from the start, UPN might not have moved it to the Friday night "death slot" or cancelled it for failing to perform.
Friday, February 11, 2005
If You Love 24...
...as much as I do, you'll love this piece from the Washington Post. Sure these TV satire memos are as common as dry leaves in October, but they're usually fun. Thanks to the guys at TVGeekSpeak.com for this one.
Jack Bauer in a Hawaiian shirt. BWAHAHAHA!
Jack Bauer in a Hawaiian shirt. BWAHAHAHA!
Survivor - Manhattan
I totally missed the first season of The Apprentice. Quite frankly the show didn't appeal to me any more than most reality shows have appealed to me. When you add in supreme egotist Donald Trump the show was definitely not on my list of shows that I had to see. A couple of things changed last Fall which allowed me to see most episodes of the second season of The Apprentice and I have to admit that I was intrigued.
The Apprentice has an excellent pedigree. It comes from producer Mark Burnett who created Survivor and before that the Eco-Challenge races. More recently Burnett has had some failures. The Restaurant which ran on NBC was a qualified success in it's first season but the second season was much less popular. His non-competitve "reality" show The Casino which ran last summer on Fox was at best dreadful. His attempt at a sitcom, Commando Nanny (based on his own experience as an former officer in the British Parachute Regiment who took a job as a nanny after leaving the service) was so terrible and trouble-plagued that while the WB Network actually bought it and put it on their schedule, it was cancelled without airing. Burnett is on much sounder footing when he sticks to what he knows which is people in competition in unfamiliar surroundings, like racing through the jungles of Borneo, trying to live on a deserted island in the South Pacific with a group of people that they have nothing in common with, or trying to succeed in business by really trying.
It seems apparent to me, and probably to just about anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute, that The Apprentice really is Survivor retooled for a different network. In Survivor disparate individuals are put together into teams, or "tribes", to live and work together and accomplish goals. In The Apprentice disparate individuals are put together in teams, in "corporations", tow live and work together to accomplish goals. In Survivor success brings reward and immunity from elimination, while failure means that one of the losing group will be taken out of the game. In The Apprenticesuccess brings reward and immunity from elimination (both for the group and potentially for the leader of the winning group if they lose the next challenge), while failure means that a member of the losing group will leave the game. In both Survivor and The Apprentice, while the tribes and corporations attempt to put display a united front of people who are working together, the truth revealed in individual interviews is frequently backbiting, disloyalty and open dislike and disdain for other competitors on their own team. In Survivor losing teams go to "Tribal Council"; in The Apprentice they face "The Board Room". The big difference between the two shows is that while eliminations in Survivor are decided by votes of the other members of the losing team and give vent to interpersonal rivalries and competing alliances, eliminations in The Apprentice are made based on the opinion of one man: Donald Trump. It is a change that makes the show both stronger and weaker than the original.
In The Apprentice the tasks that the teams have to accomplish are business oriented. Decisions on the team that wins and who loses are made by experts in those aspects of business. Where Trump comes into the mix is in deciding which member of the losing team will be eliminated. There is some input from team leaders - they choose who will go into the final board meeting with them - but it is Trump who makes the final choice with advice from his associates George and Carolyn, and by viewing videos of the teams during their tasks. Given that Trump is (supposedly) looking for someone to lead one of his companies, it isn't surprising that for him leadership ability is a major consideration. During all of the second series of The Apprentice and the first four episodes of the third Apprentice - a total of 17 competitions - "Project Managers" for failed teams have been eliminated 13 times, with one competition having two players eliminated and one player quitting during an episode. In short you have to screw up pretty badly to be eliminated when you aren't project manager. Almost inevitably this leads to the most qualified people being in the running to win the game. At the same time it undercuts the importance of interpersonal relationships within the teams. It doesn't matter who you like personally unless you are prepared to actively sabotage someone's efforts during a competition. The makes the backbiting and alliance building that is the hallmark of Survivor and vital in the way that show works, seem unimportant and petty in the world of The Apprentice.
The Apprentice has an excellent pedigree. It comes from producer Mark Burnett who created Survivor and before that the Eco-Challenge races. More recently Burnett has had some failures. The Restaurant which ran on NBC was a qualified success in it's first season but the second season was much less popular. His non-competitve "reality" show The Casino which ran last summer on Fox was at best dreadful. His attempt at a sitcom, Commando Nanny (based on his own experience as an former officer in the British Parachute Regiment who took a job as a nanny after leaving the service) was so terrible and trouble-plagued that while the WB Network actually bought it and put it on their schedule, it was cancelled without airing. Burnett is on much sounder footing when he sticks to what he knows which is people in competition in unfamiliar surroundings, like racing through the jungles of Borneo, trying to live on a deserted island in the South Pacific with a group of people that they have nothing in common with, or trying to succeed in business by really trying.
It seems apparent to me, and probably to just about anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute, that The Apprentice really is Survivor retooled for a different network. In Survivor disparate individuals are put together into teams, or "tribes", to live and work together and accomplish goals. In The Apprentice disparate individuals are put together in teams, in "corporations", tow live and work together to accomplish goals. In Survivor success brings reward and immunity from elimination, while failure means that one of the losing group will be taken out of the game. In The Apprenticesuccess brings reward and immunity from elimination (both for the group and potentially for the leader of the winning group if they lose the next challenge), while failure means that a member of the losing group will leave the game. In both Survivor and The Apprentice, while the tribes and corporations attempt to put display a united front of people who are working together, the truth revealed in individual interviews is frequently backbiting, disloyalty and open dislike and disdain for other competitors on their own team. In Survivor losing teams go to "Tribal Council"; in The Apprentice they face "The Board Room". The big difference between the two shows is that while eliminations in Survivor are decided by votes of the other members of the losing team and give vent to interpersonal rivalries and competing alliances, eliminations in The Apprentice are made based on the opinion of one man: Donald Trump. It is a change that makes the show both stronger and weaker than the original.
In The Apprentice the tasks that the teams have to accomplish are business oriented. Decisions on the team that wins and who loses are made by experts in those aspects of business. Where Trump comes into the mix is in deciding which member of the losing team will be eliminated. There is some input from team leaders - they choose who will go into the final board meeting with them - but it is Trump who makes the final choice with advice from his associates George and Carolyn, and by viewing videos of the teams during their tasks. Given that Trump is (supposedly) looking for someone to lead one of his companies, it isn't surprising that for him leadership ability is a major consideration. During all of the second series of The Apprentice and the first four episodes of the third Apprentice - a total of 17 competitions - "Project Managers" for failed teams have been eliminated 13 times, with one competition having two players eliminated and one player quitting during an episode. In short you have to screw up pretty badly to be eliminated when you aren't project manager. Almost inevitably this leads to the most qualified people being in the running to win the game. At the same time it undercuts the importance of interpersonal relationships within the teams. It doesn't matter who you like personally unless you are prepared to actively sabotage someone's efforts during a competition. The makes the backbiting and alliance building that is the hallmark of Survivor and vital in the way that show works, seem unimportant and petty in the world of The Apprentice.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
The West Wing, February 9
Most long term fans of The West Wing tend to divide the history of the show into the Aaron Sorkin Era and the John Wells Era. Or as they sometimes put it "when the show was good" and "now". The story of how Wells came to take charge of The West Wing is fairly well known, but in the first season that he had full control things did not go as well as he, Warner Brothers (which produces the show) and NBC (which airs it) had hoped. The shows were finally being delivered on time and - just as important - on budget, which had been a problem in the Sorkin Era, but the shows lacked a certain spark. What they didn't have was Sorkin's biting wit and rapid-fire dialogue. The show suffered because of this in terms of ratings. and there was some expectation that this would be the final year. Instead there was a turn-around in the fortunes of the show. Ratings have gone up and not all of that can be attributed to not having American Idol in the same time slot.
The biggest change in the show this season has been a major shift in focus indicted by a decision to shift the story line ahead a year. We are now in the primary season for the election the will replace President Bartlett. At the White House people are talking about "the Bartlet Legacy" while outside the White House candidates are positioning themselves to replace Bartlet. As a result you have two sets of story lines, with the added complications in the White House storylines of the decline in the President's health. The President's Multiple Sclerosis, which had been introduced in the first season as a way to allow Bartlet to comment on daytime television shows, has reached a crisis point which restricts the amount that he is able to do. At this stage, too much work can aggravate the disease. The series has, since December, split the episodes and the cast between White House episodes and Campaign episodes.
Wednesday's show was a White House episode. As usual there is a crisis (so what else is new?). The Iranians have shot down a British passenger plane and needless to say the Brits are pissed. The problem is that the President needs his sleep and the question becomes, when do you wake the President? The answer, it seems, is far too early for Dr. First Lady and far too late for the guy who actually has the job and just about anyone else involved in the crisis. This includes the British Ambassador and his country's Prime Minister, the government's pipeline to the Iranian government (Chet, or as Leo McGarry puts it the new Phil), the media, and several of the candidates running for the Presidency. The latter is symbolized by a TV clip of Alan Alda's character criticizing the current Administration's lack of action which prompts Bartlet to say that it's easy to have a position when you don't have to deal with the realities of the situation. Caught in the middle of all the conflicting interest is Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg Eventually, of course, the crisis is resolved in a 40-something minute (plus commercials) day, although there is fall-out in the form of a First Lady who is angry at just about everyone. A "B" Plot about writing a new constitution for Belarus is handled as part comic relief, part elementary education on how democracy can be developed in a country by influencing a handful of men if they're the right men. The major comic relief concerns the visit of the new "Miss World" from Bhutan - something that Leo always looked forward to when he was Chief of Staff but which C.J. has handed off to Communications Director Toby Ziegler. She's instrumental in keeping the most persistent member of the media from pursuing the story of what he President knew and when did he know it that Bartlet's people don't want getting out.
Tonight's episode probably wasn't the best of the current batch of White House shows but it is illustrative of what Wells is trying to do with the show, and there are some rather nice scenes. There is a contrast between the President, who wants to be treated like the paralyzed but otherwise healthy Franklin Roosevelt, and his wife, who expects him to be treated like the stroke afflicted Woodrow Wilson and bothered as little as possible with the business of government. The solution lies somewhere in the middle and it's left to C.J. to find the right balance. The final scene of the episode, in which we cut from Bartlet and his wife engaged in an increasingly loud argument to C.J.'s office is tremendously effective. As the voices grow louder C.J. rises from her desk and closes the door, incredibly like a daughter closing the door so as not to hear her parents fighting. This sort of scene is the type of thing that gives long time viewers some hope for the continued life of the series. It may not be what Sorkin would have done but it is an approach that's improving as time goes on.
The biggest change in the show this season has been a major shift in focus indicted by a decision to shift the story line ahead a year. We are now in the primary season for the election the will replace President Bartlett. At the White House people are talking about "the Bartlet Legacy" while outside the White House candidates are positioning themselves to replace Bartlet. As a result you have two sets of story lines, with the added complications in the White House storylines of the decline in the President's health. The President's Multiple Sclerosis, which had been introduced in the first season as a way to allow Bartlet to comment on daytime television shows, has reached a crisis point which restricts the amount that he is able to do. At this stage, too much work can aggravate the disease. The series has, since December, split the episodes and the cast between White House episodes and Campaign episodes.
Wednesday's show was a White House episode. As usual there is a crisis (so what else is new?). The Iranians have shot down a British passenger plane and needless to say the Brits are pissed. The problem is that the President needs his sleep and the question becomes, when do you wake the President? The answer, it seems, is far too early for Dr. First Lady and far too late for the guy who actually has the job and just about anyone else involved in the crisis. This includes the British Ambassador and his country's Prime Minister, the government's pipeline to the Iranian government (Chet, or as Leo McGarry puts it the new Phil), the media, and several of the candidates running for the Presidency. The latter is symbolized by a TV clip of Alan Alda's character criticizing the current Administration's lack of action which prompts Bartlet to say that it's easy to have a position when you don't have to deal with the realities of the situation. Caught in the middle of all the conflicting interest is Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg Eventually, of course, the crisis is resolved in a 40-something minute (plus commercials) day, although there is fall-out in the form of a First Lady who is angry at just about everyone. A "B" Plot about writing a new constitution for Belarus is handled as part comic relief, part elementary education on how democracy can be developed in a country by influencing a handful of men if they're the right men. The major comic relief concerns the visit of the new "Miss World" from Bhutan - something that Leo always looked forward to when he was Chief of Staff but which C.J. has handed off to Communications Director Toby Ziegler. She's instrumental in keeping the most persistent member of the media from pursuing the story of what he President knew and when did he know it that Bartlet's people don't want getting out.
Tonight's episode probably wasn't the best of the current batch of White House shows but it is illustrative of what Wells is trying to do with the show, and there are some rather nice scenes. There is a contrast between the President, who wants to be treated like the paralyzed but otherwise healthy Franklin Roosevelt, and his wife, who expects him to be treated like the stroke afflicted Woodrow Wilson and bothered as little as possible with the business of government. The solution lies somewhere in the middle and it's left to C.J. to find the right balance. The final scene of the episode, in which we cut from Bartlet and his wife engaged in an increasingly loud argument to C.J.'s office is tremendously effective. As the voices grow louder C.J. rises from her desk and closes the door, incredibly like a daughter closing the door so as not to hear her parents fighting. This sort of scene is the type of thing that gives long time viewers some hope for the continued life of the series. It may not be what Sorkin would have done but it is an approach that's improving as time goes on.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Put Another Race In The Books
There's plenty of good stuff on tonight: NCIS, the nicely rated but little discussed military criminal investigation series from the creator of Magnum PI and JAG, House, the show about the curmudgeonly doctor who would be English of only Fox would let the lead actor use his real accent, and NYPD Blue which is having a solid final season creatively if not in the ratings (only four more left). But for me the big one is the finale of the sixth Amazing Race. I love this show!
The Amazing Race has had a remarkable rocky history. Created in the wake of the surprise success of Survivor it debuted on September 5, 2001, a singularly inauspicious date for a show that was focussed on international travel to appear on given what happened six days later. The show wasn't a great success in post 9/11 America but it did pick up steam, and in an example of quality winning out it outlasted Lost which came from Conan O'Brien's production company. This piece of drek featured six randomly paired Americans left without any money at all begging and doing just about anything else to get back to the United States for some godforsaken foreign place (in the one I saw it was Mongolia). The Amazing Race did well enough to get a second series that aired in March 2002. That series did well enough that the third series was on the fall schedule opposite The West Wing. It finished a solid second opposite what was then regarded a show that was regarded as nearly invincible. The third series of The Amazing Race was set to debut in the same time slot in February 2003 but CBS panicked when faced with the juggernaut that was American Idol and pulled the show to replace it with a hastily conceived version of Star Search. The Amazing Race was delayed until the end of May 2003. A fourth series was produced for the summer of 2004 to fill Survivor's Thursday time slot, but there were open musings that there wouldn't be another one. That was until the 2002-03 Emmys. Nominated in the new "Best Reality Series" - a category that not only included Survivor and American Idol but also an AFI special and a tribute to the 100th birthday of Bob Hope - The Amazing Race 3 won. That was enough to earn the series a reprieve and a summer run in 2004 - this time on Tuesdays was produced. It performed extremely well in the ratings, and as an added bonus The Amazing Race 4 won the Emmy in the revised "Best Reality Competition" category against Survivor, American Idol, The Apprentice, and Last Comic Standing. Between the ratings success of the fifth Amazing Race, the two Emmys, and critical acclaim it was decided that the sixth Amazing Race, which had been scheduled for the Saturday night death slot was put on hold until another series from the Fall 2004 series died. That show was Tuesday's Clubhouse.
So what makes The Amazing Race into the show that Canada's National Post newspaper calls "the reality show for people who hate reality shows. It seems to be a combination of things really. One big one is that it is a trip around the world, taking viewers to places that a lot of them are likely never to visit. Like any reality show, casting is key and The Amazing Race has had superlative casting over the years. You need interesting people and this season alone has included a 70 year old doctor and his wife, a husband and wife who are professional wrestlers, a model who is a pampered princess and a bit bigoted to boot, and a father and daughter team where the daughter is a teacher and the father was a former CIA agent who was the first person to fly to the North Pole in an open cockpit airplane. Of course personality isn't the only thing - all reality shows cast based on personality (and then they manipulate those personalities based on editing - and the producers of The Amazing Race are no different on that score). In my opinion there are three things that sets The Amazing Race apart from the crowd. The first is that, despite the efforts of some of the competitors, you don't get ahead by lying and backstabbing or by allying with the other guy. Within teams, it is essential that the people work together because they have places to get to and tasks to complete, but working with another team at best gives only a temporary gain and there really aren't many opportunities to attempt to actively sabotage another team - and until the fifth Race and the addition of the Yield there weren't any. That hasn't stopped teams from trying though. A second factor is that there is a tangible reason for surviving to the next episode. Teams don't have to please their fellow players, impress a group of judges, or win a telephone poll - if you are the last team to reach the Pit Stop at the end of a stage, most of the time you will be eliminated. The goal is clear from the start and any mistakes can be fatal in terms of survival in the game. Finally I think that The Amazing Race may be the most accessible of the reality shows. You don't have to be extra fit or extraordinarily gifted to succeed on The Amazing Race. You need endurance and quick wits because you are travelling around the world in 30 days. You also need a willingness to experience new things, and a lot of patience with the person that you're going with. It is the latter which produces the best drama in the show. People come face to face with their fears. Personalities clash both between teams and within them, although the teams that do best tend to be the teams where personalities mesh rather than clash.
Tonight's final episode is two hours long. There are four teams remaining: Hayden & Aaron (dating, models from Los Angeles), Freddy & Kendra (dating, models from Miami), Adam & Rebecca (formerly dating, personal trainers from Los Angeles), and Kris & Jon (long distance dating, a Geography student and waitress from Long Beach and a restaurant owner from Scottsdale respectively). One team will be eliminated in the first hour and the three remaining teams will race for the finish line somewhere in the United States in the second hour of tonight's show. My personal favourites are Kris & Jon, because they've worked together as a team efficiently and of the remaining teams they've been the least argumentative and the least insulting to the people they've encountered along the way. The team I don't really want to win is Freddy & Kendra, largely because Kendra has behaved like a true pampered princess throughout the Race and has made some remarks which, presumably with the help of editing, make her seem like a serious bigot.
The Amazing Race airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern - 8 p.m. Central.
The Amazing Race has had a remarkable rocky history. Created in the wake of the surprise success of Survivor it debuted on September 5, 2001, a singularly inauspicious date for a show that was focussed on international travel to appear on given what happened six days later. The show wasn't a great success in post 9/11 America but it did pick up steam, and in an example of quality winning out it outlasted Lost which came from Conan O'Brien's production company. This piece of drek featured six randomly paired Americans left without any money at all begging and doing just about anything else to get back to the United States for some godforsaken foreign place (in the one I saw it was Mongolia). The Amazing Race did well enough to get a second series that aired in March 2002. That series did well enough that the third series was on the fall schedule opposite The West Wing. It finished a solid second opposite what was then regarded a show that was regarded as nearly invincible. The third series of The Amazing Race was set to debut in the same time slot in February 2003 but CBS panicked when faced with the juggernaut that was American Idol and pulled the show to replace it with a hastily conceived version of Star Search. The Amazing Race was delayed until the end of May 2003. A fourth series was produced for the summer of 2004 to fill Survivor's Thursday time slot, but there were open musings that there wouldn't be another one. That was until the 2002-03 Emmys. Nominated in the new "Best Reality Series" - a category that not only included Survivor and American Idol but also an AFI special and a tribute to the 100th birthday of Bob Hope - The Amazing Race 3 won. That was enough to earn the series a reprieve and a summer run in 2004 - this time on Tuesdays was produced. It performed extremely well in the ratings, and as an added bonus The Amazing Race 4 won the Emmy in the revised "Best Reality Competition" category against Survivor, American Idol, The Apprentice, and Last Comic Standing. Between the ratings success of the fifth Amazing Race, the two Emmys, and critical acclaim it was decided that the sixth Amazing Race, which had been scheduled for the Saturday night death slot was put on hold until another series from the Fall 2004 series died. That show was Tuesday's Clubhouse.
So what makes The Amazing Race into the show that Canada's National Post newspaper calls "the reality show for people who hate reality shows. It seems to be a combination of things really. One big one is that it is a trip around the world, taking viewers to places that a lot of them are likely never to visit. Like any reality show, casting is key and The Amazing Race has had superlative casting over the years. You need interesting people and this season alone has included a 70 year old doctor and his wife, a husband and wife who are professional wrestlers, a model who is a pampered princess and a bit bigoted to boot, and a father and daughter team where the daughter is a teacher and the father was a former CIA agent who was the first person to fly to the North Pole in an open cockpit airplane. Of course personality isn't the only thing - all reality shows cast based on personality (and then they manipulate those personalities based on editing - and the producers of The Amazing Race are no different on that score). In my opinion there are three things that sets The Amazing Race apart from the crowd. The first is that, despite the efforts of some of the competitors, you don't get ahead by lying and backstabbing or by allying with the other guy. Within teams, it is essential that the people work together because they have places to get to and tasks to complete, but working with another team at best gives only a temporary gain and there really aren't many opportunities to attempt to actively sabotage another team - and until the fifth Race and the addition of the Yield there weren't any. That hasn't stopped teams from trying though. A second factor is that there is a tangible reason for surviving to the next episode. Teams don't have to please their fellow players, impress a group of judges, or win a telephone poll - if you are the last team to reach the Pit Stop at the end of a stage, most of the time you will be eliminated. The goal is clear from the start and any mistakes can be fatal in terms of survival in the game. Finally I think that The Amazing Race may be the most accessible of the reality shows. You don't have to be extra fit or extraordinarily gifted to succeed on The Amazing Race. You need endurance and quick wits because you are travelling around the world in 30 days. You also need a willingness to experience new things, and a lot of patience with the person that you're going with. It is the latter which produces the best drama in the show. People come face to face with their fears. Personalities clash both between teams and within them, although the teams that do best tend to be the teams where personalities mesh rather than clash.
Tonight's final episode is two hours long. There are four teams remaining: Hayden & Aaron (dating, models from Los Angeles), Freddy & Kendra (dating, models from Miami), Adam & Rebecca (formerly dating, personal trainers from Los Angeles), and Kris & Jon (long distance dating, a Geography student and waitress from Long Beach and a restaurant owner from Scottsdale respectively). One team will be eliminated in the first hour and the three remaining teams will race for the finish line somewhere in the United States in the second hour of tonight's show. My personal favourites are Kris & Jon, because they've worked together as a team efficiently and of the remaining teams they've been the least argumentative and the least insulting to the people they've encountered along the way. The team I don't really want to win is Freddy & Kendra, largely because Kendra has behaved like a true pampered princess throughout the Race and has made some remarks which, presumably with the help of editing, make her seem like a serious bigot.
The Amazing Race airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern - 8 p.m. Central.
So Why Do I Think I Know Anything?
I grew up with television in my life. Indeed, in the city where I live television and I are almost exact contemporaries. When I was born in August 1956, the one local TV station had been in operation for just over a year and a half. Television as a mass medium in Canada had only existed for four years. Colour television would only appear in Canada nine years after I was born, and it didn't become the choice for another five years. I remember when the second station opened in Saskatoon in the early 1970s, when cable appeared later the same decade, and when the third station opened in the mid-1980s.
As far as shows go, I can't say that I've seen them all - you don't in a one channel town that doesn't have cable - but I have seen a lot of the memorable ones when they first appeared. I remember seeing and hating Doctor Who in 1964 (the hatred was largely because the show had replaced The Bugs Bunny Show - never get between a kid and his cartoons). I remember when westerns and private eye shows dominated the airwaves. My oldest memories are of watching television. In other words I'm an Old Fart.
What this Old Fart brings to the table is summed up in the description I gave to this blog - "I know what I like" and I like television. I don't like all of the shows and will say so which makes me a critic in the same way that it makes all of us critics. And in the end why shouldn't I have a blog that lets me be a critic. For that matter why shouldn't you?
As far as shows go, I can't say that I've seen them all - you don't in a one channel town that doesn't have cable - but I have seen a lot of the memorable ones when they first appeared. I remember seeing and hating Doctor Who in 1964 (the hatred was largely because the show had replaced The Bugs Bunny Show - never get between a kid and his cartoons). I remember when westerns and private eye shows dominated the airwaves. My oldest memories are of watching television. In other words I'm an Old Fart.
What this Old Fart brings to the table is summed up in the description I gave to this blog - "I know what I like" and I like television. I don't like all of the shows and will say so which makes me a critic in the same way that it makes all of us critics. And in the end why shouldn't I have a blog that lets me be a critic. For that matter why shouldn't you?
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