TV Report: November 2004
November 7, 2004
I’ll let you in on a badly guarded secret that I am not ashamed with, I am a television junkie, full and true, not as much as I am a film nerd, full and true, but in the category that I can average a good 5 to 7 hours (doubled for long weekends) of TV viewing per day. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s not because I’m ultra lazy, or because the prospect of spending time outside of my house seems daunting, but because there are inherent joys that come with being a TV potato, and since we’re entering, or, in other terms, are already fully planted in the November sweeps ratings period, a time where the first quarter of the new season must be evaluated, there’s no better time, or easy excuse, to spend a few minutes here to report on just what has been good, average, or downright silly with television thus far. Take note though, since I can’t rightfully describe myself as a big-shot TV critic like some of my favorite writers, such as Phil Rosenthal of The Chicago Sun Times, or Matt Roush of TV Guide, I am not privy to episodes before their actual airdate, so, keeping this in mind, with a mid-week column deadline, some of my references may be a good week and a half stale, but that shouldn’t matter, because with all good media, the better the product, the longer it will stay fresh in the memory bank, and most of what has been good this year, is the stuff of long shelf life possibilities.
The New: By now, everybody knows that the two best new shows of the season belong, quite unexpectedly, to former lame-duck ABC. With keen advertising, and numerous magazine covers, ABC has been able to exploit the addictive strengths of the Sunday night soap “Desperate Housewives”, and the Wednesday night psychological adventure “Lost” into ratings gold, and with the central mysteries fueling each show likely to intensify until seasons end, I’d expect viewers, both casual and rabid, to stick around. And for good reason, both shows feature brilliant ensemble casts (prediction, if Emmy falls for ‘Housewives’, Teri Hatcher is a lock for Best Actress next year), and snappy dialogue that highlight their respective genres; camp satire and deeply personal adventure, tinged each with an underlying pathos. Week and week, “Lost” continues to build on its deserted island premise by giving each main character their own hour, telling us why they were on that doomed Australian flight (Jack was searching for his alcoholic father, Charley was desperately trying to reunite his defunct band, etc…), and how it’s effecting them on the island. And on “Desperate Housewives”, while the absurd continues to be the shows trademark, the emotions beneath the silliness (Susan’s loneliness, Bree’s unhappy marriage, Lynette’s difficult motherhood, etc…) make the lives on the oddly neat Wisteria Lane grounded in a kind of suburban realism the likes of which Mr. Incredible would find difficult to live with. Truthfully, the only other new shows I’m watching are “Kevin Hill”, the UPN charmer starring Taye Diggs, and the funny enough, yet hardly “Friends” spin-off “Joey”, but I don’t feel guilty, because with such memorable characters and adventures on “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost”, I’m more than satisfied with this years newbie class.
The Old: As we wave goodbye to all of those annoying campaign ads and useless tracking polls, it’s time to readjust ourselves back to the rather harmless ritual of watching familiar situation comedy and drama, but, is that always a good thing, given the quality of our aging favorites? For sure, the concluding season of “NYPD Blue” is strong simply because it is focusing so much on Dennis Franz and his classic portrayal of Andy Sipowitz (his reunited episode with Jimmy Smits’ ghost was touching and added a nice aura of finality), and favorites like “The King of Queens”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, also in its final year, and “Scrubs” are in top form, but with former greats like “The West Wing” (now starring Smits as well), and “ER” (despite the strong Ray Liotta episode last week) breathing their dying breaths, the more I come to believe that maybe the newer shows must succeed, just because old reliability isn’t. I guess it’s my own fault for not getting into more of the popular young group, such as any of the “CSI” shows, or the critically lauded “Without a Trace”, but it’s difficult to pick up a show deep into a season or career (though DVD now makes it easier to catch previous seasons), and with my plate already full, I doubt I will reverse that trend in the future. But that’s because I’m still skeptical, and forgive the broken record speech here, but the more and more I watch the DVD’s of NBC’s lost masterpiece “Boomtown”, and the badly missed FOX comedy “Futurama”, the more I fear that when one personally attaches himself to any show, he’s opening up himself up to the possibility that bonehead network executives will savagely cancel it, despite the fact that it may or may not be (in both cases, may be) one of the best shows of all time. With movies there is no such heartache, which makes being a TV buff all the more emotionally dangerous.
by Adam Suraf