TVCriticism.com

Super Sophomores of 2010-11

Julie Bowen of Modern Family; Archie Panjabi and Juliana Margulies of The Good Wife

Traditional broadcast TV debuted some impressive new series in 2009-10. Many of television's most successful hits over the years have used summer reruns and Emmy recognition to bolster their reputations and broaden their audience in their second year. That's the kind of success I'm predicting for two top rookies of last season which are aiming even higher in year two: Modern Family and The Good Wife.

ABC's Modern Family achieved the type of reputation last season which Cheers brought to NBC early in its run. Writers who understand the importance of a strong character foundation see the program as a brilliant design, perfectly cast, and ready to challenge the intelligence of its audience. But this is a much different era than the early 1980's. Reality shows have eroded the potential audience for comedy, and some doubt the old genre still has pull with younger viewers. Modern Family's results this year will signify more than whether or not the wider audience is ready to appreciate a program already treasured by smarter viewers. It will also tell us whether the traditional comedy series is a now a genre with a limited upside, or if it is ready to regain the place where it once stood: atop all others for prime time viewership and rerun riches. In his Emmy acceptance speech, co-creator Steve Levitan thanked the family audience for supporting his fictional Family. The win and his gratitude could bring in more viewers, because bonding with the audience is the cornerstone of success in mass audience television.

CBS' The Good Wife is another program with excellence ready to be discovered by a broader audience. The intriguing premise, a season long test of the loyalty of a publicly betrayed political wife (played with understated grace by Juliana Margulies), has been augmented by a string of well written "A" story standalone legal dramas. The setting of the program, a well dressed law firm surrounded by corrupt Chicago politicians, only makes it more compelling and relevant to recent news events. So far the writers haven't succumbed to the ideological polemics which ruined Boston Legal and sentenced it to disappointing ratings. If The Good Wife continues to surprise us with clever legal twists and personal drama, the program could become a top rated hit this year. It has particular pull among upmarket viewers 35-64, an underserved audience in today's television.

Original episodes of Modern Family will resume Wednesdays at 9PM on ABC, beginning September 22.

On September 28, original episodes of The Good Wife return to the Tuesday, 10PM timeslot on ABC.

GOP 2012: How Important is Telegenic?

Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), Gov. Bob McDonnell (Virginia), formers Governors Romney and Palin

Among so many charismatic Republicans, would Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels stand a chance?

On August 8, 2010, two months before the crucial mid-term elections, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana made his first appearance on Fox News Sunday. Looking dull as dust in a tie-less button-down shirt, the colorless, monotone Governor gave an uninspired performance. Next time, Mitch, at least wear the darker, brighter blue shirt.

Americans who want to follow Barack Obama with another performer-President should look elsewhere.

Governor Daniels is smart, capable, and accomplished enough to be President. He has put the finances of Indiana into the black, big time. Read this article by one of my favorite writers, Andy Ferguson, and you may be convinced that Daniels is the Republicans' best hope for 2012.

Yes, Daniels does ride a motorcycle. Maybe he should do his interviews in a black leather jacket.

The problem isn't just his looks, it's his whole plain-and-proud Indiana projection. Remember that movie Witness, about Harrison Ford in Amish country, where "you're very plain" was a compliment? Mitch Daniels could certainly win the Amish vote -- so long as that part of Pennsylvania hasn't switched over to electronic voting. It's the rest of the country which might pose a problem.

Is the electorate which put Barack Obama in office so disgusted with loud promises that they're ready to elect the lowest key guy around? Maybe. But it's not entirely clear that Daniels has the desire to be President.

At no point during the interview with Wallace did Daniels criticize -- or even mention -- Barack Obama. Unlike other concerned citizens (Sarah Palin comes to mind), Daniels didn't even mention the crucial upcoming Congressional elections. And while he calmly mentioned the calamitous economic course our country is on, he next veered onto the politically rocky side road of bi-partisan Medicare and Social Security reform, instead of speaking with urgency about the enormously unpopular disaster-in-waiting that is Obamacare.

You could argue that Daniels is modulating his tone to appeal to an audience wider than his own party. Problem is Daniels' droning voice needs punctuation. Desperately! He has no passion. Okay, I've lived in New York and California all my life, and I never bothered to see Hoosiers, so maybe I don't understand Indiana passion. But I do understand television. It's a cool medium where understated can work, but only with a twinkle in its eye. Think Johnny Carson, who was from Nebraska. Daniels needs to develop a few zingers, a polite, sly, but pointed way of criticizing the Democrats. He also needs a crisper, less verbiage-laden way of advertising his own agenda. Then he should ride into New Hampshire on a motorcycle, right up to the television cameras, take off his helmet and show us all how he looks with a shaved head. Because America will never elect a President with a bad combover.

Now, some tips for the rest of the field which you'll be hearing so much about after the November elections.

Among all the emerging Republican candidates, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has the closest we've got to an intelligent twinkle in his eye. He's our smartest guy, period. My advice: write a book, Paul. Quickly! Give me a hundred and ten chapters, each three pages long, like a James Patterson page-turner. Then go on an author tour, and get yourself some free publicity because you really can't afford to run a campaign.

Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia: go on Fox more often. No one knows who you are in the rest of the country. Why do Senator McCain and Lindsay Graham turn up so often on conservative media, when neither of them really represent the Republican mainstream? Convince the talk show bookers that the Governors are the energy center of the party.You won't have to convince them that you're the go-to Governor. Haley Barbour is a former tobacco lobbyist; Chris Christie is a tad overweight; and Bobby Jindal is too busy. That makes you the Governor most likely to be President, for now. But act fast, because other GOP governors are coming in November.

Mitt Romney, you need no advice from me on how to be telegenic. As a Giuliani voter myself, even I had to admit that you held your own in the primary debates. If one of you two had been nominated, the party would have had a smart, informed response to the fiscal debacle of October 2008. Mitt, your problem is the health care law you signed in Massachusettes. You need to be explain why Obamacare is an impending disaster, and admit that you made too many compromises with the Democrats on the Massachusettes plan. Then hope that the courts declare manadatory coverage unconstitutional, Mitt, because if you wind up having to defend it, you will lose.

Sarah Palin -- a word in your ear, please. Surprise us all -- don't run for President! You've done impressive work for candidates around the country. Run for Mark Begich's Alaska Senate seat in 2014. You'll be 56 in 2020, when President Ryan is completing his second term. Vice President Daniels will need a charismatic running mate. Then, in 2028, after two terms as Vice President, you'll still be only 64. And I'm sure you'll still look fabulous.

July 2010: Welcome Back to Television's Best Series

Season Four of Mad Men finds Don Draper's re-born ad agency re-located to the Time-Life Building on Sixth Avenue. It was a new building then, a unique gateway connecting midtown's Deco past to its Modernist future, because Don could access the Rockefeller Center complex through an interconnected series of underground pedestrian passages stretching from 7th Avenue to 5th and from 51st Street to 47th. He could stay indoors and enter the subway, then exit in front of the old Waverly Theatre a few steps from his new apartment in the West Village.

Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce employees could also stroll through the beautiful lobby of the Time Life Building into the original first floor restaurant, La Fonda del Sol. There they might rub shoulders with executives of Whitney Communications Corporation, also located in the building. Owner Jock Whitney, the brother-in-law of CBS founder William Paley, was then undertaking the formidable task of sustaining The New York Herald Tribune, a fine Republican newspaper of the time. While that effort would eventually fail, the paper did run some tremendous ad campaigns in its later years, and its wonderful Sunday magazine New York featured great writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin. The ambitious Trib initiatives were paid for by the profits thrown off by Whitney's Corinthian Broadcasting subsidiary, owner of CBS affiliate television stations in Sacramento, Houston, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Tulsa.

If Mad Men's Harry Crane wanted to buy television time from that station group, he might do it over lunch in La Fonda Del Sol with Corinthian's Director of Sales, Don L. Kearney, whose office in the Time Life Building I visited on a Saturday in the Spring of 1965. It was a great place to do my homework while my dad did his.

June 2010: Memphis Beat Review

Click here my Pajamas Media review of TNT's new drama Memphis Beat. Jason Lee stars as a Memphis cop.

New Foyle's War to DVD on June 1st

When Foyle's War climaxed with the conclusion of World War II a couple of years ago, it appeared that yet another great television series was gone forever. But three new post-war episodes have been produced and are airing this month on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery.

The first installment is especially strong: "The Russian House" makes it clear that as early as 1945 a new enemy -- Soviet Communism -- was emerging as a ruthless foe. Although the episode is online, the definition isn't great. I recommend catching it on DVD via Netflix, etc. or on a PBS affiliate

If you'd rather catch up on earlier episodes first, here is my earlier review of the Foyle's War DVDs ...

When television's best programs (e.g. Mad Men) go into seasonal hibernation, Netflix is a wonderful choice for those who won't settle for anything less than excellence. One of the great gems of Netflix is the PBS/ITV classic Foyle's War. Nineteen episodes (about 90 minutes each) are presently available on DVD.

World War II is the backdrop. In the foreground is Michael Kitchen's marvelous, understated portrayal of police Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle,, a widower and father solving crimes of all kinds in the town of Hastings. The locale has strategic significance and historic resonance -- 1066 and all that -- at a time when the possibility of invasion was on all minds. Not all the crimes relate directly to the war, but all the characters bear its weight. The series is a masterpiece of tone, with no overwrought music, graphical excess, or character histrionics.

Each episode stands alone, so you can pick and choose from this excellent online episode guide and website, or do what we've been doing, watch in sequence and follow unfolding developments in the war, and in the lives of the four regular characters. Produced over several years at a slow pace, the series is meticulously attentive to period detail. Writer Anthony Horowitz read hundreds of books to capture the attitudes, events, crimes, and details of everyday life during the era. Horowitz is young, but he writes with maturity and grace.

As a war story it is no polemic. Issues such as battle fatique, casualties, treatment of prisoners, suspicion due to ethnicity, the religious perspective, conscientious objectors, political agitators, profiteers, and much more come up in this or that episode. Underneath it all is a sense of common cause, and values like duty, compassion, and valor.

Mad Men -- Season Three Now Available on DVD

$17.99 isn't a lot to pay for a full season of the most outstanding program on television, but that's the price on Amazon for season three of Mad Men, Matthew Weiner's Emmy winning drama set in 1963.

Mad Men is television's most impressive business drama ever. Unlike the megahit Dallas, which depicted the oil industry in broad strokes, Mad Men gets into the details of what makes advertising such a fascinating arena.

What's most fascinating, of course, are the people. Characterization is all important, and surprises abound. "Connie", a stranger, bonds with series lead Don Draper (who won't learn that the stranger is Conrad Hilton until three episodes later) around their humble origins and arrival at their place of meeting, a country club bar. John Moroney's fine article Hollywood Discovers a Real Businessman about how Hilton came alive in season three.

Unlike ad man Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), the Conrad Hilton we meet in the series has honestly integrated his humble origins into a self-made man's identity. Hilton leans on his Bible (vs. Bertram Cooper's Atlas Shrugged), but is in other ways he's a Randian figure. Draper still has a ways to go. While the brilliant season finale tests Draper's impulse for independence and invigorates his business life, he's no Hilton, yet. Their journey over this season is built on a joint recognition of how the American Dream is available to all willing to make the effort.

That striving is most evident in the series' Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) who in Mad Men's three years has grown from a secretarial school graduate to a recruited star copywriter. To do so she resists both the backward pull of her family cloister in Brooklyn, and the wayward tilt of immature co-workers and Cosmo girls who believe the real winners are latching on to upwardly mobile husbands in the suburbs. Pursuing the career woman path in 1963 was no easy thing, and along Peggy's slow, heroic journey we her developing a trait rarely celebrated on television: patience. There's humor too, as when Peggy, asked to turn off a dog of a focus group from behind the glass, responds "I can't turn it off, it's actually happening." We can't turn it off, either.

And so we were there for the season finale, when Draper made his appreciative pitch for Peggy Olson, and her talents, whose talents were appreciated elsewhere.

"There are people out there who buy things. People like you and me. And something happened. Something terrible. And the way that they saw themselves is gone. And nobody understands that. But you do."

Draper knows first-hand how the Depression crushed shoppers' self-worth. He gets that Peggy feels consumers' psychological need to fine-tune their self-worth, their place in society by using cosmetics, sharing popsicles, or framing a telegram. This isn't just a slick ad man's play to retain a talented underling, it's an affirmation of the underlying social value of what advertisers do on behalf of their clients.

Season four of Mad Men will premiere on Sunday July 25. Season three is currently re-running on AMC, but for $17.99 I recommend getting ready for the new episodes by watching last year's at your own convenience.

A Public Library for Public Service Television

C-SPAN has put its Video Library online. My guide and critique are up on PajamasMedia.com

TV's Top Ten of 2009

Charles Krauthammer and Modern Family's Julie Bowen get some overdue recognition in this column for PajamasMedia.com, where I review television's top ten moments, individuals, and programs of 2009.

September, 2009: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency released on DVD

For several years now HBO tried to recapture the magic of its original programming during the Chris Albrecht years. Finally, this year the network became an innovator again, by moving beyond the hip, edgy, industry insider mentality which has handicapped its search for a broad based hit to lure and retain subscribers.

The program is the The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, based on Alexander McCall Smith's popular novels, and it has now been released on DVD. The series is the first ever shot in Botswana, and it's a lyrical, visually ambitious, and captivating yarn with an immensely likable lead character played by Jill Scott. It's not exactly a globalized Murder She Wrote, but it is a sharp turn away from the cynical, elitist posture we've come to expect recently from HBO.

The stories are remarkably gentle, the visual presentation is stunning, and the African score infuses the series with bounce and optimism. Can't recommend this one strongly enough.

July, 2009: The Closer on TNT and DVD

Jennifer Coolidge, G.W. Bailey, and Kyra Sedgwick in The Closer, "Dial M for Provenza"

The Closer, TNT's outsanding police procedural starring Kyra Sedgwick, is now in its fifth successful season airing on Monday nights. Last year's outstanding season four has been released on DVD with 15 episodes including two of my favorites, "Dial M for Provenza" and "Tijuana Brass." My full review is up on PajamasMedia.com

Meanwhile season two Mad Men has just been released on DVD and Blu-ray, while season three will premiere on AMC in August. In terms of great television, Summer is the new Thursday night.

June, 2009: Churchill at War

Into the Storm, HBO's follow-up to the Emmy-winning The Gathering Storm, premiered Sunday, May 31 and replays throughout June. Brendan Gleeson and Janet McTeer play Winston and Clementine Churchill.

"A relentless leader is the greatest weapon of war" states HBO's publicity poster. The film covers Churchill's leadership during World War II, when his rhetoric gave Britons the heart to fight on. His marriage and his future political standing were also at risk. Revered today, Churchill was not without his critics at the time.

Steadfast leadership and the ability to communicate effectively are both required for leadership in time of war. Seventy years from now, how will this decade's American leaders be judged by history?

Click here for my full review at PajamasMedia.com.

March, 2009: CBS' Jesse Stone Movies: A Triumph of Tone

Tom Selleck in CBS' Jesse Stone: Thin Ice

In early March 2009 Tom Selleck returned to CBS for a fifth Jesse Stone movie, Jesse Stone: Thin Ice. The first four Jesse Stone movies are available on DVD and are in the Netflix collection. If you haven't seen them, you're in for a treat. Based on the Robert Parker novels, Selleck's character is a forlorn, lonesome, highly functioning alcoholic solving crimes in a New England beach village. The tone is ruminative, unrushed, absolutely perfect pacing for a series of pictures about a man who has exited life's fast lane for a country road.

Just as Selleck's (and writer Don Bellisario's) Thomas Magnum matured throughout their classic series, the actor here continues to evolve, bearing the scars of middle age with grace and wisdom. Like his character, Selleck doesn't need the pressure of the high octane action hero any more. Magnum PI was a landmark series, and did its part in history, redeeming the public image of the Viet Nam vet. It also reaped the rewards of a #1 hit, registering record breaking syndication sales for a one-hour drama. Give Jesse Stone a place in the record books, too, as one of the last quality effort in the broadcast network made-for-television movie genre. It's also one of the last broadcast programs unapologetically made for the baby boomer audience now shunned by the big advertisers.

These Jesse Stone pictures are everything broadcast network television today tries so hard not to be. It is dignified, quietly intelligent, and respectful of lessons which can only be learned by maturity. There's no pulsating pop music, no frenetic editing, no one in a constant state of sexual overdrive, no preening urban narcissists shouting into cell phones, no automatic weapons, and no references to "texting" and Facebook. There is a dog.

The Los Angeles Times review identifies its essence perfectly -- "This is a slow-moving film, especially in comparison with the often hyperkinetic pacing of today's television, but that's one of its greatest strengths."

Flashback: In Praise of Mad Men, Outstanding Drama Series of 2007

Mad Men, a drama series set in a 1960 New York advertising agency, airs Sundays at 10PM on AMC.

What I appreciate most about Mad Men is its maturity. It is civilized, intelligent, and more interested in the human condition than in exploiting facile high stakes plot points.

I love that the series refuses to pander to the presumptions of today's advertising business about the audience, even as it explores the golden age of that industry. More than any show in history it draws you gracefully into its sponsorship, and that unique ad environment is often put to good use.

Mad Men respects the emotional maturity of its audience. It doesn't pound us with a relentless musical score. It doesn't rush us along, so we wait through a long focus group for one insight at the end which will launch a career. It is ruminative, yet it celebrates imaginative energy. Sexuality is everywhere, but it's gentle and understated, reflecting the shame and inhibition which our culture has since lost, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

The scene pitching the Kodak account in the Season One finale "The Wheel" has been heralded as one of the finest in the history of television. Small wonder Matthew Weiner was nominated twice in the writing category, once for the pilot, and again for the season finale.

Mad Men is true to the period, and it's thick with contrasts between that time and these, but never as object lessons. Dangers from cigarettes and alcohol to cellophane bags appear in the foreground, then disappear without driving home an immediate lesson like some overwrought David Kelley polemic. One minute you think the ad game is being mercilessly skewered, then the hero casually one-ups a group of critical bohemians.

It's a show you have to talk about when it's over. Did young women sometimes not know they were pregnant? Did a character anticipate those combined effects of booze, oysters and a "broken" elevator, and was that a just punishment for what preceded?

Much about the show has been justly praised: its authenticity, the lovely opening title sequence, the perfect casting. One of the small things I enjoy is that the characters read interesting, provocative authors like Marshall McLuhan and Ayn Rand, and occasionally talk about what they've read. Sometimes they just talk like people who read. On what other program would a secretary be reprimanded with the line "your decolletage is distracting"?

Here's hoping this rich, engaging program inspires other attempts to transcend the conventions of today's low aimed prime time serials. And here's hoping that Emmy recognition will draw in a wider audience to this show. Frasier proved that aiming high to a sophisticated audience doesn't necessarily mean that audience will be small.

Addendum: Since this early review Mad Men has become one of the most honored programs on television in this decade. Advertising Age magazine went so far as to create a special 1960 Mad Men issue.
Here's hoping Matt Weiner's masterpiece will be with us for many years to come ... 1963, '64, '65, '66, etc.

Ladies and Gentlemen ...

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Over the last few years GSN has done something wonderful for everyone with a DVR system like TiVo. During the middle of the night the network aired, in sequence, black and white episodes of the classic CBS panel show What's My Line? Star blogger James Lileks praised the series in an article, as did the Wall Street Journal in Robert J. Hughes' piece entitled "Oh, the civility!" This is no insignificant cult.

Those of us who followed loyally saw history move forward one week per night, from the early 1950's through 1967. It was a time of cultural transformation in America. World War II references, exaggerated formalism, and gender stereotyping gave way to Camelot fashions, references to twisting the night away, and more subtle redefinitions of urban sophistication. This was a time when a publisher, a columnist, a stage actress and a news broadcaster, all well into middle age, were the epitome of the urban "in crowd."

In early 2008 GSN began the rerun process anew.(Yes, the press noticed.) So every weeknight at Midnight (Pacific time) history will move forward by one week, with the help of the TiVo and GSN. Some manners and mores of 1958 don't look so bad seen from 50 years later. Judge for yourself.

editor's note: In March 2009 GSN abruptly stopped rerunning What's My Line?, ending during the shows of March 1960. We hope for its return, and yearn to see all those JFK era fashion shifts at least one more time.

Executive perspective --

WSJ: Would you want to run a movie company today?

Mr. Diller: No. Words like "tent pole" and "merchandising" have nothing to do with telling good stories. The current process of major film companies is so different than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and I find the output that comes from it far less interesting. It's a very hard business to get into, and I don't know why you'd make that choice rather than shoe manufacturing.

Creative perspective --

They say that television and comedy in television is changing," said Frasier Emmy winner David Hyde Pierce in 2004. "And I just want to say when it changes back, call me."

.
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