Viewpoint

They say everyone's a critic. Today it's more true than ever, with crowd-sourced websites like Goodreads, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. So why listen to me?

Well, I've got over seven decades experience in the medium. Young James is pictured here outdoors, but the young boomer was already immersed in the nascent electronic medium.

See the clues? What's with the cowboy hat and badge in Central Park? That's because the TV content of the 1950's celebrated cowboys and sheriffs. The tweedy blazer? That's a media educator in the making, someday to lead seminars in television for future writer-producers and executives.

Inspired by black & white classics like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Perry Mason, and The Fugitive, the fan boy became a young professional with a passion for pushing TV to fulfill its artistic potential.

Following graduate studies in film and TV at USC came positions in advertising, public broadcasting, sports production, writing, cable and network program development/consulting, alongside academia. No ivory tower academic here.

The TV shows featured on this website are either recent and noteworthy or enduring classics. We are each our own curators now, so hopefully you will find these choices informative and useful.

talent update

Scott & Bailey (on BritBox in the U.S.)

If you enjoyed the 2011-2016 Manchester-set police detective drama, here's where you can see more recent work of the three leads, L to R Amelia Bullmore (DCI Gill Murray), Suranne Jones (Rachel Bailey) and Lesley Sharp (Janet Scott.)

Amelia Bullmore, who took over as head writer of S&B after Sally Wainwright moved on, has written Traces, a thoroughly compelling forensic procedural from Nicola Shindler's impressive Red Production Company. As an actress, Ms. Bullmore has recently been in Vienna Blood, The Larkins, and Gentleman Jack.

Suranne Jones plays diarist Anne Lister in Sally Wainwright's Gentleman Jack on HBO, a brave, powerful and respectful take on a lesbian's challenges in a man's world-era. Jones is also wonderful in the fast-moving thriller Vigil as a DCI investigating a murder on a submarine.

Lesley Sharp, whose interrogation scenes in S&B are true classics right up there with the best of the best, recently did the dark drama Before We Die, an oddball Florida-set comedy Living the Dream, and she's perfect opposite Phil Davis in Brighton, about two working class couples' holiday gone wrong.

If you have trouble locating any of these programs on streaming, I use reelgood.com and justwatch.com/us for the latest what's-where searches.