The American Culture

In a comment on yesterday's report on and analysis of the ratings woes of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Missy makes the following observations:

Studio 60 is very like West Wing when Sorkin was involved. Since I liked West Wing then, I like Studio 60. The pace, the characters, they're very similar. . . . I'd hate to see it go, if these rumors end up being true. If nothing else, I love watching these actors work together.

I think that Missy is right about the production quality of the show. The interesting thing, in my view, is that the producers failed to give audiences a central character or two who is/are somewhat like the audience members themselves, someoone who looks at the other characters from a sort of bemused, outsider perspective. That would have given the audiences much more with which to identify. It's a pity that they failed to do that.

I think that this situation is another instance of what comes from the social isolation of many wealthy Hollywood artists. They live lives quite distant from the hoi polloi toward whom their products are directed, and they can all too easily lose any emotional and social connections to the great majority of people, whose everyday lives are so different from theirs.

Fortunately, setbacks such as the ratings troubles of Studio 60 provide a free-market solution to the propblem. The Aaron Sorkins of the world have a great incentive to dive back into real life once in a while, because those that fail to do so end up being soon forgotten.

The 1940s Hollywood comedy director Preston Sturges did a wonderful job of presenting these issues in his classic screwball comedy Sullivan's Travels. And it just so happens that Turner Classic Movies is showing Sullivan's Travels this coming Sunday at 8:00 AM EST. It's a classic film that truly belongs in any cultured person's library. It's that good.

And if you know Aaron Sorkin, tell him to watch it too. He has probably seen it, but obviously he could use a refresher course. 

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, one of the network's most highly anticipated new shows of this fall, is about to be cancelled, according to reports.

The show draws less than half as many viewers as CSI: Miami, which regularly wins the Monday 10 p.m. EST time slot Studio 60 occupies at NBS. What is even more damaging is that the Aaron Sorkin-produced Studio 60 suffers a huge drop in viewership from its lead-in program, the new series Heroes. Last week, the surprisingly popular Heroes drew 14.3 million watchers, and Studio 60 pulled in an anemic 7.7 million, nearly a 50 percent drop in viewership from its lead-in. That is simply an intolerable number and clearly indicates that not many people like Studio 60.

This is not a matter of audiences failing to appreciate a quality show, which does happen from time to time. No, audiences are flocking to Heroes because it is interesting and dramatic and includes characters and situations which, although fanciful, are easy for viewers to identify with.

Studio 60, by contrast, is about a highly lucky, elite group of people whose jobs are fantastically fun if difficult and often frustrating. In addition, most of the characters are terribly snarky and self-important, and they don't seem to enjoy their wealth-suffused lives much at all. These things may well be true of the people who make network comedy shows, but the characters they make up aren't the kinds of people most individuals will want to invite into their homes week after week. It's a simple lesson, but the TV producers and networks never seem to learn it.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been out of town at a conference for the past few days, and haven't had much of a chance to post items on the site. I'm back, however, and you can expect the flow of wisdom to become a ferocius torrent.

One thing that struck me recently was upon viewing an episode of the current Warner Bros. cartoon series The Batman, which runs on KidsWB, a Saturday morning block of cartoons. The program premiered in 2004 and is in its fourth season, somehow.

What is not particularly interesting is the narrative I saw, from one of the first-season episodes. The series, from what I saw and have been able to glean from various sources, deals with Bruce Wayne's early years as the Batman, in which he establishes what the character will be like in his prime, as depicted of course in numerous other media products over the past three quarters of a century. In sum, the show covers Bruce's early years as the Batman.

Not surprisingly, the story I saw involved several fanciful villains led by a particularly ambitious and egotistical one, in this case the Penguin, whom the Batman must subdue lest all sorts of badness rain down on the blithely sheeplike people of Gotham.

An interesting observation is that we don't see any of those innocent bystanders in the episode I saw. They are more of a concept than a reality. This seems to fit well with a sense a good proportion of Batman fans have conveyed, that the series is not as "gritty" as Warner's previous Batman cartoon series (which was a superb example of this kind of series). Not showing the bystanders would seem to take away some of the sense of danger that would otherwise be experienced by younger children who could more easily thereby see themselves as threatened by the villains and narrative events. Batman fans seem in general to judge that the characterizations and story lines of The Batman are not as rich as in Batman: The Animated Series, especially through most of season one, although they do also seem to agree that the show becomes quite interesting thereafter.

From my viewing of a first season episode, this seems a fairly accurate assessment though by no means a dispositive condemnation even of the first season: the program seems to be geared toward a younger audience, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. If the WB wants to create a laudable hero for younger wee ones, I'm definitely not going to complain.

But what I found most striking and rather appealing about The Batman was the visual style. The characters are obviously strongly influenced by Japanese manga comics and anime. They have that odd combination of sweeping, angular, but rounded features and body shapes that is common to those Japanese forms of drawing. And it is very interesting to see that style applied to the familiar Batman characters, as it brings them some new life.

This Eastern style of character drawing, however, is joined to a thoroughly classical use of perspective in the visual settings—the background locations, the environment in which the characters operate. Here, the buildings, streets, rooms, and other locales are presented through a vivid use of classical perspective with a single focus point that is usually in the horizontal center of the screen. The sense of perspective is very strong in the episode I saw, and creates a sense of a highly logical world in which the wicked behavior of the villains is a disturbance, not an inevitable outcome of the circumstances surrounding them. Even when odd angles are used, the perspective is not distorted.

Unlike films noir and most modern action films, with their frequent use of deliberately distorted visual perspectives, and unlike Batman: The Animated Series, the visual style of The Batman openly suggests that good and evil are human choices, not just phenomena flowing inexorably from environmental (and genetic) circumstances.

In this way, the program seems to send a very salutary message to young people: the choice is yours.

Is this a stretch, a matter of seeing too much significance in something trivial.  (Translated: Is Karnick seeing too much in this?) I don't think so at all. This visual style is definitely present in the program, and the contrast between the visual presentation of the characters and their surroundings, whether consciously chosen or not, is real. And its meaning seems to me evident, strong, and significant. Those of us who believe in free will should find this visual presentation an interesting and happy thing.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have some good news for you regarding Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy mysteries, which I highly recommend for a bit of fun and somewhat meaningful reading—see article here and excerpts from that article below. The good news is that two complete Lord Darcy stories (novellas, really) are available online, at the site for Baen Books, the publisher of the Lord Darcy omnibus collection.

The Darcy mysteries were written in the 1960s and '70s and are set in an alternative twentieth century in which the Reformation never happened, the rules of magic were discovered during the Middle Ages, and technology has not advanced beyond the mid-nineteenth century. The stories (and one novel) combine dashing adventure, real fair-play puzzle mysteries, a world where magic is real but bound by definite rules, and some lightly presented insights into the human condition.

To read the stories on the Baen website, click here. Once you read them, you will want to read them all. 

For more info on Lord Darcy and why you might want to read Randall Garrett's delightful series, click here for my National Review Online essay on the subject.

To buy a copy of the trade paperback edition, click here.

Here's some more info on Lord Darcy, from my National Review Online essay on the series:

First published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and '70s, the stories tell the exploits of Lord Darcy, a detective who bears a striking resemblance to Sherlock Holmes.

But if Darcy seems familiar, the world in which he lives is anything but. In this alternative universe, King Richard the Lion-Hearted did not die young, having narrowly escaped death at the Siege of Chaluz (the source of his demise in our world), and that particular event changed everything. The brash, irresponsible king's brush with mortality sobered him up greatly, and he ruled wisely and well for another two decades and ensured the continuation of a long line of great Plantagenet rulers that has lasted to the present day.

As a result, there was no break between England and France, no Reformation, no formal separation of church and state, and no Enlightenment. The world has thereby avoided the splintering of authority that has characterized the modern era. In addition, rather than the laws of science and technology being worked out into their now-familiar profusion, the laws of magic were developed instead, thereby retarding technological development by making the need for it less urgent.

The resulting world is certainly an enchanting place. In the 1960s and '70s, travel is still mainly by horseback and railroad, and the streets and buildings are illuminated by gaslight. Houses, furnishings, and clothing fashions have an 18th-century quality, and the feudal system is in full flower and is administered in a quite decent and humane manner, thanks to the precedent established by King Richard. The Anglo-French Empire is a place of great courtesy and formality, a huge contrast to the real 1960s and '70s in which these stories first appeared.

Even a largely just and harmonious political order, however, cannot nullify the human heart's propensity toward sin. That, of course, is where Lord Darcy comes in. In this alternative twentieth-century Europe, he serves as Chief Criminal Investigator for Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of King John IV, Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, New England (North America), and New France (South America). Assisted by forensic expert and Master Sorcerer Sean O Lochlainn, Darcy investigates crimes, all of which involve some use of magic either in the commission or investigation.

Despite the presence of magic, the puzzles are fairly clued; once Garrett establishes the rules of magic, he sticks to them, and we can trust that all the evidence will be laid before the reader before Darcy presents his ingenious solution. The puzzles are quite good, in fact, which is particularly remarkable in that Garrett was mainly a science-fiction writer (and a widely admired one). Darcy uses deduction to solve the crimes, while Sean serves the function of a forensic scientist. The saga consists of three novellas written in the 1960s, six from the 1970s, and the 1966 novel Too Many Magicians. After Garrett's untimely death, sci-fi and mystery writer Michael Kurland wrote two more Darcy novels in the late 1980s.

Garrett's writing style is as elegant and charming as his setting, and his mastery of atmosphere is admirable. . . . 

There's much more—the rest of the essay continues here.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, at long last, Jonathan Creek comes to DVD in the United States. This excellent British TV mystery series was shown in the UK from 1997 through 2004 and has been seen on BBC America and some PBS stations in the United States. (BBC America still shows episodes occasionally late at night.) There were about two-dozen episodes produced, most about an hour long and three done as 90-minute TV movies.

The series is a rare TV entry in the "impossible crimes" form, and was a real delight for those who like a whacking good detection puzzle.

The title of the program refers not to a place but to the series' main character, a designer of illusions for a celebrated professional magician. In each episode an assertive young female (Caroline Quentin in the first three seasons, and then Julia Sawalha in the last two) drags Jonathan, played superbly by the comedian Alan Davies, into a mystery involving murder and some apparently magical occurrence. For example, a person will disappear from a room that is locked and observed at all exits, or an elderly woman appears to be able to predict deaths through her dreams. Jonathan investigates reluctantly and not at all intrepidly, using his knowledge of stage illusions to solve the cases and identify the killers.

If this sounds as if it might be a bit arch and old-fashioned, rest assured that it doesn't play out that way on screen, as producer-writer David Renwick makes certain to place at the forefront a strong view of the fascinating mess that is contemporary Britain. Hence the series combines the appeal of both the traditional and the new.

For more on Jonathan Creek, read my National Review Online article here.

For more information about the DVD release, click here.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The latest movie about magic and magicians, The Prestige, opened this past Friday to middling reviews but good box office, winning the weekend by an estimated $1.1 million over the number two attraction, Martin Scorcese's The Departed.

The movie is worth seeing if you don't expect too much. The filmmakers have clearly tried very hard to make it both entertaining and meaningful, but The Prestige just barely manages to achieve either of those goals.

The plot is complex, the characters' motives are often fashionably murky, and the cinematography and visual effects are ambitious and largely diverting. The sets have the cluttered, dirty look that is now common to these period films, in a clear reaction against the tidy, stagy approach once common to Hollywood, the BBC, and PBS's Masterpiece Theater but now largely gone from all three (cf. the most recent theatrical film version of Pride and Prejudice and last year's PBS adaptation of Bleak House).

The main performers—Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine—use every bit of their formidable charisma to keep the viewer interested, and Rebecca Hall also puts in an excellent performance. (Scarlett Johansen, on the other hand, brings nothing special but her looks.) The central premise—a war between two magicians to create the ultimate illusion—is a very promising idea.

Unfortunately, instead of having fun with this, the director and co-screenwriter, Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) takes it all way too seriously, working feverishly to explain the Meaning Behind It All while failing to creat a pair of central characters whom we could wish to be around for a couple of hours. Both Jackman's and Bale's characters are willful, absurdly ambitious, self-important, egotistical, and, well, rather silly. Given the characters' unpleasant personalities and the fact that neither of them is attempting to contributes anything of value to society, it really doesn't matter much which one of them wins. And that is the death knell for entertainment value in a film with a conflict between two people as its central premise.

But it's fun to watch nonetheless, as Nolan is very good at getting us from one plot point to the next, and the fractured, chronologically out of sequence narrative keeps us guessing not only what's going to happen next but what's happening now. Skilled movie watchers will be able to anticipate all the big surprises, but it's still fun to see somebody try to enchant us.

Although Nolan's weakness as a creator of characters (also a problem in his other films) ultimately limits the film, The Prestige does at least succeed in enchanting us a bit with a fun guessing game. But it could and should have been so much more.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

TV "Best of" lists are usually at best arguable and often fatuous, but the Sleuth Network's program on America's Top Sleuths is an especially annoying addition.

The comments of the "experts" on the 90-minute program aired recently are nearly uniformly unoriginal, wrong, or both, and the program is thoroughly dull and silly. Its contribution to the public's knowledge and understanding of the film and television mystery genre is absolutely nil, and in fact probably negative. After watching the program, an individual who knew nothing about the subject would know even less that is actually true than they did before.

The choices of greatest detectives, voted on by visitors to the Sleuth Network website, were limited to American film and TV characters. Even so, the final list mysteriously omits many of the most important mystery characters in those media. The bias toward detectives who blunder along without actually doing much thinking is clear.

Along with a few who actually belong—such as Sgt. Joe Friday, Lt. Phillip Columbo, Jim Rockford, Jessica Fletcher, Thomas Magnum, etc.—the list includes a large proportion of dubious choices. These include Maddie and Dave of the TV series Moonlighting, who may be amusing but are hardly sleuths at all; Detective Andy Sipowicz of NYPD Blue, an utterly uninteresting character; Lt. Tony Baretta of Baretta, a thoroughly routine tough-guy bore; and Det. Lenny Brisco of Law and Order, who is a likeable fellow as played by the late Jerry Orbach, but certainly not an interesting or unusual detective character.

From the movies, Clarice Starling of Silence of the Lambs is wrongly included (does she do any thinking at all? and couldn't they have provided her with a personality?), as are Riggs and Murtaugh of the Lethal Weapon movies (come on!).

Sam Spade (specifically, Humphrey Bogart's version from The Maltese Falcon), Harry Callahan (of the Dirty Harry movies), Irwin Fletcher (of Fletch), Lt. Frank Drebin (of the Naked Gun movies and TV show; thanks to Mr. Hunter Baker for correcting our spelling), and Marge Gunderson (of Fargo) are at least somewhat justifiable choices by virtue of being actual characters, but hardly a one of them ever does any real thinking.

The list of great sleuths not included is in fact much more impressive than the list itself. 

Now, Sir Wilfred Robards, played by Charles Laughton in Billy Wilder's superb film adaptation of the Agatha Christie play is English, so I suppose we can excuse that otherwise egregious omission. And the same goes for Peter Sellers' Inspector Jacques Clouseau, who is French.

But consider the following by no means comprehensive lineup of American detectives from film and TV who didn't make the list. (And I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones; suggestions welcome). Most of these are characters who actually think at least once in a while, and nearly all of them have interesting personalities and are quite likeable.

This turns out to be a much more interesting and appealing group than the great majority of those on the Sleuth TV list:

• Father Dowling
• Mr. Moto
• Jonathan and Jennifer Hart (Hart to Hart) 
• Sam McCloud
• Vincent La Guardia Gambini of My Cousin Vinny
  
• The NCIS team 
• Commissioner Stewart McMillan (of McMillan and Wife)
  
• Tom Lawrence, aka The Falcon
• The Saint (as played by George Sanders in the movies)
  
• Ben Matlock 
• Mark Sloan of Diagnosis: Murder
• Nick Charles (of the Thin Man series) 
• Keen Eddie Arlette
• Carl Kolchak of Kolchak: The Night Stalker

And now to the utterly unbelievable omissions, detectives who are truly interesting and unique, and whose stories involve real mysteries:

• Thomas Banacek
• Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin
• Ellery Queen
• Adrian Monk
• Charlie Chan (details here, here, and here)
  
• Perry Mason
  

What an absurd travesty the Sleuth Network list is!

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

The American Family Association has announced that NBC TV has decided to delete the mock crucifixion scene that was to appear in a concert special starring rock singer Madonna. As reported on this site on September 20,

NBC TV is pondering what to do about rock singer Madonna's upcoming TV special on the network. A video of the middle-aged pop star's latest  concert will be broadcast on the network in November. The problem: Madonna sings one song, "Live to Tell," while suspended on a cross, bound by silver cuffs and wearing a crown of thorns.

Catholic and Orthodox church groups have protested the spectacle. Madonna defends it by saying that it is not "anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous." She says that in fact Jesus himself would be just like her if he were here today: "It is no different than a person wearing a cross or 'taking up the cross' as it says in the Bible. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole. I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing."

At that time, I cited an E! Online article reporting that NBC would probably air the scene, quoting NBC President Kevin Reilly as telling TVGuide.com "several weeks ago that the scene will probably stay put because Madonna 'felt strongly about it' and considers it a highlight of her show."

NBC has apparently changed course under pressure from groups concerned about the scene. As the AFA's "Action Alert" put it:

AFA supporters have won a great victory! The efforts of AFA Online supporters has forced NBC to cancel a scene in the upcoming Madonna special in which she mocks the crucifixion of Christ!

More than 750,000 AFA supporters emailed NBC asking for the scene to be deleted from the special which is scheduled to air in November. NBC saw a potential loss of $25,000,000 and decided to edit out the scene.

We were effective because we stuck together and combined our voices. Our supporters not only emailed NBC, but they also called their local NBC stations. Those stations contacted NBC and the network listened. The scene is gone!

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Religion is all over the place on network TV series now. Many programs just can't seem to resist bringing it up, and the treatments are typically fairly sympathetic though by no means without nuance or sophistication.

For example: following up on last week's interesting comment at the end of the program, in which CSI team leader Gil Grissom suggests a sense of moral decline in America (see my article of last week on that episode), last night's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation moved thoroughly into spiritual and religious territory.

The story concerns the investigation into the death of a woman found crucified in the sanctuary of a Catholic church, having been beaten previously and strangled by a rosary. Much suspicion is directed toward a Catholic priest and an automobile dealer, both of whom have known the woman since high school. The priest, it turns out, was having an affair with the woman.

The church holds some very unhappy secrets, you see. But the episode is no slam at the church—it is instead a fairly sophisticated look at how flawed human beings try to live out their relationship with God, and how those who don't have such a relationship get on without it.

The events of the story bring out the religious beliefs, or lack thereof, of some of the central characters in the series. CSI Sarah Sidle makes it clear that she is pretty much of an atheist, though not adamant about it. Detective Brass shows himself to be very unsympathetic toward belief in God.

The two central characters of the show, however, are both shown to be Christian and in fact Catholic. Early on in the story, detective Catherine Willows—a former stripper and the daughter of a mobster—who is one of the team leaders, lights a candle in the sanctuary, makes the sign of the cross, and says a prayer for her father. Shortly thereafter, in a conversation with Sarah Sidle, Grissom states explicitly that he is a Catholic, though of a non-churchgoing sort who attaches intense spiriitual significance to everday life—suggesting something of an early-Church point of view, a very interesting and laudable approach to Christian faith and worship.

Earlier, in a rather startling moment at the crime scene, Grissom said to Brass, "Christ died for our sins. I wonder whose sins [the murdered woman] died for?"

This bald statement of the central tenet of Christianity is rather a departure for Grissom, who has never shown adherence to this faith before in the program, to my knowledge.

While expressing a strong faith in Christ, Grissom shows a wise skepticism toward the church and its human failings throughout the episode, an attitude which all Christians should share. In addition, Grissom interprets the events and spiritual implications of the story events with impressive astuteness.

Gil Grissom has always been the emotional and moral center of the team, and this explicit embrace of Christianity suggests an interesting new direction for the show. It could be a one-off, of course, but that seems unlikely given the explicitness and directness of the religious treatment in last night's episode, and in any case the knowledge of Grissom's and Willows's spiritual backgrounds will continue to color our perceptions of the show.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

In a comment on my post on The Demise of Oldies on FM radio below, Matt points out that satellite radio is indeed largely free of commercials:

There may be some satellite radio channels with commercials, but mostly the only commercials one hears on satellite radio are promotions for the service's other channels and specialized programming events. (Rather like the "commercials" one sees on HBO...and for the same reason. Their business model is dependent on being commerical-free as a marketing strategy, and so accepting outside advertising would be just a case of killing the goose.)

I get one of the satellite services on DirecTV, but they cancelled their progressive rock station, and it wasn't very good anyway--it played mostly jam bands, which are nice but aren't prog rock. Hence, I don't listen to any of the stations. However, from the little I've heard, there weren't any commercials other than promos, just as Matt says.

It used to be that one listened to the radio in part to find new songs and artists, but the internet seems much better at that than radio ever was. Recommendations and sound sampless at Amazon.com  and other sellers provide lots of leads, as do email discussion groups, artists' websites (especially links to other artists' albums they worked on), and music 'zines (with links to artists' sites with sound samples) all provide very efficient ways of finding new music, instead of listening to a lot of stuff you don't like on the radio in order to find an unexpected gem.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been watching the British ITV mystery series Murder City since it began a few weeks ago on BBC America, and am looking forward to tonight's season 2 finale at 10 to 11:30 EDT. (BBC America has shown all 10 episodes of the program's first two seasons in weekly installments.)

The show is a rather typical police procedural program in most ways. As the BBC promo site notes, the series "stars Amanda Donahoe (L.A. Law, The Madness of King George) as tough, methodical detective, Susan Alembic, and Kris Marshall (Love Actually, Doctor Zhivago, My Family) as Luke Stone, her highly creative, unorthodox junior partner."

That sounds very ordinary, if course, and in most ways the program is indeed fairly conventional. The crimes are interesting, and there is usually something rather odd about them, but that is actually typical of cop shows today.

However, there is one thing that is a bit unusual about Murder City: Amanda Donohoe's "tough, methodical detective Susan Alembic" is actually much more interesting than that description suggests. An alembic is an apparatus that refines or distills something else. Susan Alembic's way of solving crimes is to take the tide of information that comes to her and distill it to understand what it really means. That's what all good fictional (or real) detectives do, of course, and the name is a good choice.

But where Alembic really shines is in her attitude. The grim crimes with which she's confronted do affect her emotionally, although they elicit considerably stronger reactions from her gawky, rather unstable partner and subaltern, Luke. Alembic is married, apparently happily so (and is very disturbed when a criminal suspect's flirtation with her becomes increasingly serious in "Wives and Lovers," season 2 ep. 1, and in particular her own vulnerability to it), and is a highly mature, sensible, confident, and optimistic individual.

These characteristics are unusual for a current-day TV police detective, to say the least, and especially so for a supervisor. Contrast Susan Alembic with Gil Grissom of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Mandy Patinkin's character in Criminal Minds, for example. Where the latter are grim and let the crimes disturb them deeply, Alembic is able to detach herself in a very healthy and exemplary way.

Donohoe expresses these attitudes superbly in her vocal inflections and bodily posture: she sounds confident even when she may not be pleased with the way things are going, because she knows she's doing the right thing and therefore all will ultimately work out as well as possible, for she's not preventing it from doing so; and she stands with a posture that is somewhat jaunty and suggests a healthy dose of skepticism. Often she pulls her head back a bit as if to say, "Did you really mean that?"

Even more impressively, Donohoe's facial expressions are perfect: her raised eyebrows and typical half-smile suggest a person who knows and understands what's really going on behind the chaos around her, and who will not be beaten down by either the criminals or the departmant bureaucrats. The camera often reeals an actual twinkle in her eye as she watches another person speak. (The ability to convey thought while listening to another character is to me the mark of a good actor.)

A detective who smiles readily is a precious commodity on television today, and I certainly hope that in any further installments of Murder City this character will retain her charms. Alembic is something of a throwback to great detectives of the past such as Reggie Fortune, Lord Peter Wimsey, Lt. Phillip Columbo, and Banacek, and it would be a very good thing indeed to see more detectives of this sort both in television and in other media such as movies and books.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those who don't pay a fee to the XM or Sirius satellite systems, that is true. On commercial radio, the oldies stations are vulnerable to extinction because no big, corporate firm seems to use this format and be willing to offer it to audiences as an alternative to the very few formats they currently use.

The corporations instead choose to fight rabidly over the audience segments that like the very few programming formats that have proven to have the largest following.

For example:

The city where I live had an "oldies" FM station that was highly popular and played Chuck Berry songs and other 1950s material along with all the other great pre-1970s rock. A few months ago, however, the station was sold to a corporate owner which immediately turned it into a very boring contemporary station. No one has stepped up yet to fill the gap with a new oldies station.

There is a strong audience market for such stations, as the previous success of this station demonstrated. It is obvious why this should be so: the music is really very straightforwardly good, memorable, fondly remembered, and desired.

Unfortunately, corporate owners seem entirely unaware of the value of narrowcasting in FM radio, in contrast to the trend nearly everywhere else, where it is the norm. Corporate FM radio concentrates on just a few, very large audience segments, and people who like oldies rock, classical music, jazz, classic country/bluegrass/blues, and the like are apparently not an immediately identifiable demographic segment that corporations can easily convey to advertisers and thereby justify to their boards as programming options.

That's a pity, of course, but the history of AM radio might provide a clue that a better future may be on the way. When the popularity of AM dropped precipitously because of the higher sound quality on FM, programmers turned to talk radio, a format that had previously had little popularity but was (1) perfectly suited to AM's sound quality and (2) delivered a highy identifiable demographic which was not previously evident.

The same could happen in FM. We'll just have to wait for its ratings to fall far enough.

Get out your rosary beads.... 

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Pioneering rock 'n' roller Chuck Berry is eighty years old today.

Berry penned some of the most popular and enduring songs of the second half of the twentieth century, including big hits such as "Roll Over Beethoven," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "You Can't Catch Me," "Run Rudolph Run," "Maybelline," "Carol," "Back in the U.S.A.," "Memphis, Tennessee," "Johnny B. Goode," "Nadine," "No Particular Place to Go," and one of the very greatest of all rock songs, "Rock and Roll Music."

Elvis Presley was more widely admired (he was a far superior singer), and Buddy Holly more likeable, but Chuck Berry was perhaps the most influential of those three great 1950s musical figures.

Berry's signatures were his alternately chugging and chiming rhythm guitar interspersed with fairly virtuosic blues- and hillbilly-influenced frills and solos; his boisterous vocals; and his athletic on-stage antics. His songwriting reflected an extremely cheerful attitude and an engaging sense of humor, and he contributed greatly to making 1950s' rock 'n' roll a forum for straightforwardly hedonistic fun. His music was hugely influential—the Beatles and Rolling Stones were avid followers, for example, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said Berry wrote "all of the great songs and came up with all the rock'n'roll beats."

Berry's songwriting was rather limited, however—there never was a great deal of variety to either the music or the lyrical topics—and he reached the end of his creativity after a very few years. He didn't write any interesting songs after the mid-1960s, and rock music went far, far beyond what he was capable of producing.

Within his limits, however, he was truly brilliant.

Berry's personal life has often been rather chaotic and unpleasant, showing the unhappy side of the hedonism his music exemplified. His musical legacy, however, is a solid one and his influence undeniable.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Oliver Stone, writer-director of numerous melodramatic films, several of which have had controversial political themes, has announced his plans to film Jawbreaker, based in part on the book of the same name by former CIA officer Gary Bernstein. The film will tell the story of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and hunt for terror chieftan Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The announcement has brought forth some controversy, because Bernstein's book claims that U.S. troops could have killed or captured bin Laden in 2001 in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, but failed to do so because the Bush administration did not send 800 additional troops Bernstein requested.

That might suggest that Stone plans to do a hit job on the Bush administration in a film released just before the election to decide his successor. Stone, however, says his objective with Jawbreaker will be to "create compelling drama, not a polemic," according to Reuters News Service.

Lending credence to Stone's claim that he is not planning a left-wing polemic is his choice as screenwriter for the second draft of the screenplay for Jawbreaker: Cyrus Nowrasteh, writer-producer of the ABC-TV miniseries The Path to 9/11. Nowrasteh was criticized severely by the left and by prominent Democrats in particular, as they alleged that his assessment of the Clinton's administration's culpability for 9/11 was significantly greater than they thought justified. In the conclusion of the two-part miniseries ,Nowrasteh held the Bush administration to an equally high standard, but complaints from the right were pretty much nonexistent.

Nowrasteh's miniseries, that is, was quite fair, and he correctly refused to exonerate either the Clinton or Bush administrations. In watching the series it was easy to see what led to the tragic mistakes that ended up allowing the 9/11 attacks to occur. Nowrasteh and Stone seem to share a fairly realistic view of how flawed most politicians are and how quickly events can spin out of control. If the two filmmakers are as fair-minded as they were in The Path to 9/11 and World Trade Center, respectively, it might make some politicians uncomfortable but should be an interesting and reasonable treatment of the subject matter.

At least we can have some reason to hope so. With Stone, anything can happen.

For more on the Stone story, see the Reuters article on the announcement, here.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Your intrepid correspondent went on record early criticizing Durham, North Carolina, prosecutor Thomas Nifong for his outrageous rush to prosecute three Duke lacrosse players accused of rape by a stripper. On May 3 I wrote my first words on the subject for the Reform Club site, as follows:

The recent case in North Carolina—in which a prosecutor rushed forward with indictments against two Duke University lacrosse players [a third would be indicted shortly after I wrote this] despite a complete lack of plausible evidence against them and openly disregarded undeniable exculpatory evidence regarding one of them, in order to court votes from people of the same skin color as the accuser during primary elections that were then just a couple 0f weeks away—was just one of the more blatant examples of prosecutorial misconduct in recent months.

Subsequently, I wrote in great detail about what I characterized as Nifong's outrageous railroading of the Duke players, in light of two excellent articles on the subject in National Review Online a month later, available here and here. I returned to the story several times, continually pointing out that Nifong had no case and was pursuing it solely as a vote-getting measure, knowing that it would fall apart eventually but hoping he could hold the line until the November elections had passed.

That is becoming an increasingly dicey proposition, as is evident in light of last night's 60 Minutes broadcast and several blistering recent criticisms of the press's unquestioning acceptance of Nifong's absurd claims, such as Kurt Anderson's influential New York magazine piece on the New York Times's obscenely credulous coverage of the case.

Instead of referring to it as the Duke lacrosse case or something of that sort, I continually referred to it as the "North Carolina false prosecution scandal." It is clear that events have continued to show this description to be the accurate one. On June 6 I called for Nifong's impeachment, the resignation of Duke University president Richard Brodhead (who collaborated in the public pillorying of the innocent men), and the prosecution of the accuser.

None of these things have come to pass, of course, but it is increasingly obvious that these measures are called for (even though Nifong's term is almost over), so I call for them once again. 

The best coverage I've seen of the case is at Durham-in-Wonderland, where K. C Johnson, a history prof at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center has done yeoman work reporting regularly on the case since a couple weeks after its inception. I highly recommend it for those interested in all the sordid details of this prime specimen of prosecutorial misconduct.

For those who don't wish to wade through a full retelling of the horror that was the Duke prosecution, I'll summarize it briefly:

1. A desperate prosecutor latched onto a non-case pregnant with racial, class, and sexual implications in order to boost his fading chances of winning his party's primary nomination to keep his job, with the vote just a few weeks away.
2. Slavering over the salacious and politics-packed nature of the obviously false accusation, the largely leftist U.S. press corps leapt to convict the innocent young men through a trial by media, to feed the left's ongoing myth that powerful caucasian males continuously exploit women, "people of color," and those inclined toward unusual sexual practices in these here United States.
   
3. Both the prosecutor and his bootlickers in the press were disgustingly wrong and should be horsewhipped and cast out of polite society.
   

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The reports of an increasingly tense relationship between the United States and Europe may be a bit exaggerated. That's a likely conclusion to draw from the great surge in U.S. TV program becoming available in Europe.

What politicians say and do is one thing, but everywhere in the world, TV viewers vote with their remotes. In Europe, the increasing anti-Americanism of many politicians is belied by the mass audiences' great interest in, and presumably enjoyment of, American TV programs. In an article accurately titled, "As U.S. Is Reviled Abroad, American TV Charms," the New York Times reports:

In the parliaments and pubs of Europe, the United States may wallow in least-favored-nation status. But on European television, American shows have been enjoying a popularity not seen since the 1980’s heyday of “Dallas,” “Dynasty” and “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“What a difference,” said Gerhard Zeiler, chief executive of the RTL Group, the Luxembourg-based broadcaster that owns Five US and other channels across Europe. “Five or six years ago, you could barely find any U.S. series on the prime-time schedules of the market leaders. Now they are back, pretty much on all the major European commercial channels.”

RTL, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, recently created an all-American Tuesday night lineup at its flagship channel in Germany, the biggest commercial broadcaster in that country. It starts with “CSI: Miami,” a spin-off of the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” franchise, and continues with “House,” “Monk” and “Law & Order.”

RTL’s biggest commercial rival, ProSieben, owned by ProSiebenSat.1, counters with “Charmed,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Buoyed by strong ratings, RTL said last week that it planned to add a second night of American shows on Thursdays, starting Nov. 9. As recently as 1999, Mr. Zeiler noted, the only American programs shown during prime time on RTL in Germany were reruns of “Quincy,” as audiences tired of the formulaic American sitcoms and dramas that had once filled the airwaves. . . .

United States producers are taking more risks, creating edgier shows, analysts say, and they are spending more on them in an effort to appeal to European audiences. With revenue from sales of American rights flat, they are also increasingly dependent on international sales to recover costs.

The Times's angle on the story is that in response to improvements in U.S. TV programming, European viewers are showing an increased ability to enjoy offerings from a nation whose politics they still nonetheless hate:

Nick Thorogood, controller of Five US, said British viewers set aside any anti-American sentiments when they settle down on the sofa.

“We are seeing bright, intelligent and beautifully made drama coming out of America,” he said. “In the U.K., many people abhor the politics of the U.S. but eagerly embrace the culture.”

But I suspect that the real duality is not largely within the individuals themselves but in the population as a whole. The Times story opens with the observation that a recent British ad campaign for a new UK channel that offers only American programming "reflected a not-uncommon European complaint about the United States at a time of international disenchantment with its foreign policy. 'Nothing good ever came out of America,' the posters read, in plain, white-on-black block lettering." These were teaser ads that were soon replace with ones saying, "Who says nothing good ever came out of America?" the Times observes.

Well, who does say that? European and American leftist elites, that's who. Yes, European voters elect leftist governments because, as Ben Franklin observed, they seek safety over liberty for themselves (and shall have neither), but that doesn't mean they hate America.

As they vote with their remotes to support U.S. TV programming, the populations of these nations are demonstrating that the real divide may not be between Europe and the United States but between leftist elites on both continents and the much more reasonable general population they want to rule. And it's highly possible that European poll numbers and voting patterns might start to reflect this difference. After all, advertisers both here and in Europe spend pots of money on the premise that TV can spur people to action, and a greater presence of U.S. TV programming ought to help Europeans understand our more individualistic mindset and sympathize with it more readily.

This greater interest in U.S. TV programs could be a warning shot for European politicians who make a living by despising America and taking every opportunity to thwart our government's policies. Such politiicians may be pleasing a much smaller group of people than they think, and their own political futures may ultimately reflect that choice.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

The left-wing radio network Air America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. The network will remain on the air while its finances are reorganized.

Prospects for recovery appear bleak, however. As AP reports, "Court documents show the company lost $9.1 million in 2004, $19.6 million in 2005 and $13.1 million so far in 2006."

The network's continuing financial problems probably stem from several causes, among them mismanagement and hubris, but the biggest contributor is most likely the sheer superfluity of the project. Given the amount of TV and print news and opinion that reflects precisely the same ideas as are presented on Air America, it should be little wonder that the network never developed a strong following. In addition, as Tom Van Dyke notes at the Reform Club, the network's overseers did not have sufficient faith in their hosts or their audience to allow any actual debate to arise. Van Dyke writes,

I think it failed because they wouldn't let any non-leftists on, not guests, not callers. It was a Johnny One-Note thing, and even liberals had to get sick of AA's 24/7 cant.

That is a very good point indeed, and to elaborate on it a bit, I think that Air America's biggest failure has been that its refusal to allow any real debate removed all drama and suspense from the shows. On the Rush Limbaugh program, he and his callers can surprise you. On Air America, that can't happen.

The problem with Air America, then, is not so much that it is liberal talk radio—it is that it is bad talk radio.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Regarding the well-known Las Vegas promotional ads claiming that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," the allusion to them in last night's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (see the item immediately below) vividly reminded me of how revolting I've always found that ad campaign to be.

Yes, revolting.

The claim, of course, is that running wild in a strange town has no consequences.

The subtext is that prostitution is legal in Nevada.

Hence, for married folk the implication is that you can be sure your spouse will not know about your indiscretions when you return from your business trip out there (because you run no risk of getting arrested for solicitation), so please book your meetings and conventions in Vegas. For single people, the point is that there will be lots of people out looking for a good time with no commitments: the young men will have the fallback option of using the legalized prostitution, and the young women know that the legal prostitution means that there will be plenty of young men there.

Of course, contracting a venereal disease would seem to be a very possible negative consequence of what often happens in Vegas, but perhaps they have unusually good and discreet health care for tourists.

Even so, the notion that one can run wild without any consequences to the state of one's mind and soul is truly repulsive. Casting aside your morality for a few days may seem to be just a temporary matter of "blowing off a little steam," but that's just a convenient excuse: human beings are not steam engines.

To think that one can indulge in extramarital affairs, long hours of gambling, or binge drinking and not expect to carry home some reinforcement of the urges that brought the person to Vegas in the first place is incredibly naive and truly stupid.

And note the words used in the ad: what happens in Vegas. These things simply "happen" in Vegas, you see. You're not responsible for your choices; they simply happen. So of course there should be no consequences—it wouldn't be fair for you to be punished for something that simply "happened" to you.

What a wretched message to send to people.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The closing words of tonight's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation express a truly great insight into contemporary American society.

After solving the case, the investigators ponder the question of who is ultimately responsible for the depredations of a group of teenage thrill-killers in Las Vegas, whether it is the parents or simply the kids themselves. Someone mentions the "moral compass" the young people should have been provided. Team leader Gil Grissom enters the room and provides a wiser perspective:

The truth is, a moral compass can only point you in the right direction. It can't make you go there.

Our culture preaches that you shouldn't be ashamed of anything you do anymore.

And unfortunately, this city is built on the principle that there's no such thing as guilt:

"Do whatever you want. We won't tell."

So, without a conscience, there's nothing to stop you from killing someone.

And evidently, you don't even have to feel bad about it.

That's a powerful statement, and entirely true. It's even more powerful on screen than on the page. The episode is called Fannysmackin' and is well worth seeing for this excellent brief speech.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ellery Queen is the American mystery.

Who?, you ask.

Ellery Queen.

Still doesn't ring a bell?

The first line of this article is from the great mystery and sci-fi author and critic Anthony Boucher, and it is absolutely true. Yet Ellery Queen, whose heyday was the 1930s and '40 but wrote until the early 1970s, is all but forgotten today.

He was one of the greatest American mystery writers, creating maddengly complex puzzles that were fully explained in the end. His books were read by millions, and his character was adapted for the movies (poorly), TV (brilliantly in the case of the 1970s TV show Ellery Queen, produced by Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link), and radio (also brilliantly).

But as I noted in my National Review article on the 70th anniversary of the publication of Queen's first novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, that anniversary passed by with little fanfare and no prominent reprints of Queen's novels, as did the 75th anniversary last year.

Queen is well worth bringing back, however, and an interesting article from Queen's diamond anniversary year on one of the best Ellery Queen websites suggests how this might be done, pointing out the impressive popularity Ellery Queen's works still enjoy in Japan, China, Taiwan, Germany, and elsewhere.

I know this popularity well, as people from both China and Japan asked me for permission to translate my NR article on Queen when it appeared (which of course I granted).

The authors of the article, Kurt Sercu and Dale C. Andrews, suggest some very good ideas: one, that an enterprising publisher reprint the best five or six Queens in high-quality paperback editions with the original maps, introductions, casts of characters, and the like, and two, that a publisher work with the Queen rights holders to license a series of new novels featuring the main characters from the classic series.

These are both excellent ideas, and I encourage you to read the article and contact your favorite publishers with the request that they follow up on these suggestions. And if you have not yet read any Ellery Queen books, please head to your local used book store or online sources and pick up Calamity Town, The Adventures of Ellery Queen, The New Adventures of Ellery Queen, The Egyptian Cross Mystery, The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Chinese Orange Mystery, Halfway House, The Finishing Stroke, Cat of Many Tails, Ten Days' Wonder, The Player on the Other Side, and any others that strike your fancy. These are fine novels that should reach a much larger audience.

For a further introduction to Ellery Queen, see my National Review article here. 

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best television programs ever was actually three or four programs in one. The NBC Mystery Movie ran from 1971 to 1977, on Wednesday nights its first season and then on Sunday nights for the rest of its run. Three series rotated week by week. Additional series were added on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 1972 and 1974.

Presenting a new TV mystery movie each week in a 90-minute slot (which was later expanded to two hours), the program was an immediate success, reaching number 14 in the ratings during its first season and fifth in  its second. One of the programs, Columbo, received eight Emmy nominations in its first year alone, and won four of them that year. The, first, most popular, and best remembered programs from this series were Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. These programs and some others from the series have been shown in syndication and on cable networks ever since.

Selected seasons of all three of these programs are now available on DVD—you can find them by clicking on their names here—but other shows from the series also did well in the ratings and are still remembered fondly. The popular program Quincy, M.E, starring Jack Klugman as a causy, caustic, whistle-blowing medical examiner, began its run as part of the NBC Mystery Movie series. Also fondly remembered are The Snoop Sisters, which starred Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick, and Hec Ramsey, which starred Richard Boone as a crimefighter at the turn of the last century. The latter programs lasted only one and two years, respectively, and are seldom if ever run on television, which is a pity.

But the best of the lot, and one of my personal favorite TV shows ever, was Banacek. The program starred George Peppard as Thomas Banacek, a suave but tough freelance investigator in Boston. The conceit was that Banacek would find things that had been stolen, which the victims' insurance companies were unable to recover, and he would restore them at double the percentage that the insurance company charged. Hence, he made a huge amount of money and lived very well.

Banacek was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, an exellent writing team who also created Columbo; Murder, She Wrote; and the superb but sadly short-lived Ellery Queen.  

The thing that made Banacek really interesting, however, was that each week's crime was an "impossible" one. A large, bejeweled coach would disappear from a locked cargo hold of a ship in transit, a horse and rider would vanish from a racetrack during a practice run, an experimental car would be stolen from a train while in transit and watched by multiple witnesses, a football player would disappear after being tackled on the field before tens of thousands of fans in the stadium and millions of TV viewers, and other such puzzlers would occur in each episode.

Thomas Banacek was the epitome of "cool" at the time. He would investigate these impossible crimes while doling out sarcastic comments, old Polish proverbs, and punches and karate chops (ah, those were the days!) to deserving meanies; sipping expensive brandy in his luxurious (but interestingly old-fashioned in its decor) apartment; tooling around in his chauffer-driven limousine and taking calls on his enormous "portable" phone; and romancing a never-ending series of scantily clad cuties played by the likes of Linda Evans. Unfortunately, his style in accomplishing the latter was an early 1970s pseudo-Dean Martin approach which is now highly outdated and a bit silly. But it's easy to overlook it as a mere sign of the times, in light of all that is good about the series.

During the run of the series, we find out that Thomas (never Tom!) Banacek grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and chose to apply his talents to good ends, unlike many of those with whom he grew up. People occasionally mock him for his Polish background or deliberately mispronounce his name. The former get a stinging rebuke or worse, and the latter receive a polite but pointed correction.

Though he does delight in twitting the insurance investigators who consider him a greedy dilettante, Banacek has risen above his original station in life in developing excellent manners overall, and he expresses open disapproval of those who fail to show proper politeness themselves. That's something I, for one, would like to see more of both in television and in real life today.

Banacek would take an occasional physical beating himself when hopelessly outnumbered, but he always came out on top in the end. Aided by his loyal but dimwitted driver, Jay Drury, and his friend, mentor, and crack researcher Felix Mulholland, a bookstore owner, Banacek solved the crimes with great insight, perseverance, and panache, besting the plodding, corporate-drone insurance investigators who were perpetually trying to beat him to the solution. Of the latter, a tart-tongued young insurance investigator named Carlie Kirkland, played superbly by Christine Belford as Myrna Loy would have done it, provided an excellent foil and a feisty romantic interest.

Banacek is truly an exemplary character in many ways, excepting only his corny, pseudo-suave romantic life, and it is a pity that this excellent program cannot be seen today.

It would be a fine thing if programs such as Banacek, The Snoop Sisters, and Hec Ramsey could be brought out on DVD.

The good news is that we can help make that happen.

If you go to amazon.com and search for Banacek on DVD, the page informs you that the program is not yet available but you can vote to have it put on DVD and amazon.com will inform the copyright owners of the demand for the program. The process is very simple—a single button click will suffice for most people—and given the number of absolutely horrendous TV programs already available on video, it would send a good message to the rights owners, MCA Universal, that there is an audience out there for good programs such as Banacek.

So, don't delay: do yourself and all of us a favor, click here, and vote for Banacek. 

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Most people aren't going to like to hear this, but I think that we are truly in a golden age of television right now. Sure, most TV series are pap, but the best are truly comparable to theatrical movies in both story and production values. And they are getting better and better.