The AMC-TV drama series Hell on Wheels (Sundays, 10 p.m. EST) takes a rather cynical view of the building of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States, but it would be a mistake to dismiss it because of that. The points the show makes about the gigantic infrastructure project are quite defensible, and the picture Hell on Wheels draws of American society in the post-Civil War era, though exaggerated for dramatic purposes, has useful parallels to contemporary issues.
I bet you hadn’t heard anything about it. And it’s not exactly the anniversary of the cable, but when the cable made Network television possible coast to coast. If you’re a fan of TV at all, you’re going to want to read this wonderful piece by Terry Teachout about how profoundly things changed in that late summer of 1951, not only for the reach of a television signal, but also for programming.
Upon seeing a headline stating that the first cancellation of a new fall TV series had occurred—just two weeks into the season—I thought it might be fun to try to deduce which network had done the deed. (Figuring out precisely which godawful new show had been axed was a more daunting task.) I chose NBC, and that turned out to be correct. The Peacock Network has dumped The Playboy Club. NBC is the most aesthetically ambitious of the major TV networks and the least effective at reaching its goals in that regard. It regularly chooses shows that promise a deeper and more serious look at social issues and the human condition than most other nets, but it generally fails to deliver the promised depth or convey material in an entertaining way. Thus, flop after flop. In case you haven’t heard of it, The Playboy Club was an hour-long drama, airing Monday nights, set in the mid-1960s at one of the swingin’ cool clubs named in the title, once upon a time a part of nudie magazine billionaire Hugh Hefner’s empire. Why the show failed ought to be evident: The Playboy Club is a concept that promises scandalous fun, but that sort
Big Hollywood reviewer Kurt Schlichter says Fox’s new series Terra Nova, set in prehistoric times, isn’t worth watching. Judging by his description, I’m going to skip the show: But the premiere’s meh ratings, despite months of hype, showed that the creators better get a grip before the show joins its main attractions in extinction. Here are some key takeaways from the endless two-hour premiere: 1. Enough of the Manufactured Family Drama . . . Remember 2005’s War of the Worlds? It sounded great on paper. You got aliens and Spielberg and special effects…it should have been awesome. And what did we get? We get this idiotic domestic drama with Tom Cruise arguing with a couple of urchins as they drive around the Eastern Seaboard. Sure, he beat on Tim Robbins, which was cool, but otherwise it was like Are We There Yet? with an older, duller Maverick taking the Ice Cube role. 2. Can the Characters Not Be Idiots? . . . Someone is missing and needs to be found before darkness falls and the dinos come out to dine…what do you do? Do you grab your rifle and join other trained warriors, moving quickly to locate and rescue the lost
Upon hearing that ABC was planning to do a new series of Charlie’s Angels three decades after the show ended, one might be forgiven for expecting the show to be like its predecessor: entertaining in the classic Hollywood way—frankly hedonistic while expressing devotion to popular causes and a generalized love for mankind and desire that people just be nice to one another. The producers appear to know that glamour and pleasure-seeking were central to the original show’s appeal: the pilot episode of the new series begins in a swinging Miami, Florida, disco atmosphere. The story quickly kicks in with the kidnapping of a teenage girl, and the hedonistic element is conveyed by the fast cars, bosomy dames, and the loud eurodisco music behind most of the first action scene. The three fashion-model-attractive private detection operatives known as Charlie’s Angels set out to find and rescue her, under the direction of their unseen boss, Charlie Townsend, and his assistant, Bosley. Unfortunately for those who like the classic Hollywood formula of morally infused fun, the new Charlie’s Angels manifests a strong urge to be meaningful, “dark,” and consequential. That would be a good thing if the show were successful at it, but unfortunately the
As the Showtime series Dexter enters its sixth season, the cable network is publicizing the upcoming episodes with an ad campaign full of Christian religious imagery—while associating that imagery with savagery and bloodlust.
The most recent episodes of ABC's surrealistic, popular crime series Castle are entertaining and convey some important lessons about genre fiction. There are reasons people enjoy formula fiction.
I am increasingly concerned that the syndicated reruns of The Office will continue to be the best of the show. And after watching the premiere of the new season, I’m actually worried that the new season will spoil even those good shows in my head. (For me, The Office started getting the water skis waxed up for the shark jump after Jim and Pam had a baby. Yet, for this new season, I held out hope. That hope is fading fast.) You bring James Spader into the show. Great. I’m intrigued. He was hilarious in his one episode that tried to find a replacement manager for Michael Scott. And then, all summer, NBC airs previews promising that Robert California will be back. Yet, when the new season premiere beings, I see “and James Spader” at the end of the opening credits, I start to worry. It’s obvious that Spader is just making a few cameos. Uh oh. Then you write into the show that Robert California is the new CEO. And how did he get the job? He talked Kathy Bates’ character “Jo” into giving him the keys to the castle she spent a lifetime building and loved running. It
The long-running TV soap opera All My Children concludes today. I won’t be watching, having never been an aficionado of soap operas, but I don’t look down on them, and I think that the cultural loss is real. Although the show may return on the Web, which would be a good thing for its followers, of course, odds are that it will be of lower production quality and more difficult for its audience to find. As I say, I think there’s much good in soap operas even though they’re not a preferred form of entertainment for me. Here’s what I wrote a couple of months ago about the subject, for Pajamas Media: In Defense of Soap Operas Even lowbrow drama may have a more human voice than highbrow reality TV. May 7, 2011 – 12:00 am – by S. T. Karnick I’m no devotee of soap operas, and I never have been, but I’m rather saddened to hear that ABC has canceled two of its remaining three daytime dramas, All My Children and One Life to Live. Only General Hospital survived this latest purge, and it seems only a matter of time before it too is jettisoned. The other networks
If you are not familiar with the show Parks & Recreation on NBC, I highly recommend it. One of the heroes of the sitcom is a character named Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman. Ron Swanson is a staunch libertarian, and his “meta joke” for the show is that he’s the head of the Parks Department in the town of Pawnee, Indiana—and his goal in life is to shut down that department (and most others) because they are useless wastes of time and the hard-earned money of the people. In a recent episode, a repeat, Ron explained to a fourth grader who John Locke was. And by helping himself to 40 percent of the girl’s lunch, how taxes work. Her assignment was to write an essay on “Why does government matter?” After a few hours with Ron, she handed in a two-word essay to her teacher: “It doesn’t.” It made me smile, and of course Ron Swanson was beaming from ear to ear. He is the best sitcom character on TV—a libertarian who is not mocked but is instead the sensible one on this popular NBC sitcom. This is on network TV! I have a feeling the Hollywood writers who created
Most people don’t know who Fred Steiner was. As a musical composer and conductor, his work, both credited and uncredited, contributed to the sound of many Hollywood productions from the early ’50s to this year. I always associate him with the original Star Trek series (25 episodes) and Gunsmoke (11 episodes). However, he didn’t compose the themes for either show. But he was responsible for one unforgettable TV series theme tune: Perry Mason. We’re told Steiner’s original title was “Park Avenue Beat.” You can listen to Steiner’s most famous composition here (YouTube, 4 minutes 3 seconds). The series is slowly coming out on video.
Ed Driscoll triggers some nostalgia for Baby Boomers with a posting on the PJ Lifestyle weblog: Seen in the context of the typical American TV fare of the mid-1960s . . . Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner had to have seemed especially surreal and challenging to American viewers, particularly given the year it aired, as 1968 was anything but “the Summer of Love.” The story goes that McGoohan had gotten bored with playing John Drake, his Danger Man/Secret Agent character, and wanted to try something a bit more challenging. He proposed the story idea to Sir Lew Grade of ITC (who produced everything from Captain Scarlet and UFO to The Muppet Show in the 1960s through the late 1970s, usually with an eye towards the American market). According to the all-knowing, occasionally accurate Wikipedia, it was inspired by George Markstein, The Prisoner’s script editor, who would later write Cold War-themed novels and movies, and who had based his notion out from the legends of World War II. As surreal as the show’s setting seemed to be, it might have been rooted in reality. While most of us have tended until now to regard McGoohan’s series as an expression of Left-wing paranoia,
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