A few bright spots on an otherwise dim TV schedule
By Jane Holahan
Updated Feb 19, 2007 15:40
But then I figured I should try to look on the bright side.
There has got to be good TV out there. I can’t be paying more than $50 a month to watch pure junk. (And no, that doesn’t include the pay channels like HBO and Showtime!)
So I started thinking about all the good shows on TV. Granted, there aren’t a lot. I can go from channel 2 all the way up to channel 78 and back again and not find anything I want to watch.
But darn it, I’m going to look on the bright side.
There are the old reliables, like “Law and Order” and “60 Minutes” which, week in and week out, are always good.
Considering that “60 Minutes” is in its 38th season and “Law & Order” has been faithfully following its formula for 16 years, that’s pretty amazing.
The producers know what works and they stick to it. And even better, they trust their audiences to be fairly intelligent. Now that is an unusual concept on TV!
When “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” all left the air a few years ago, everyone, including me, was writing the sitcom’s obituary. No wonder. Lame, unfunny, carbon copy comedies took over.
The laugh tracks sounded more canned than ever, the actors all looked alike and the sets and setups were painfully familiar.
But in the last year, several smart, funny and different sitcoms have popped up, including “My Name is Earl,” a clever show about a redneck’s redemption, and “The Office,” a frighteningly funny look at life at a paper company in Scranton.
“The Office,” based on a British sitcom, works so well because it’s populated with real people, from ego-driven Dwight Schrute to the clueless boss, Michael Scott.
And almost all of us can relate to the shows about the boss trying to make the new health insurance plan sound great, or bring your daughter to work days, when little kids keep staring at you.
The show looks different, too. It’s set up like a documentary and the cast is not made up of a bunch of glamorous 20-somethings like so many other comedies. Instead, we see characters who actually look like normal people.
And blessed be, there’s no canned laugh track.
Plenty of cop shows populate the airwaves, but my favorite is “Cold Case.” I consider it the chick cop show because not only is the lead detective a woman (Kathryn Morris as the tough but tender Lilly Rush), but it usually makes me cry at the end.
The premise of the show, based in Philadelphia, is to open old cases that have never been solved. Some are a few years old, others are decades old.
I like the way the show evokes an era through music, hair styles and clothes.
Of course, the “Cold Case” crew is able to do in less than 50 minutes what other cops couldn’t do in years and sometimes decades. But who needs realism.
Speaking of which, I’m not a big fan of reality TV, but I am totally addicted to “Project Runway” on Bravo.
The show pits fashion designers against each other. Each week, they have to create an outfit and the judges pick someone to kick off.
The personalities are larger than life, the back biting is fun to listen to, and watching them make their outfits is fascinating. These folks have real talent.
Of course, I do have my classy side, too. When I’m not watching yet another rerun of “Project Runway,” I enjoy “Masterpiece Theatre.”
The show just finished an adaptation of the Dickens’ novel “Bleak House” that had me on the edge of my seat for six episodes.
The cast was amazing and the script was excellent, doing full justice to the rich story Dickens wrote.
So, is all this worth $50 a month? No way! But at least it’s something.
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Jane Holahan is a New Era staff writer. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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