TV
We’ve been doing TV for a lot of years, now. I’m disappointed we haven’t learned how to do it consistently well.
A couple of years ago, I binge-watched the entirety of The West Wing. It was wonderful. I’ve always been a big fan of Aaron Sorkin, and his shows SportsNight and The Newsroom (which were both based loosely on Keith Olbermann), and A Few Good Men and several others. But I’d somehow managed to miss West Wing when it was originally aired. I don’t know what it was up against and I sometimes worry I’m missing out on a lot by watching episodes of Who’s Got An Elbow? or something. I’d heard all of the reviews for years, but just never watched it. It was fantastic, and a great antidote the goings on in the then-circus of Washington DC of the time. Back in November one of the networks ran three or four days of West Wing episodes and I snagged most of those on the DVR and have been going through two or three per day ever since… I think I have seventy, left.
I love the idea of a Washington that makes sense. I love the idea of a White House that isn’t concerned only with grabbing and keeping power at any cost, but also with spending a lot of time wondering what is the best and right-est way to do the next big thing? It’s how I’d been taught things worked when I was growing up, in a way only a little more sophisticated than Jimmy Stewart achieved. The president on the show even knows how to comb his hair, buy suits that fit and tie a necktie that doesn’t extend to his crotch.
By the way is anyone fooled by that? Trump wears awful suits even though he sells a line of name-branded men’s suits in a few stores and online. He’s not the best ad for these, though. I have a theory that we’re supposed to see him swimming in these coats and pants and think, “Wow! He’s really lost a lot of weight!” As if the Leader Of The Free World can’t afford a new suit that fits. I’m sure he read somewhere that an exaggeratedly long neck tie creates a vertical line that is “slimming” to some viewers. But his ties (which he also sells, let’s remember) are just comical. At any rate, Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet wears suits that fit and ties ties that stop just above his belt buckle, and I really appreciate that, now.
The (diverse) cast is filled with wonderful people. Name me a better actor than John Spencer! Or Allison Janney! Or Bradley Whitford! Find me someone better than Martin Sheen! And they all deal very well with the classic Sorkin Walk-And-Talk dialog, marching through the halls of the White House and trying so hard to Do Good.
Every year, every TV season, we can count on the fingers of one hand the memorable TV shows being squirted into our homes in the hope we’ll watch. You’d think some time might be spent in studying what it was exactly that made M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore shows such hits. Why isn’t every TV show at least as good as The Golden Girls or The Wonder Years or Cheers? Why can’t every show keep our interest the way Friends did, or The Sopranos? We’ve had a lot of time to parse the secrets of quality TV.
We went from four to dozens of channels… to hundreds, now. If I was in charge of a show, I’d be working as hard as I could to make sure it was the very best it could be. I wonder why so few people actually in the business seem interested in that?
