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There's no denying good TV fare
(by Barbara Christian - December 16, 2009)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
There's no denying good TV fare
They have been around from the beginning. The television snobs. You know them. The ones who wouldn't be caught dead with a remote in their hand or a TV Guide on their coffee table.
They are a form of denier. They don't deny there is such a thing as television but reject the notion there is anything good about it. It just seems wrong to paint the entire medium with such a broad brush. And they are so smug about never watching TV.
The thing is TV has been around since the 1950s or earlier, and there is no sign its going away. Note: Deal with it.
So here's a solution. If you don't like TV then continue not watching it but stop preaching to the rest of us who do. And please quit saying there is very little on television worth watching. Question: If you don't watch it, how would you know?
I watch three or four hours of TV a day and can report there are programs worth your attention. Two come to mind.
There is "The Amazing Race. It's informational, entertaining and, dare we say, educational. Here is why. For decades we have heard what dunderheads Americans are when it comes to geography. Even adults routinely mistake Ohio for Idaho and wouldn't be able to pick either state out on a map if their lives depended on it.
"The Amazing Race" is a crash course in geography on a worldwide scale. It works like this. Teams of competitors race from country to country in a kind of road rally-scavenger hunt. The team which outlasts the others and comes in first at the final destination wins.
The audience wins too. Think of the show as a geography and social-studies classroom without walls. Viewers get some history, local color, listen to the language and see some traditions of the countries as racers travel a route of diverse cultures. The show has visited virtually every country on earth, including Mongolia.
Also among the worthy-to-watch shows on television is comedian Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." This series, with its convoluted story line and out-of-the-mold thinking, is every bit as groundbreaking as Mr. David's earlier offering, "Seinfeld."
Talk about full circle, the recently completed season gave fans a "Seinfeld" reunion show so clever it qualified as one of those "had-to-be- there" television moments. It gave "Seinfeld" fans as close to closure as we are ever going to get and redemption for the show's disappointing 1998 finale.
There is a lot that's good about what comes through our television sets. "Dexter" is an intriguing story of a serial killer who kills serial killers. Really, really bad ones. Another winner is "Mad Men," a period piece about the 1960s heyday of the advertising business.
The issue for writers of shows as unusual as these is trying to sustain the whatever it is that makes them successful. So far, so good for all of the above. Should there come a time when they are no longer watchable, we will turn them off. Contrary to what TV snobs may say, we TV watchers do have that ability.
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