TV and Me
Yeah, sure. I should have read more books growing up. Granted. But hey...I'm a product of my generation, a child raised by Mike and Carol Brady, taught right from wrong by Pa Ingalls, enlightened of the inner city struggle by J.J.and Thelma and Michael. From my earliest memories, there was always Sesame Street, Electric Company, New Zoo Revue and other children's programs that supplemented my formal education. I journeyed on endless flights of fancy with Underdog, Speed Racer, and the adventures of the caped crusader and the boy wonder (and having no idea until later in life that this high drama was actually camp). There were cartoons, there were afternoon reruns, there were after-school specials, and there was glorious prime time. I loved TV. And I still do.
I'm a big fan of film, and I note that TV often gets an upturned nose from other fans of the big screen, with its commercialization, pandering, and creative restraint. I'll grant that there are issues, here, true. But television offers creative possibilities film just can't touch. It's episodic. From a writer's point of view, there's a vast freedom of character and story development you just can't fit into two hours of film. There are no single motivations, no need to create a single issue to be resolved by screenplay's end. A character can be fully explored, presented with new situations that continually change and mold the character. This is, of course, if the writing is good. God knows television offers us plenty of schlock. But the challenge fascinates me. The constraints film fans offer up as negatives of the television medium I view as challenges. Working within constraints--within borders created by accepted standards of content--throws down the gauntlet for writers to create something poignant and fresh with a lot of obstacles in the way. This takes real skill, and that's what I love to see, what really excites me. Does it happen often? Not often enough, but it does happen. And when it does, it can be as memorable and moving as any film.
And can do so for a much wider audience. Whereas film needs to be sought out, television seeks us. It's the common language, the shared experience of the everyday man in our society. It brings us together, gets us talking at the water coolers week after week. It's an enormous part of--and therefore has great impact on--our culture. Love it or hate it, one can't deny that effects our values, shapes our world view, and takes us places that we may otherwise have never seen in our lives, introducing us to people and ideas outside our experience. And along the way, often provides some pretty good entertainment, too. It's a medium with limitless possibilities that, I admit, often falls short of its potential. But the potential is always there, and with each passing year, the bar is raised, and television comes closer to the greatness it can, I still believe, achieve.
My TV History
My childhood, as mentioned above, was filled with TV. A lot of this I watched with my sister. Every day we knew where to find Happy Days reruns, and watched them religiously. Along with the Brady Bunch. Little House in the Prairie, as mentioned. And anything else we could see during the day on the small handful of channels we had to chose from. This was, you see, before cable, and before you had a hundred or more channels to pick from. And there were still only 3 networks. Three VHF stations and a couple of UHF (plus PBS) pretty much told us what to watch. I remember we were big fans of The Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, and Charlie's Angles. Both the Love Boat and Fantasy Island were regular Saturday night rituals, and to this day, I can still remember the first commercial for this new show called ChiPs, and I remember watching the first episode. I remember watching a lot of B.J and the Bear, Sheriff Lobo and Dukes of Hazard in there, too. Never missed an episode of The Incredible Hulk. And, with the Happy Days addiction came the follow-up jones for Laverne and Shirley. And Joanie Loves Chachi (ugh). I recall a lot of Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life. And great sitcoms of the time like WKRP, Three's Company, and one of my favorite shows ever, Bosom Buddies. We also spent our summers watching a couple of soap operas, too, most importantly General Hospital. I was a watcher of that when the whole Luke and Laura thing first started. I love thinking back on that now, what happened with that show. Was their really a big summer-long plot about them running around with secret agent Robert Scorpio and trying to stop an evil genius from freezing the world with diamond dust? Strangely enough, there was. Which for a junior high dude like me was cool, and made putting up with the romance crap possible.
In high school, it was all about geek and man shows that me and my boys all watched. Steven J. Cannell was our hero. The A-Team was a big favorite, as was Hunter. Geez, I even watched Hardcastle and McCormick for crying out loud. Ah, and how cool was Airwolf for a teen guy? Who didn't want their own super copter? I never missed Magnum P.I. or Simon & Simon. I recall watching Buck Rogers In The 25th Century somewhere in there, as well as the king of all 80s sci fi geek goodness, the two "V" mini-series events. Oh, and let's not forget the Fall Guy. Who wasn't in love with Heather Thomas back then? I also watched a number of sitcoms, including Family Ties, and always reruns of Barney Miller when those came on (loved that show). Riptide was a big favorite that all the guys watched, too. Oh, and we can't forget Knight Rider. Come on! Every dude in high school watched that one in the 80s! But everything changed, of course, with Miami Vice. It's sort of looked at as camp now, but back then, this was serious gritty action and drama to us (how could it not be with guest stars like De Barge?). And speaking of music videos (which was what critics of the time said was all that Miami Vice was), I didn't have cable or MTV back then, so I got my music video fixes from Friday Night Videos on NBC. I was watching the famous night when they world premiered Michael Jackson's "Thriller", and it was quickly banned from broadcast television for being so gross and shocking (and that was just Michael Jackson himself...).
I watched less TV after high school, because I was usually out during my evenings partying with friends and such, but there were a few shows. I remember being over at somebody's apartment drinking with the guys and noticed this Star Trek, The Next Generation thing playing on his 13-inch TV in the background. I watched for a few minutes and determined it looked pretty lame (what was up with the bald guy? He was no Kirk!). But, along with most guys I knew, I started watching the show, and still remember the huge season ender moment with Picard turned into a borg that everyone was talking about. And for some reason, friends of mine and I fell into watching 21 Jump Street. We thought it was a cool show and liked the characters, so we'd end up hooking up at my place to watch it every Monday night. We even watched the Booker spinoff (though that didn't last long...hey, a fine metaphor for Richard Greico himself...). And Monday nights were cool because Alien Nation come on after Jump Street, and we all thought that was groovy. Ah, but nothing on TV at the time could compare to Twin Peaks. There had just been nothing like it on TV before. It was mind-blowing. The whole country was talking about it. My friend Cindy first told me about it after a few episodes had gone by, but she had them all on tape, so she loaned them to me. I got home one night about 2 a.m., wasn't sleepy, and decided to pop the tape in and try the first one. Couldn't stop watching, and I was hooked all night. There was a group of people that met at my house thereafter to watch every week, and I remember it was a big event (Cindy brought donuts...which makes sense if you watched the show) when the big episode came out revealing who killed Laura Palmer. But, as I said, TV wasn't as big a priority then, since I actually had a social life for a change, so I missed a lot of the TV of that era.
Most of the 90s for me was either shows I watched with my ex, and then shows I watched with roommates (once the ex became an ex). In Arizona, with her, I discovered Friends, and was then forced to sit through Party of Five and Melrose Place (I was a good boyfriend). The one thing she did make me watch that I appreciated was My So Called Life, a brilliantly written, produced and acted show whose cancellation was really a crime. I'm glad to see the eps are out on DVD now. Oh, and I was also into the Real World back then, when it first started. Loved New York, the first season. Nothing like this had been done on television before, and I applauded the experiment. Funny that the serious American addiction to reality shows didn't come until 10 years later. I watched the L.A. one with the ex, but most people agree that was a pretty lame cast. And we got all the way through San Francisco, which definitely had its moments. I left the show after that. So when I headed back to Sacramento, it was TV with the roommies at our house. We had different shared shows. We were all hooked on Space: Above and Beyond and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This was also the first place I decided to try out X-Files, and we were pretty hooked on that for a while (should have ended much earlier). Then, when I got an apartment in Sac with Aaron, it was all about the Must See TV (tm). Thursday nights were grand, because we were still into Friends back then (big Joey fans), and the Single Guy was following that. Then it was time for the king of all sit-coms...Seinfeld. Never missed one of those. And we both ended up getting into ER as well, so that was a big night. That was where we also discovered Stargate: SG-1 and got hooked on that as well.
As for after that? Well, you can check out the My Shows page to get a little more of what came later. As I said before...TV watching, after all these years, is still a big part of my life. Call me sad if you will. Hey, at least I was getting out of the house back in my teens and early twenties when it counted. Now, after a long day of work and commuting in southern California traffic? Vegging in front of the TV and catching whatever we have cached on the TiVo sounds pretty good to me.