Teevee (Page 13)

For no real reason, here’s one of my favorite scenes ever from The West Wing. This is when President Bartlet decided to hire the whip-smart Republican woman who came out of nowhere to make Sam look like an idiot on national teevee: I loved this scene, and it points out one of the show’s real flaws. Aaron Sorkin would create some wonderful characters and then underutilize them awfully. Ainsley Hayes was a terrific character who only appeared a handful of times after her introduction to the show. That was a shame — as was the fact that the show alwaysDown the rabbit hole….

That’s the title of the very first episode ever of Magnum PI, which I saw Part One of last night, for the first time in…well, many moons. Watching favorite old teevee shows is, of course, an eternal pleasure, but particularly special are the pilot episodes of favorite shows. It’s always fun to see things in retrospect in the old pilots, from shows I know very well; noting the way characters interact at the outset before the show evolves, with the writers and producers learning what chemistries among the cast work best. In “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii”, the relationshipDown the rabbit hole….

In catching up on some teevee viewing of late, it seems that my oft-stated mission to adopt no new teevee shows to watch regularly has already failed, as The Wife has taken a liking to the CBS mystery show The Mentalist, which I’ve also been watching and finding enjoyable, although not quite as much as she does. (I’d love for the main character to be wrong once in a while, for instance. And not just “wrong” as in “out on a limb but all ends well”, but really really really wrong, as in, “fingers the wrong guy for a murder”Down the rabbit hole….

Lance Mannion wonders: The rule is that on just about any TV series these days, whatever the genre, no matter if it’s a comedy or a drama, every unattached main character must at some point become attached. There must be a love interest. If that love interest can be another member of the cast, so much the better. It saves on salaries. You don’t have to hire two new actors. The writers are spared the trouble thinking up two new characters who must be likable, a requirement that makes it highly probable that they won’t be in the least—they’ll beDown the rabbit hole….

So, ER ended the other night. I didn’t watch it, or anything of this final season aside from a chunk of the first episode of the year, but I do note the official end of a show that for me ended four or five years back. Time then, I suppose, for one final summation of my love-hate relationship with ER. I remember ER‘s first season, back in 1994, when it was replacing LA Law in NBC’s Thursday night lineup. Now, LA Law had also been a favorite show of The Girlfriend (later The Wife) and I, but it had peteredDown the rabbit hole….

After so many years, The Simpsons has reworked its opening title sequence. It’s still the same idea, but the environs of Springfield have been updated to include a lot more stuff familiar to those of us who have loved the show over the years. Great! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….