It’s not that often that my wife will engage in a philosophical discussion about television with me. After all, she is on the board of trustees to the “I Married a Pop Cult Dork” corporation. However, we both do have some mutual favorite shows amidst the sea of crap that has proliferated the airwaves. Our top favorite is Supernatural followed by LOST, Chuck,Bones, Family Guy, and the new Captain Tight Pants (aka Nathan Fillion) series, Castle. Older shows that still clutter my DVR like Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy have slowly degraded in quality or we just don’t have time to watch them. In any case, it was during one of these shows that we truly enjoy that my wife asked the question, “Compared to 20 years ago, does television suck more now?
I actually did a double take. Did she know she was opening up Pandora’s Cable Box? Was she serious? Does she actually want to have this conversation? Then I thought about it. The answer wasn’t as easy as I thought. Did 80’s television shows provide more quality entertainment than today’s lineup? Wow. It was the equivalent to the sound of a one handed, live studio audience member clapping.
I traced my brain for information. I liken my retention of Pop Culture trivia to that of the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Somewhere near the recollection of an argument I had about old Charles in Charge with Beans Baxter versus the new Charles in Charge with Josie “I grew up even more smoking hot than Nicole Eggert” Davis and a similar argument between Old Baywatch and New Baywatch, I found it. The lineup of the original shows I used to adore. Let’s see…and remember, for most of these I was under the age of ten and watched them during their initial run…there was St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Cheers, M*A*S*H, The Cosby Show, Night Court, Growing Pains (Pre Leo DiCaprio), Hart to Hart, The A-Team, Miami Vice, Different World, Knight Rider, MacGyver, and Family Ties (pre Brian Bonsall). I’m sure there are plenty of others but we can only do so much with the time we are given here at M.A.M.S. Anyway, I looked at that list and compared it to today’s shows. After the third CSI and Law & Order, I gave up. My wife may be on to something here. And let it be noted that two of those 80’s shows exist today, Knight Rider and MacGyver….oh wait, I mean MacGruber.
Taking a closer look, I can remember each one of those shows complete with specific moments burned into my hippocampus. There was Uncle Ned’s alcohol addiction on Family Ties that had me wondering what Vanilla Extract really tasted like. Was Crockett ever going to remember who he really was? I drooled over Teri Hatcher before she ever became a Desperate Housewife and was merely Penny Parker, the singing sensation of Cleo Rocks on MacGyver. There was even a brief series called Otherworld that made Battlestar Galactica’s mythology look like Clash of the Titans. Yet, were these shows really quality entertainment or were they merely a Play-Doh fun factory of processed cheese positioned directly above our brains?
I guess it is really a matter of opinion. Today, reality shows and other non scripted shows clutter up the airwaves. For every Survivor (The First Season) there are ten clones like Pirate Master. The odd thing about these shows that they’ve been on television less than 10 years yet boast more than 10 seasons (Survivor is on like 18.) I think there should be some sort of disqualification right then and there. Yet, for all its time travelling, mind screw job mythology, and unanswered questions, LOST is perhaps the best written show on regular television. Compared to 20 years ago, anything is bound to sound cheesy. The music was kitsch, the plotlines were transparent and wrapped up inside a standard episode time frame. Yet, it seemed as if the shows, and more importantly, the decade lasted much longer than it really did. Now, unlike my wife, I never watched shows like Dynasty and Falcon Crest which did run nearly the length of the 80’s, but the difference is that she saw them in syndication. I’m old enough to have seen almost every episode of M*A*S*H* in its first run, including the series finale when it originally aired.
The amount of really good TV vs. on par entertainment was maybe a ratio of 1:3. But there were sitcoms and dark dramas. Not like today where there’s maybe a handful of actual good sitcoms, five cop shows, two medical dramas, and 16 reality competition shows. Now, there was a few non scripted shows. We had Real People and That’s Incredible…I remember getting a Domino Rally set when I was a kid with a contraption that set the dominoes up for you as you pushed it along. The dominoes were so cheap and flimsy that they fell over once they emerged from the chute. My dreams of setting up an intricate and complex arrangement of dominoes like the one done underwater were shattered as every injected molded domino floated off the bottom of the tub.
Today, most shows last two or three seasons before they turn to crap like Grey’s Anatomy has. The Simpsons is a big exception. ER is another exception but I got tired of watching after Dr. Green died and every episode was marketed as “The biggest shocker” or “You won’t believe what happens” each week. But is there any original cast members left? The last episode I remember watching was when Noah Wylie’s character had a drug problem. Now we have crazy, wacked out doctors having sex with imaginary dead boyfriends. So, maybe the quality has dropped. But then again, the 80’s gave us a pre HIMYM NPH as Doogie Howser, MD, which inspired many kids my age to take up writing our deepest thoughts and dreams on a personal computer, while listening to pre-recorded synth pop melodies on a Casio keyboard in the backgrounds of our bedroom. Kids today are probably still trying to figure out what the hell Neil Patrick Harris was doing in that skit from Saturday Night Live playing the keyboard.
Back in the 80's, we had William Katt in spandex flailing around the sky in The Greatest American Hero. Today, we have William Katt being frozen on Heroes. Trying to become relevant again are we Kring? In my opinion, and yes I will write each and every word of that phrase out, the problem with those lightning in a bottle shows like Heroes and LOST is that they get created by some genius who then turns the show over to a group of other people to produce because they’re off trying to create a new franchise on which to reinvent the wheel using parts already found on their previous shows. The exception is LOST which found its footing again when they came up with an exit strategy after the disastrous Nikki and Paulo season. In all honesty, that really saved the show. Now, instead of trying to give the audience little carrots every season while creating new mysteries to keep the show going, they can plot out the ending and work backwards to logically solve all the riddles built up from day one. See George Lucas’ folly with the prequel Star Wars trilogy. He wanted to tell the story of how Darth Vader grew up from innocent and cute slave boy to bad ass cyborg who force choked his way to the top of the Empire Career Ladder. When you spend an entire movie setting up the kid as a lovable scamp and the chess pieces for the Clone Wars, you end up having to cram 20 years of mythology into two movies to advance the story up until the birth of Luke and Leia. There’s just too much story.
Boy have I digressed. In the end everything ends up being about Star Wars. So, wrapping this whole nonsensical diatribe up, my wife was right in a sense. Television shows in the 80’s were better for the entertainment. I think the writing and plot design has come a long way from being able to make an Ultra Light out of a cement mixer, fan blade, and garbage bags but, for the money, you can’t get better than shows about android little girls whose delivery of lines are Emmy worthy compared to that of Patricia Arquette on Medium. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have go into my brain and check on the examination being conducted to find out which show had the more special “very special episode,” Mr. Belvedere’s episode entitled Wesley’s Friend where Wesley’s friend Danny contracts AIDS through blood transfusion like Ryan White or Different Strokes’ episode entitled The Bicycle Man where Arnold ditches Dudley with Gordon Jump the molester complete with Jesus Juice. Who is conducting the research on this? We have top men working on it now. Top. men.
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