Television

Fred Steiner, R.I.P.

August 25, 2011
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Fred Steiner, R.I.P.

Most people don’t know who Fred Steiner was. As a musical composer and conductor, his work, both credited and uncredited, contributed to the sound of many Hollywood productions from the early ’50s to this year. I always associate him with the original Star Trek series (25 episodes) and Gunsmoke (11 episodes). However, he didn’t compose the themes for either show. But he was responsible for one unforgettable TV series theme tune: Perry Mason. We’re told Steiner’s original title was “Park Avenue Beat.” You can listen to Steiner’s most famous composition here (YouTube, 4 minutes 3 seconds). The series is slowly coming out on video.

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Are You Number Six — or Number One?

August 20, 2011
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Are You Number Six — or Number One?

Ed Driscoll triggers some nostalgia for Baby Boomers with a posting on the PJ Lifestyle weblog: Seen in the context of the typical American TV fare of the mid-1960s . . . Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner had to have seemed especially surreal and challenging to American viewers, particularly given the year it aired, as 1968 was anything but “the Summer of Love.” The story goes that McGoohan had gotten bored with playing John Drake, his Danger Man/Secret Agent character, and wanted to try something a bit more challenging. He proposed the story idea to Sir Lew Grade of ITC (who produced everything from Captain Scarlet and UFO to The Muppet Show in the 1960s through the late 1970s, usually with an eye towards the American market). According to the all-knowing, occasionally accurate Wikipedia, it was inspired by George Markstein, The Prisoner’s script editor, who would later write Cold War-themed novels and movies, and who had based his notion out from the legends of World War II. As surreal as the show’s setting seemed to be, it might have been rooted in reality. While most of us have tended until now to regard McGoohan’s series as an expression of Left-wing paranoia,

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‘Necessary Roughness’ Is Another USA Network Success

July 27, 2011
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‘Necessary Roughness’ Is Another USA Network Success

By S. T. Karnick Although other program providers garner more awards, critical accolades, and media hype, the USA Network has most effectively mastered the art of providing entertaining programming that conveys positive values and ideas. From shows such as Monk to Burn Notice, the USA Network formula has been the same, and quite engaging: interesting, slightly quirky but likeable central characters, recognizable but appealing locations, a focus on interesting occupations, and a concern for helping those less fortunate than oneself or assisting people in crisis. The new series Necessary Roughness (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. EDT) fulfills all the requirements. The central character, Dr. Danielle (Dani) Santino (Callie Thorne, Homicide: Life on the Street, Rescue Me), is a Long Island-based psychologist engaged by a New York City professional football team to help wrangle some of its less-dependable players in line. Struggling to cope with a recent divorce while raising two smart and independent teenagers, Santino is thrust into a demanding new work routine as the players, coaches, and management of the organization continually treat her as being on call at all times. In addition, Santino’s success with the Hawks players causes other equally troubled and troublesome high-achievers to call upon her services,

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‘Closer’ Begins Final Season

July 11, 2011
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‘Closer’ Begins Final Season

The popular TNT series The Closer begins its final season this week (Mondays, 9 p.m. EDT). Series producer James Duff is preparing a spinoff called Major Crimes. Closer star Kyra Sedgwick says that she wants a “really dark” ending to the show but expects Duff to demur, though the season will include a good deal of trouble for the crime-solving protagonist, according to USA Today:

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‘Memphis Beat’: Atmospheric Detective Series Features Good Cop, Righteous Music

June 30, 2011
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‘Memphis Beat’: Atmospheric Detective Series Features Good Cop, Righteous Music

By Cece Forrester I’ve never been to Memphis, but if the real city is anything like the one shown on Memphis Beat, I’d like to spend some time there. The most striking thing about this detective series, now in its second season on TNT, is how much candy it offers for both ear and eye. Viewers are treated to choice tracks of classic rockabilly, blues, soul, R&B, Motown, country, folk, or gospel in every episode. The visual quality is likewise amazing. The people of Memphis seem to live in a world with no clashing styles, dominated by vintage cars, neon-lit diners, scenic river views and homey neighborhood streets, all with a midcentury sensibility. Sepia-toned police squad rooms have ceiling fans to help everyone keep their cool, and Venetian blinds to filter out harshness. Interiors of houses are suffused with mellow, golden light, decorated in variations of comfortable kitsch and shabby chic reminiscent of visits to Grandma’s house. The women stand up for themselves, but they’re also queens of their kitchens who know what to do with a rolling pin and a skillet. Nonetheless, it’s clear that we are in the twenty-first century: cell phones, texting, and websites are as front-and-center

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The Authoritarian Crime Drama ‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent’

June 27, 2011
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The Authoritarian Crime Drama ‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent’

I suppose that I am somewhat unusual in never having liked the lead characters of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, nor thought the performances of Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe particularly appealing or praiseworthy. D’Onofrio, of course, was known for his excessively exaggerated performing style in his portrayal of the show’s lead character, Detective Bobby Goren, and I thought that Kathryn Erbe did a good but unimpressive job of depicting an essentially unappealing and uninteresting character in lead detective Alex Eames. Both characters annoyed me in essence, I suspect, because they were such perfect specimens of a particularly common and grating type of contemporary American: the Priggish Urban Liberal-Progressive Busybody Knowitall Pseudointellectual Snob. And in doing so, the show conveyed a point of view based on authoritarianism, exemplifying the contemporary worldview that the political writer Jonah Goldberg calls liberal fascism. I imagine that the unappealing character type at the center of Law and Order: Criminal Intent hardly requires any further description for most readers, as it thoroughly infests current-day TV news and talk shows, newspaper columns, Slate and the Huffington Post and other fashionable politico-cultural websites, contemporary art shows, your neighborhood Starbucks, and other such locales made repellant by their

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Has the Age of Fossil Fuels Only Just Begun?

June 7, 2011
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Has the Age of Fossil Fuels Only Just Begun?

By Mike Gray The arguments for converting the U.S. economy to wind, solar and biomass energy have collapsed. The date of depletion of fossil fuels has been pushed back into the future by centuries—or millennia. The abundance and geographic diversity of fossil fuels made possible by technology in time will reduce the dependence of the U.S. on particular foreign energy exporters, eliminating the national security argument for renewable energy. And if the worst-case scenarios for climate change were plausible, then the most effective way to avert catastrophic global warming would be the rapid expansion of nuclear power, not over-complicated schemes worthy of Rube Goldberg or Wile E. Coyote to carpet the world’s deserts and prairies with solar panels and wind farms that would provide only intermittent energy from weak and diffuse sources. — Michael Lind, “Everything You’ve Heard About Fossil Fuels May Be Wrong,” New America Foundation Because of recent innovations like “fracking” to get and extract what were formerly thought to be inaccessible and unrecoverable energy sources, Lind thinks there’s cause to be optimistic about America’s energy future. (I’m not clear on just how “fracking” is done, but it must be a good thing because a recent episode of

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Oprah’s Public Confessional Trashed Liberty & Personal Responsibility

June 4, 2011
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Oprah’s Public Confessional Trashed Liberty & Personal Responsibility

The Oprah Winfrey Show is no more. The last episode aired on May 25, 2011 after 25 years on the air, and in my opinion, it could not have come sooner. Oprah Winfrey made a fetish out of emotional exhibitionism, boosted New Age spirituality, normalized the blurring of gender roles, and influenced millions to privilege feelings and emotion over rational thought. The Media Research Center’s Erin R. Brown and Matthew Philbin present a bracing tonic to all those gushing reports about the end of Oprah’s reign in daytime television. “mid all the fawning retrospectives and misty tributes, it’s important to remember just who Oprah is, the biased viewpoint she represents and the damage she’s done to popular culture.” Over the years, Oprah promoted gun control, global warming, and a guaranteed government wage for at least four years should you lose your job. Think I’m exaggerating that last point? Think again. The best way to deal with unemployment, and the threats to one’s well-being that condition presents, would be, according to Winfrey, a guaranteed government paycheck for four years. In 2009, The Oprah Winfrey Show broadcast from Copenhagen, Denmark. During her visit she raved over that government’s practice of paying the

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Obama Never Faces Camera While Declaring bin Laden Dead

May 4, 2011
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Obama Never Faces Camera While Declaring bin Laden Dead

I watched PJTV’s Trifecta Boys – Steve Greene, Scott Ott, and Bill Whittle – discuss the killing of Osama bin Laden (in the video titled “Muslim Burial at Sea”). I noticed when they played a clip of President Obama’s emotionless announcement of the destruction of a prime target in the war against Islamo-Nazism, I noticed the President never looked in the camera. Maybe, I thought, it was just a fluke that the particular few seconds played in that Trifecta video were the ones where that happened. So I “went to the tape,” as they used to say in the news biz, or rather YouTube.com as is the case today for the full announcement. Not once during the 9+ minute dry-as-toast announcement does Pres. Obama look the American People “in the eye” as he informs us that a Navy Seal Team has taken out a prime Islamic terrorist target. Not. Once. Check it out for yourself: Contrast that with President George W. Bush’s announcement, from the Oval Office, of the 9/11 attack: Or with Pres. Bush Announcing Military Action in Iraq: In the clips of Pres. Bush, he’s looking directly into the camera, directly, through the camera, into the eyes of

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The Attack of the Terminators Is Already Overdue

April 22, 2011
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The Attack of the Terminators Is Already Overdue

By Mike Gray They should have made the first film and forgotten about the sequels — but that’s not how Hollywood operates: The date 21 April 2011 has been prophesied in the Terminator series as Judgement Day, when the machines rise up and bring about the end of human society as we know it. When you mess around with history — but especially the kind that hasn’t happened yet — you’re going to get confusing discontinuities: TERMINATOR TIMELINE 4 August 1997: The date Skynet goes online according to the first Terminator film 29 August 1997: The first Terminator film claims this is when Skynet becomes self-aware and destroys human civilisation 25 July 2004: This is the date Judgement Day is pushed back to in Terminator 3 after the Skynet research is destroyed in Terminator 2 19 April 2011: The date Skynet goes online in The Sarah Connor Chronicles 21 April 2011: The date in The Sarah Connor Chronicles when Skynet launches its first missiles The creator of the Terminators thinks there’s something more worrisome than berserk androids: “Kyle Reese said in the first film that it was only one possible future — clearly,

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Trashing Hitler’s Leftovers

April 21, 2011
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Trashing Hitler’s Leftovers

By Mike Gray Cleese and other stars of the post-war England ‘satire boom’ (beginning with Beyond the Fringe) were doing almost as much to destroy England as the Luftwaffe: What was left of Britain after the war was barely worth “satirizing”; the Pythons et al were “spoofing” an “Establishment” that was already dying, but they thought they were pretty brave to be trampling its grave. Weirdly, the Establishment then worked hard to ingratiate itself with these cheeky young upstarts, with gauche displays such as the awarding of those OBEs to The Beatles. — Kathy Shaidle Apparently, there’ll always be people saying there’ll always be an England: Cleese also spoke about the shift in British attitudes away from a “middle-class culture” and the emergence of a “yob culture”. He said: “There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist. But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.” He added that he preferred living in Bath to London because the capital no longer felt “English”. “London is no longer an English city which is why I love Bath,” he said.

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‘Friday Night Lights’ Final Season Well Worth Watching

April 14, 2011
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‘Friday Night Lights’ Final Season Well Worth Watching

The final season of the excellent TV drama series Friday Night Lights has begun on network television, Fridays at 8 p.m. EDT. Having seen the final season when it ran on DirecTV this past fall and winter, I can confirm that it’s well worth watching. Two things that make the show stand out: its realistic depiction of the role of religious faith in American life, and its insightful, sympathetic description of a complex and regularly challenged but successful modern marriage.

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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