Now it begins, the full-throttle, conspicuous consumerism crush toward the holidays. Soon the evening news will be filled with naught but traditional holiday stories. We'll be informed nightly about how shops are doing with sales, and whether the economy will get a boost. On Black Friday, there were mall brawls in several American cities during the 5 a.m. rush to get sale electronics items. The Philadelphia brawl resulted in several people being hospitalized after a stampede at a Circuit City; the Indianapolis fight resulted in arrests at a Wal-Mart. The televised scenes looked like soccer hooliganism at its worst. One woman in Indiana intoned for NBC, "Isn't this supposed to be the season of giving?" Uh, amen.
There will also be the items about who's suing whom over what holiday display where. The first big lawsuit was filed in Boston the day after Thanksgiving when the city's website referred to the town's mammoth Christmas tree as a "holiday" tree. Christian groups objected, complaining that was like "calling a menorah a candlestick." The Mayor added that as long as he was governing the city it would be a Christmas tree. Of course, everybody forgets that the trees are actually pagan symbols, but hey, we like a good ACLU separation-of-church-and-state fight as much as the next constitutional constructionist.
Somewhere in the TV news mix will be a few tear-jerking tales of people serving in Iraq who won't be home for Christmas (thanks to the stop-loss program), and newscasts will spotlight soldiers wishing their families happy holidays via videotape. Jimmy Kimmel did this for Thanksgiving.
But the holiday crush isn't just newsy, it's also time for a massive dose of family-oriented Christmas specials from Hallmark, Oprah and others. Soon it won't be just cookies and eggnog raising your insulin levels. The tube will be a veritable sugar-plum express, replete with lots of fake snow and even faker emotions.
The holidays are now the theme of regular sitcom and drama series programming. Expect lots of Santa suits, women in skimpy elf costumes, and the traditional hope-can-be-found-amidst-blood-and-guts Christmas miracle ER. Fortunately, it's perpetual summer on our favorite creepy series Lost, Surface and Invasion. When one's dealing with the other-worldly, there's no time for competition from other supernatural beings.
Not to sound too much like Scrooge before Marley got to him, but tis the season to change the channel. We recommend cruising cable for non-holiday items, and checking into the inevitable reruns of shows you haven't had time to catch, like Medium. Prison Break on the WB is very good, a less-violent Oz with prettier boys. Also on the WB and also starring pretty boys is Supernatural, everything ABC's dreary revival of Nightstalker purported to be and wasn't. If you have missed UPN's stellar Everybody Hates Chris, catch it. Chris Rock is the funniest man in America, and his fabulous take on the American family is not just for African Americans. It's hilarious for all races and ethnicities.
Alas, that other most hilarious of sitcoms, Arrested Development, is getting coal for Christmas. Despite a massive viewer campaign to keep it on the air, FOX has cancelled the smart, acerbic and decidedly wicked sitcom, leaving Ellen DeGeneres' girlfriend Portia Di Rossi out of a job. Boo, hiss. It is impossible to give smart a chance? Oh right, it's FOX.
Re: vamp
A chorus of booing and hissing goes to ABC for "revamping" Nightline, the best news program on the tube. Does no one remember the axiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?" Ted Koppel's final appearance as host was Nov. 22.
After 45 years as a newsman, 25 of them anchoring Nightline, Koppel retired from the post, following Tom Brokaw at NBC and Dan Rather at CBS. (ABC's anchor Peter Jennings died of lung cancer this past summer.) Only NBC has been successful at finding the perfect replacement anchor, because Brokaw was grooming Brian Williams as his successor for years. Williams, a college dropout who worked his way up the news ladder starting as a copy-boy, has that newshound gravitas essential for an anchor, making the transition from Brokaw to him smooth.
On ABC, Elizabeth Vargas has been anchoring since Jennings' illness forced him to take a leave, but despite all her years in news, she still seems like the understudy. On CBS, neither Bob Schieffer nor John Roberts, both solid newsmen, has managed to replicate the easy-yet-capable presence of Rather. That newscast is more off-kilter than ever.
Now ABC has mucked up Nightline. For over a decade, Koppel was aided by an incredibly solid quartet of reporters: Chris Bury, Dave Maresh, John Donvan and Michel Martin. Bury has done the yeoman's share of anchoring as Koppel phased himself out. Like Koppel, he's a smart, sharp newsman. Neither charismatic nor handsome, but genuine, accessible and sincere. In short, Bury was the most likely replacement for the irreplaceable Koppel.
But in ABC's cold, calculating move, Bury was left to announce the new anchor team on the November 25 Nightline. The new group began the roundup version on November 28, and one can only pray it will get better. The tube does not need another newsmagazine.
Nightline had always been real news. Koppel and his team took viewers to the world's most horrific spots, from Iran and Rwanda to Congo, from New York and Afghanistan to Iraq and New Orleans. During Katrina, it was Koppel who demanded of FEMA's Michael Brown that he give (and get) some answers. It was Donvan, strawberry-blonde complexion sunburned beyond belief, who opened the doors to the Convention Center and revealed the horrors there. Bury, equally sunburned, toured the obliterated Gulf Coast. Maresh has taken the Nightline crew to worlds grimmer than one can imagine, with his tales of human trafficking, conflict diamonds, Darfurian starvation and bird flu. Martin has given one incisive interview after another, grilling whites and people of color with equal intensity.
So not only is the stellar anchoring of Koppel gone, but his team of reporters, with decades of investigative work among them, has been shunted aside. Nightline will now be a different kind of team effort, with a trio of anchors: ABC senior White House correspondent Terry Moran, ABC senior legal correspondent Cynthia McFadden, and Briton Martin Bashir, who is best known for his homophobic skewering of Michael Jackson in a documentary a few years before Jackson's recent trial. The doc was used repeatedly in evidence against Jackson.
We're fond of Moran, particularly after he stood up for octogenarian AP reporter Helen Thomas in a press briefing a few weeks back when White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan implied she was pro-terrorism. Moran is a superb reporter, but he belongs where he's been: covering the White House, with a seriousness and attention to detail not seen much in the TV news these days.
Likewise, we appreciate McFadden, who has been a junior Barbara Walters for years, interviewing the un-interviewable for Good Morning America and PrimeTime, and doing compelling investigative reporting of legal and social issues.
Bashir, conversely, has never dispelled the bad taste we got from his American debut with Jackson. His appearances on PrimeTime and This Week have only intensified our dislike of his style. His underlying politics always seem to have a conservative, anti-gay undertone.
We have no doubt that Moran and McFadden are capable of the kind of solid newsmongering Nightline has come to symbolize. But the overarching question is this: Why fix what's worked so well for 25 years? Why not let the Nightline team of Bury, Donvan, Maresh and Martin continue to do serious work, with Bury at the helm?
In his final appearance, Koppel noted that anchors come and go and we are none the worse for it. He predicted that if viewers didn't give the new team a chance, the network would just "replace Nightline with another comedy show, and you won't like that either, I'll guarantee it." Perhaps he knew what our response to his replacements would be. We can only hope he's right about the new team. Stay tuned.
Finally, since it's the season of lightheartedness, we must say we have yet to tire of the late-night spoofing of Bush's trip to China, when he was unable to leave a press conference through ceremonial doors. The laughs have gone on for 10 full days, unabated. Kimmel and Letterman replay the video, replete with Bush's goofy expression as he realizes he can't escape, nearly every night.
On the one hand, Bush is a comedian's delight. On the other, he's actually the President, which is far more disturbing than the cancellation of Arrested Development, the prospect of a month of holiday programming, the changes at Nightline, and even the announcement that Nick and Jessica really have split for good and will not be singing together at Rockefeller Center this year.
It's a turbulent time on the tube and in the world, kids, so: Stay tuned.