We love the tabula rasa of a new year. All that possibility looming before us, particularly when it comes to TV. The new shows are already debuting, and the old ones are revving up their sparkling new seasons. After the holiday doldrums of Christmas specials and reruns, it's a relief to have the old tube back. Then, of course, there's always that soupcon of politics to spice up the regular programming.
The old and new years converged with the death of former President Gerald Ford and the execution of Saddam Hussein. The TV coverage accorded each was spectacular in what it did and did not show.
When Ford was President, 40% of Americans today weren't alive. Most of those of us who were remember him best as he was portrayed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live. The news coverage of his life and times reminded us of who he really was, and provided a history lesson for those of us who never knew a Republican we didn't loathe. There were once decent men who were members of that party, who didn't hate women, queers and blacks, and who actually thought that government should stay out of the bedroom. Try and imagine that.
The revelations that came posthumously from Ford were stunning. He was pro-choice and thought that the elder Bush had moved the Republican Party to the right by not acknowledging that both he and his wife, Barbara, were also pro-choice. Ford thought the younger Bush and his cohort (former Ford staffers) had utterly bungled Iraq, and the war should never have happened.
Ford's passing also elicited the first-ever TV interview with US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stephens, appointed by the former President. Stephens, long considered the Court's most liberal member (he spoke out vehemently over the 2000 decision to stop the vote count in Florida), told ABC News that he still considered himself a conservative, but that the country had moved very far to the right. Ford had consistently asserted that his appointment of Stephens was one of his lasting achievements, one he never regretted.
The TV coverage also provided us with the picture of elegance and forbearance that is Betty Ford. Seeing the 88-year-old Betty and being reminded of her enlightening moments over the years was inspirational, if not a tad depressing (in comparison to what we are stuck with). On January 7, 60 Minutes re-ran the interview Leslie Stahl did with Betty Ford in which she first revealed her addictions. It's available on CBS News online.
We rarely thought of the Fords in the years since he left office, but we've thought a lot about them since the funeral saturated the airwaves. Life under the Bush regime has made us forget so much, like how much just a little bit of decency can count in very dark times.
Made for TV
Speaking of dark times, the execution of Saddam Hussein, another made-for-TV event, did not go as planned, just like the war itself. ABC's Nightline declined to air the entire execution, yet showed everything right up until the trap door was sprung, so it's clearly a fine line they are walking there; decency really is a lost art, isn't it? They did explore what went wrong in detail over the course of several nights.
Did we need Nightline to explain it to us? It seems pretty clear. The US let the Iraqis execute Saddam, knowing exactly how it would go down. Can anyone say mob rule? Yes, the Iraqis have learned a great deal from the Bush Administration: how to draft a Constitution and invalidate it all at once. If Saddam was going to be executed (and we oppose the death penalty), then it should have had as much decorum as possible. Until we got involved in the execution, it seemed incredibly unlikely that Saddam could be made into a martyr by anyone. And now, hey, Libya is going to build a monument to him. Maybe we can just give them that statue soldiers toppled back in March 2003. You know, right before the Iraqis welcomed us with open arms and flowers, or was it after?
Is there a reason why the American networks are incapable of reporting on any event that doesn't either take place in the US or directly impact the US? Without BBC World News, we would have no clue about what is going on in the world, whether it's England losing the world cricket championship to Australia, or Somalia being ready to implode due to an Islamist takeover. PBS runs BBC World News several times a day.
Perky place
While the news remains grim, the rest of the TV landscape is quite perky, as befits the warmest winter on record. A new show on Lifetime, Gay, Straight or Taken?, highlights the question posed by all straight women everywhere. The show features three men and one woman each week. The woman has to test her "relationship radar" (or gaydar) to see which category the hunky guys fit. The show is being promo-ed during the tabloid programs, so it's clear the audience they are seeking is straight women and gay men.
We have no idea who the audience is for CBS' Armed and Famous, but we're betting the show gets canceled after a few episodes. First, no one on the show is really famous. LaToya Jackson, Erik Estrada and Jack Osbourne? In what parallel universe are these people famous? Then, the show's premise: they're trained to be cops, then surprise people when they arrest them. This is an idea from a major network? Really? The best part of the show is discovering that LaToya looks like step three in Michael Jackson's plastic surgery process.
Speaking of shows devoted to the unfamous, Megan Mullaly's talk show was canceled. What's that? You thought it already had been? Yes, well, that's why it was canceled.
Speaking of cancellations: no more pretty boys and girls on the beach getting up to pornographic hijinx. The O.C. was once the new Dawson's Creek. No more. Gone by May, unless it gets a Seventh Heaven reprieve.
Speaking of reprieves, we are willing to give The L Word, which premiered its new season January 7, one more chance to bring the sexy back. One more. Period. That's it. Do you hear us, Showtime? Just one last chance, probably. But only one more. Really.
Speaking of queer messes, we're not sure what we want to do about All My Children. We just hate the Bianca/Zarf/Zoe storyline, even though we love Bianca, and Zoe has been growing on us. On January 15, Bianca's not-so-ex ex Maggie comes back to Pine Valley. There was Bianca on New Year's Eve, after she fled from Zoe, with old pal Leslie (really: the writers actually named the only other lesbian Leslie), clearly still ready to take a tumble with Bianca. So there are some actual lesbian lesbians available for Binx. Zoe can develop her transgendered lesbian self with someone else, post-surgery and hormones.
We do give actor Jeffrey Carlson credit: he's doing a good job with the transgendered storyline, given what he has to work with, which isn't much. Whoever dressed Zoe for the New Year's Eve reveal did a great job. Carlson still needs some training walking in a dress and heels (we were afraid he was going to pitch over several times), but the outfit, hair and makeup were very flattering: this was not an over-the-top "Call me Liza with a Z" drag debacle. Zarf as Zoe was trying to look like a real girl on New Year's, elegant and, well, womanly, like a woman would dress for another woman who likes women.
Alas, Bianca did not see it that way. She still thinks Zarf is trying to get into her pants the old-fashioned way, by playing "dyke for a day." She's very hurt. Enter Maggie.
Can this storyline be saved? We're unsure. ABC really wants it to work: the network is promo-ing it to death, with a voiceover intoning, "She's a woman who loves other women, so why is she attracted to a man?" But it seems that making Zarf such a bizarre character in the first place was a mistake. Then there's that pesky serial-killer angle. Also, Bianca's siblings Kendall and Josh both think Zarf wants to bed her like he's bedded so many other women in his rock-star career. You see the dilemma.
We thought the New Year's reveal went better than expected. Seeing Zoe sobbing on one side of the door and Bianca on the other was just classic soap-opera drama. Yet we really want to see Bianca with someone who is going to be around for more than five minutes. (And who doesn't turn out to be a serial killer.) Somehow we can't see AMC taking us through the whole long process of sex-reassignment surgery. But we could be wrong.
Speaking of soap-opera drama, the Trump vs. Rosie fight is going into yet another round. On the January 5 David Letterman show, Letterman asked Trump how he spent New Year's Eve. The Donald replied, "Basically going on talk shows and bashing Rosie O'Donnell wherever I could."
Trump then noted that he had always considered Rosie "a degenerate." Letterman was so stunned he laughed hysterically. Then he sobered up, said he thought Rosie was smart, funny and talented, and he liked her. Trump couldn't just call her a degenerate. To which Trump replied, "Watch me."
Trump acknowledged he had no intention of proffering an olive branch on this one. But that was clear when The Donald lit into Meredith Vieira, when he appeared on The Today Show the day before. Booked to promote The Apprentice, The Donald went nuts after Vieira brought up the feud. Trump huffed, puffed, made his mouth cartoon-small, and admonished Vieira, "Here we are talking about The Apprentice, and you don't want to talk about The Apprentice, you want to talk about Rosie. You shouldn't mention them in the same breath."
Vieira, not one to back down from a bad hairpiece (after all, she sat next to Star Jones on The View for nine seasons), accused Trump of "fueling the fire." Then Trump's wife got into the act, calling around to the tabloid shows to diss Rosie.
Yes, 2007 really does look a lot like 2006. Especially on The 700 Club. Rev. Pat Robertson will likely never be caught in one of those evangenital scandals, but he does have this predilection for telling his televangelist flock what God has told him on any given day as if it were, well, true. This week, God confided in Robertson that 2007 would see a hideous terrorist attack on the US, likely from al-Qaeda, in which millions would die.
Wow. So much for save the cheerleader, save the world. God told him this would happen, but didn't tell him how to prevent it. That seems rather mean-spirited of God, doesn't it? Of course, Robertson just screams for lampooning, and the late nights were quick to do so. Jimmy Kimmel (who grew a beard over the holidays so he can now look like a skid-row bum dressed in an expensive suit) did a great bit on his show, in which a booming, God-like voice repeated a series of the things God was alleged to have said to Robertson over the years, none of which came true. It ended with, "God is a liar."
Craig Ferguson had a slightly different take. Ferguson noted, "I've always been of the mind that when you talk to God, it's praying. When God talks to you, it's schizophrenia." That explains so much about so many, does it not? Happy New Year. Stay tuned.