Secrets and Lies; David Letterman

Making a child die in a picture is a rather ticklish matter; it come close to an abuse of cinematic power.
Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock (Simon and Schuster 1967)

Secrets and Lies had its season finale Sunday with an episode directed by Timothy Busfield and written by Barbie Kligman (who created the show, based on an Australian series) and Judy McCreary  A series about seeking the murderer of a young child makes one a little queasy, though it is becoming more common these days (Gracepoint is another recent example). This series was helped immensely by the presence of  thirtysomething veteran Timothy Busfield, who produced and directed, as well as acting in the series.  I did not find the mystery of who killed the young boy particularly interesting but everyone was a suspect at one time or another and the fragility of neighborhood bonds was convincingly demonstrated.  What I did find also well evoked were the authority issues among the lower-middle class and how little understanding there was between husband and wife and parents and children:  spouses routinely cheated on one another and fought constantly, fueled by alcohol,  and the most important thing for children is to obey their parents and other authority figures.  Violence was never far away and Juliette Lewis, the intimidating lead police investigator on the murder, was everywhere. Lewis was tough and no-nonsense (even sending her own child to jail for drugs), though at the very end she literally let down her hair as a father confessed to a murder his 12-year-old daughter committed.

There's not much to say about David Letterman.  After watching last night's special about his thirty-three years in late-night television it is clearer than ever that, like his idol Johnny Carson, he had little to contribute that will last or be remembered.  The special spent most of its time on the same celebrity guests that visit all these shows, though he did include an occasional hero, such as someone who rescued somebody from the subway tracks.  Letterman's tricks and stunts were all done before, and better, by Steve Allen, the original and best Tonight Show host (1954-57).  Letterman did hire some good writers and  I enjoyed Letterman up to a point when he was on at 12:30 in the 80's, but once he moved to an 11:30 spot (in 1993) he was not much different than Carson and no longer had guests such as Pee Wee Herman telling jokes.