TV: Fall 2017

With more and more TV options, including Netflix and Amazon, there are fewer quality shows than ever.  I find myself returning regularly to channel 13, the local PBS station, where there are fewer meretricious shows than elsewhere, including the most recent Ken Burns effort (co-directed by Lynn Novick, with voiceover narration written by Geoffrey Ward) "The Vietnam War."  The series, for what it has to say, is rather bloated with war footage but does two things quite well:  it empathizes the lies told by those in power to the American people and it includes interviews with many regular soldiers and their families --from all sides -- avoiding, mostly, listening to those in power who sent people to die and who killed millions of Vietnamese in a war that they knew from the beginning could not be won. Like too many documentaries there is much fudging of footage, from dubbed rifle fire and other noises to footage that may or may not be related to the battle being narrated, but I did learn things I was not aware of when I was dodging the draft (first with a student deferment, then with number 350 in the Shirly-Jackson-like lottery, though I was required by my hometown draft board to take the army physical), including how Le Duan was running the Viet Cong long before Ho Chi Minh died in 1969.

My favorite scripted show this fall was TBS's "The Search Party," written and directed by
Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter.  It ran for two seasons of ten episodes each and starred Ali Shawkat as a recent college graduate named Dory trying to find a school chum who has disappeared.  She and her friends, who have dubious jobs as interns of various sorts, spend more and more of their time looking for Chantal and when they do eventually find her disaster ensues. The show is something of a dark comedy of social and generational observation, with entwined elements of mystery and melodrama.

Speaking of melodrama, I also liked "Somewhere Between", on ABC for ten episodes.  It was based on a Korean melodrama, "God's Gift:14 Days" (written by Dong-hoon Lee and directed by Ran choi) --which I have not yet seen -- about a mother going back in time to try to keep her daughter from being murdered.  This kind of theme is apparently popular in Korean TV and movies (Hong Sansoo's movies, for instance, often have people trying the change the past)  Stephen Tolkin was the writer and producer of the series (he used four different directors) that had almost as many coincidences as a Wilkie Collins novel (that's a compliment; I'm a great admirer of Wilkie Collins).

I do also like David Guggenheim's "Designated Survivor," though it is still a little unsure of what it wants to be: a political series like Aaron Sorkin's intelligent "The West Wing" or more of a thriller aligned with star Kiefer Sutherland's previous show "24."  Guggenheim is struggling to combine the two.

American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story (R.I.P.)

I agree with much that was said about Hugh Hefner, pro and con, when he died.  I do have something of my own perspective, growing up as I did in a small town in a working-class family.  We had few books in our house and there was no library in town so my reading consisted of magazines and newspapers and paperbacks from a rack at the local grocery store, purchased with my $5.00 a week of paper route money (when I turned 12 my father said no more measly allowance from me, since I was now old enough to have a paper route).  I would always try new magazines and was pleased to discover Playboy (it originally cost sixty cents) when it first appeared at Gohl's store; I had never seen naked women and the photographs in Playboy were part of its initial appeal (though fortunately I did not end up like John Ruskin, who supposedly became impotent on his wedding night when confronted with his bride's pubic hair).  But much of its appeal to me was the writing:  Playboy was the first place I saw, and read, among many others, P.G. Wodehouse, Vladimir Nabokov, Jean Shepherd and Ian Fleming, all of whom became favorites and led me to their books eventually.  I knew nothing of the Playboy clubs or sleazy Hugh Hefner or the objectification of women.  Playboy opened up the world beyond my oppressive home town for me and helped me to realize there was a whole, wider world out there.  I had little or no interest in the consumer goods mentioned ---stereos, motorcars and other things I could not afford -- but Playboy also piqued my interest in politics, with articles about civil liberties by Nat Hentoff  and civil rights by James Farmer and there was a detailed interview with Malcolm X.  I even liked the cartoons and jokes(there was little humor in my house and sex was nothing to laugh about) and the Playboy Adviser, which told me useful things, like how often to get a haircut.

Amazon's American Playboy seems to be something of a vanity project, i.e. , Hefner as he sees himself.  The 10-part series consists of old footage of Hefner and his friends and relatives being interviewed and cheesy re-creations of Hef's life (the series is directed by Richard Lopez, long associated with the History Channel).  There's plenty of footage from the Playboy clubs and talk about how much money "bunnies" made and how much they loved the job.  The bunnies were not allowed to date customers, except of course for Hef and his favorite celebrities.  Again, however, Hef gets credit for highlighting African-American performers --such as Dick Gregory and Aretha Franklin --when they weren't allowed to perform in other clubs.  Hef insisted on having African-Americans on his TV show even when Southern stations refused to broadcast it.

John Ford's The Colter Craven Story

John Ford's "The Colter Craven Story" was an episode of the series Wagon Train that Ford did as a favor to Ward Bond, the series star who had appeared in many Ford films, including Wagon Master (1950), the original source for the TV series.  Ford also used outdoor footage from Wagon Master on "The Colter Craven Story" in order to avoid the claustrophobia of most TV Westerns.

Wagon Train lasted eight years on network TV; in 1959 there were 26 Westerns on prime-time TV.  They disappeared for a number of political and economic reasons:  the Vietnam War reminded us of how Native Americans had been treated in this country, Westerns became expensive to make as color took over TV, and many adults considered Westerns too violent for children, who were a big part of the audience, along with older adults, as advertisers looked for the best demographics, primarily in the 18-45 age range.

"The Colter Craven Story" effectively uses many John Ford regulars --  Jack Pennick, John Carradine, Mae Marsh, Anna Lee, Hank Worden -- in a story about an alcoholic doctor who had turned to drink after the Civil War battle Shiloh, when he could save very few of the wounded.  Bond tells the doctor the story of his old friend General Grant, who had been kicked out of the army for drunkenness but had redeemed himself.  Bond's flashback to Shiloh even includes a brief glimpse of John Wayne as Sherman (Wayne plays the same role in Ford's short but poetic section of How the West Was Won, 1962).  Dr. Craven redeems himself by delivering a baby for parents who had already had four children die, the most recent nine years ago.

John Ford and Ward Bond were both alcoholics.  Ford made his last film in 1966 and died in 1973 at the age of 79. Bond died at the age of 57 in 1960, before "The Colter Craven Story" was broadcast.

TV Shows

TV shows come and go, some disappearing quickly, others hanging on forever.  One show I liked this year only hung around for a few episodes:  Kevin Williamson's Time After Time, with H. G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper into the present in his time machine.  It was perhaps too complex for many viewers and too expensive for the network.  The movie of the same name, made by Nicholas Meyer in 1978, is available.  Meanwhile, I am watching the following shows:

Noah Hawley's Fargo.  It's based, somewhat, on the film of the same name by Joel and Etham Coen.  It reminds one of a demented version of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon stories and causes one to miss A Prairie Home Companion, though the humor in Hawley's show is much darker.

Designated Survivor has had four showrunners so far this season, with Keith Eisner most recently replacing Jeff Melvoin.  The show has gone back and forth between West-Wing-style politics and family to deep conspiracies, with Kiefer Sutherland not afraid to ask, "Who are you working for?," just as he did on 24.  Eisner previously worked on The Good Wife so I expect future shows to have less conspiracy and more family drama.

Joe Weisberg's The Americans is an intelligent Reagan-era spy drama, with a Russian couple in deep cover as ordinary travel agents while stealing secrets and occasionally killing Americans (usually in self-defense)  The show is effective, with a number of different layers, including the Russians' love for their country and their ambivalence about America.

I watched the first two seasons of Paul Scheuring's Prison Break in 2006 and 2007, with the first season about the break and the second season about avoiding capture.  I stopped watching when they went back to prison in the third season.  They are back this year in an attempt to break out of a prison in Yemen and then out of the country.  So far I find it a bit too specific, lacking the original abstract intensity,especially of the first season.

Eric Overmeyer's Bosch is an impressive attempt to merge stories from different Michael Connelly novels  about LA detective Hieronymous Bosch; it's in its third season, ten episodes each, on Amazon.  The best episodes are those written by Connolly himself, where the action slows down and Bosch muses about his life while listening to his favorite jazz. Excellent use of Los Angeles locations.

I don't know if Colony will be returning next season but the show, created by Carlton Cuse, is stylishly made and with considerable relevance to the current political climate, with Los Angeles being ruled by alien conquerors helped by human collaborators.  I also look forward to the return of Timeless, the time travel series by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, where the time travelers attempt the impossible combination of improving the past without changing anything.

Time Travel on TV

Life in the institution was not only different from the outside, time was too.  Standing by the window and looking into the forest I knew that if I had been there, sitting under a tree and looking over at these buildings time would have been barely noticeable, I would have drifted as lightly through the day as the clouds across the sky, whereas inside the institution and looking out, time was much heavier, almost claylike, as though here it met obstacles and was always being forced to take detours, like a river traversing a plain before joining the sea, one might imagine, winding its way in countless labyrinthine, meandering bends.

--Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, v. 5, Archipelago Books 2016 (translated by Don Bartlett)

I have always been intrigued by time travel, though I have had little trouble doing it.  If I want to go back to the early 20^th C. I read Maugham, Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis and to the 19^th C. I like Trollope and Dickens.  For visiting the 18^th C. I read Smollet and Richardson and for the 17^th I read Milton and Cervantes.  For the 14^th C. there is Chaucer and back to the 8^th C. B.C. for Homer.  And, of course, there is art from almost every period in museums around the world, including the Metropolitan in New York. 

According to James Gleik (Time Travel, 2016) the idea of literal time travel began with H.G.. Wells and his novel The Time Machine in 1895.  Gleik does a good job covering the literature (Nabokov, Borges, Asimov, Finney) and the science of time travel (Einstein, Hawking) but neglects the romantic and emotional appeal of loving someone in another time period or going back to prevent the death of a loved one.  This has been important in popular culture and I will just mention some of the recent TV shows that have explored this subject.

Simon Barrys "Continuum" is a Canadian show that ran for several seasons on the SyFy channel.  Some political activists go back in time to prevent the rise of a totalitarian corporate state and a law enforcement officer named Keira gets sucked in with them.  She tries to stop the activists, who went from 2077 to 2012, while trying to get back to her husband and child.  "Continuum" – much like the other time travel shows – works out its own way of dealing with the time travel paradoxes, as more than one version of some of the protagonists appear and even meet each other.  Keira finally does get back to her own time where, of course, everything has changed.

In "Outlander", which has had two seasons on Starz so far, a woman falls asleep in Scotland at the end of WW II and is mysteriously transported (there is no time machine) to the 18^th C. , where she aids the Scots against the English, marries a Scot (even though she has a husband in the 20^th C), and even attempts to stop the Jacobite rebellion, in order to save Scotland.  This series was put together by Ronald D. Moore, who had worked on Star Trek and Battleship Galactica shows.  The first season has impressive location shooting, though the second series gets somewhat stuck in a studio Paris. Costume design and music are reasonably authentic.  The show is based on a series of historical novels by Diana Gabaldon and is effectively both romantic and didactic.

"Frequency" is a TV series developed by Jeremy Carver from the movie by Gregory Hoblit (2000)and has just finished its first season on CW.  In this interesting variation on time travel only HAM radio waves travel through time.  Detective Raimy Sullivan accidentally contacts her father by radio –who is back in 1996--and is able to prevent his death that year.  By preventing his death, however, she changed the timeline so that her mother was killed by a serial killer.  In order to get her mother back she has to help her father, twenty years in the past, to catch the serial killer before her mother is killed. As events change in 1996, with Raimy’s help, it affects things in 2016.  It all makes some sense, in a dizzying logical way.  Like many recent Time Travel tales, "Frequency" is influenced by Ray Bradbury’s short story "Sound of Thunder "(1952), where a butterfly killed by a time traveler during the period of the dinosaurs changes things in the present.

"Timeless"just ended its first season on NBC.  This series, created by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, includes two time machines, one of which is stolen by a man who wants to track down the conspirators who killed his wife and son.  A government team follows him to the Alamo, The French and Indian War, and the Chicago of Al Capone, among other places.  One of the government operatives loses her sister because she changes things when she tries to stop the destruction of the Hindenberg.  Another of the government operatives tries to prevent the murderer of his wife from ever being born and accidentally kills the wrong relative when he goes back to the seventies. The show perhaps tries to do too much in too many different eras, though it does effectively portray Stephen King’s concept (in 11/22/63) that when you try to change time, time pushes back.  The production values are unusually high for a network show, with one of the government operatives in charge of making sure they have correct clothes for each historical period they go to.

Channel 13

In the 70’s, before there was cable TV in New York, one would often hear people say “the only TV I watch is channel 13.”   Thirteen showed Masterpiece Theatre and occasionally foreign films, as well as opera and, sometimes, ballet.  Then along came cable, with its uncensored dramas and films on AMC, IFC and Sundance that were uncut and commercial-free.  Now the only station I watch on cable is Turner Classic Movies, the other channels having succumbed to mostly schlock and commercials.  Films that once might have been on cable are now more often found on channel 13 –which has stayed true to itself –especially in the Independent Lens and American Masters series.  Recently channel 13 showed in the latter series films about Loretta Lynn, movingly directed by Vikram Jayanti, and a film about Bob Dylan, directed by Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese’s 2005 film "No Direction Home" follows Dylan up to 1966 and includes lots of early footage of his performances and interviews, as well as lengthy excerpts from an interview of Dylan by his manager Jeff Rosen, in which Dylan talks about his work in a relative straightforward way.  Some of us who lived through Dylan’s progress from political folksinger to rock ‘n roll still have strong feelings about the changes, with some feeling betrayed (there were cries of “Judas” at his concerts) and others feeling that an artist has to pursue his vision in his own way, the explicit political songs being a dead end.  Scorsese covers it all in illuminating detail, including interviews with Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger and Allen Ginsberg.

On Independent Lens channel 13 showed "Birth of a Movement" recently, directed by Bestor Cramer and Susan Gray and focusing on African-American journalist William Monroe Trotter and his attempt to stop D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece Birth of a Nation in 1915.  He failed at stopping the film but his efforts did lead to an increase in awareness of the role of the black man in America.  Griffith himself was aghast that anyone could consider him a bigot and made the magisterial Intolerance in 1916.  Also recently on Independent Lens was Keith Maitland’s "Tower".  This extraordinary film depicts the shootings at the University of Texas in 1966, mostly from the point of view of the victims. I have always disliked so-called re-enactments of crimes and other events and Maitland has instead used rotoscoping, animation based on actual film footage.  This produces an effect of immediacy while still maintaining a proper distance, not attempting (as re-enactments typically try to do) to be realistic, while still capturing a depiction of reality.

Philip Roth on Donald Trump

I was pleased to see that Philip Roth may have read my 10/22/16 post about the Presidential debates, in which I quoted Melville’s The Confidence-Man.  Here is what Roth said in the Jan. 30, 2017 “The New Yorker:”

Trump is just a con artist.  The relevant book about Trump’s American forebear is Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man, the darkly pessimistic, daringly inventive novel – Melville’s last – that could just as well have been called The Art of the Scam…. I found much that was alarming about being a citizen during the tenures of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.  But whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is:  ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.