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.