Here's What Television Has Taught Us

Let me just say first of all that I know that we have not entered a new millennium or a new century. I know that the 21st century and the new millennium don't really begin until Jan. 1, 2001.

Every time some announcer bleated last week about celebrating the 21st century and the new millennium, I cringed and mentally threw brickbats at the TV screen. (You know, I have no idea what a brickbat is. I know what a brick is and what a bat is, but a brickbat? Sounds like some science experiment gone horribly awry. Anyway, it sounds indignant -- an appropriate thing to mentally throw at moronic TV announcers.)

But as Mulder recently informed Scully, nobody likes a math geek. So for purposes of today's column, please allow me to become one with the great uninformed herd and refer to 2000 as a new century, a new millennium and hell, I don't know, a new galaxy and a new king-size bed. As long as I'm being inaccurate, I might as well be really inaccurate. (Guess who's cringing now? Probably my old journalism professors.)

So ... the beginning of a new millennium seems an appropriate time to examine what we -- that great, bleating, uninformed herd of non-math geeks -- learned from television in the 20th century.

• The world will not come to an end if a character in a network show utters a four-letter word, is openly gay or reveals a hairy, unclothed bum.

  We can thank Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley for teaching us this. Remember all the righteous indignation several years ago when it was announced that "NYPD Blue" was going to feature -- gasp! -- partial nudity? Remember all those TV-is-the-antichrist conservative groups that urged boycotts? Remember how that just made viewers tune in in big, ready-to-be-titillated droves?

  Remember Jimmy Smits' unclothed bum? I sure do.

  Earlier this season, when a character on "Chicago Hope" let the "S" word fall from his lips, it landed on a nation full of indifferent ears. These are, after all, the same people who stand in line at the grocery store and must listen to 14-year-olds in baggy pants spout obscenities that would wilt your celery. (This is why I don't buy celery. It's bad enough when it's not wilted.)

  As for openly gay characters: "Ellen" used to be funny until Ellen DeGeneres' character came out of the closet. Then she was so painfully, publicly, in-your-face gay that it just wasn't amusing anymore; her character's sexual orientation had become the show's main focus.

  By contrast, although two of the main characters on "Will and Grace" are openly gay, their sexual preferences are not the focal point of the show. They're also cleverly written and brilliantly acted, which never hurts.

  At this point -- given the onslaught of profanity, nudity and violence to which we are daily exposed in the name of entertainment -- seeing a bare behind on network TV or hearing an actor use a word that is so commonly used that it's lost most of its impact just doesn't have the power to shock us anymore.

  And that's not necessarily a good thing.

• Although we've become a more fragmented audience, television still has the power to draw us together as a community.

  My friend Cindy offered the opinion a few months ago that because of video, cable, the Internet and video games, the television audience has become seriously fragmented and has lost much of its unity.

  Back in the dark ages -- those days when our viewing choices were limited to what was being shown on the three networks, and if we wanted to watch it, we had to watch it at the time it was being broadcast -- there was a good chance that if you were watching "Roots" or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or the last episode of "The Fugitive," practically everyone on your block (or even your town) was watching, too.

  Cindy says that's not the way it is today, and I agree with her -- to a point. I believe that we revert to those old one-big-living-room days whenever there's a big news event. We all watch it unfold together.

  During the 1990s alone, we were glued to our television sets when the Gulf War began; when the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed; when Princess Diana was killed; when O.J. Simpson fled authorities in a white Bronco (and when a jury acquitted him of murder); when David Koresh's compound went up in flames; when JFK Jr. was lost at sea.

  I remember sitting alone in the dark in my living room on the morning of Princess Diana's funeral, watching that sad procession and sobbing anew whenever the camera zoomed in on the word "Mummy." But I wasn't really alone; I knew that there were thousands more piling up soggy Kleenexes on the floor as they watched the same events, and I drew comfort from that.

• A truly good television show endures.

  I have always been encouraged by the success of cable networks like Nick at Nite and TVLand, which continue to show classics like "I Love Lucy," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

  If you want to be a true cynic, you can point out that the proliferation of new cable networks makes TV execs so desperate for programming that they'll slap anything on the air (how else to explain UPN's "Shasta McNasty" and HBO's "Arli$$" -- now inexplicably in its third season?).

  If you'd rather take the high road, you can be optimistic about Nick's success, which has helped spur networks like Bravo to decide to air "Moonlighting."

  I've still got my fingers crossed that one of these days, we'll be seeing old episodes of "Here Come the Brides." Or maybe even "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show."

• There's no accounting for the taste of television viewers.

  The evidence? Pro wrestling and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

  Enough said.

• If something is successful, it will be done over and over until it's become stale and trite.

  An example: "Friends," which is still fresh and funny, but which is responsible for spawning countless sitcoms devoid of wit and intelligence. Examples: "It's Like, You Know ..." and "Two Guys and a Girl" (which wasn't funny even when there was a pizza place thrown into the mix).

  And an even more glaring example: "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," which should more properly be called "Who Wants to Duplicate ABC's Inexplicable Success With a Prime-Time Game Show?" Damn near everybody, apparently.

This is my last installment of "Tubin'." Next week, I'll begin writing a column that focuses on pop culture -- and which may even include television now and then. If you've got any hot pop-culture ideas for me, send 'em on.

Even if you're a math geek.

Past Tubin' articles

Note: Look for Betsy's new pop culture column to appear every week in our Entertainment section in the new year. She welcomes your questions and comments.