The Andromeda Strain Revisited

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Don't mourn the end of the TV season just yet. The Big Four networks may be taking a breather after subjecting us to one of the worst debut seasons in history, but summer is the time when cable networks flex their increasingly impressive muscle. While the Fox, the Mouse, the Peacock and the Eyeball are pretty much content to loll in reruns, reality and game shows in the lazy days of summer, cable trots out significant documentaries and big budget dramas. In the process, they garner a lot of critical attention and Emmy buzz.

A&E leads the charge this year, teaming up with Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, Gladiator) and Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Top Gun) to recreate the Michael Crichton best-selling debut novel The Andromeda Strain. The four-hour TV event, directed by two-time Academy Award nominee Mikael Saloman (Backdraft, The Abyss) and starring Benjamin Bratt, Eric McCormack, Rick Schroder, Christa Miller and Daniel Dae Kim, will air in High Definition on Memorial Day, 26 May and Tuesday, 27 May at 9pm EST on A&E.

In The Andromeda Strain, a U.S. military satellite crashes in a small town and unleashes a deadly plague, killing all but two survivors. As the military quarantines the area, a team of highly specialized scientists is assembled to find a cure to the pathogen code-named “Andromeda,” and a reporter investigates a government conspiracy only to discover what he is chasing wants him silenced.

From the clips I've seen, this latest version of The Andromeda Strain looks to be an ideal way to cap off the Memorial Day weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Juiced on Joost

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It’s not that I hate TV—to the contrary, it’s the most effective means of mass communication on the planet. Anyway, it could be, if the currency of communication wasn’t devalued from the outset by pandering to the lowest possible common denominator. See, TV was never about entertainment or education—it was about advertising, and it still is. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that— from earliest times, commerce and culture have always worked in tandem in one way or another. Nobody ever did art purely for art’s sake and lived to tell about it.

The problem with network TV is that its content is largely controlled by advertisers who, understandably, prefer not to offend any potential customer. Art takes a backseat to the whims of the Great Unwashed as a result, and American Idol and Deal or No Deal become ratings juggernauts while offbeat scripted series like Life and Pushing Daisies struggle vainly to find an audience. It’s no coincidence that The Sopranos and Dexter garnered praise galore during their cable runs. Unfettered by advertising whims, premium cable is free to explore a full range of human emotion.

Now that broadband connections are more the norm than the oddity, TV is poised to enter into the next phase of its evolution. YouTube was a pioneer in this evolution, and its amazing growth forced the traditional outlets to take note. All the major networks offer next day reruns of their current shows on their respective websites, albeit with the obligatory “limited commercial interruptions.” There have been independent attempts at making Internet TV a reality, such as Hulu, but they tend to get swallowed up by the conglomerates before they can spread their wings.

The Internet, being the refuge of renegades and chancers of every stripe, continues to reinvent itself, and the promise of TV on demand is a battlefield rife with upstart entrepeneurs intent on reshaping cyberspace in their own vision. Of the current combatants, Joost , (created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, founders of Skype and Kazaa), holds the most promise in terms of shaking up the rules of television. Here’s a brief introduction:



Online Videos by Veoh.com

What Joost brings to the table is a refreshing irreverence towards the entire concept of television as culture. That’s not to say Joost dismisses TV as we know it-- it is, after all, a commercial venture—but it offers a dizzying array of viewing options, from international news to classic cartoons to scantily clad supermodels to cult TV classics, and its channels grow almost daily.

I’ve been exploring Joost for a couple of weeks now, and I have to admit I’ve only skimmed the surface of its content. With over 400 channels, that’s understandable. Even at that, I’m impressed. I’ve seen the original Star Trek. I’ve seen a beautiful presentation of the 2008 Geneva Auto Show. I’ve watched newscasts from a European perspective. I’ve seen sporting events, classic cartoons, cult movies, those aforementioned scantily clad swimsuit models, nonsensical video clips, cooking shows. lifestyle programs—the list goes on. For instance, the site has recently added the complete run of Jericho and the first three seasons of Beverly Hills 90210 to its roster. Clearly, there’s nothing elitist about Joost.

Joost isn’t perfect. It’s not web-based (yet, though rumor has it there may be a web-based version in the offing), relying instead on P2P technology. It does require a download and a subscription to access its content, but that’s a miniscule price to pay considering the wealth of content here. Yeah, you have to deal with an occasional ad because bills have to be paid. On the plus side, the ads are tiny pop-ups that occasionally appear in the corner of the screen, not full-blown adverts. Beyond that, I haven’t been bothered by video skips or jaggies—the video quality of any content I’ve viewed is at least equal to a conventional cable broadcast. Granted, my DSL connection offers me an average of 6mbs, but I don’t see any broadband connection faring much worse.

Television as we know it isn’t going away anytime soon (unless you count the Federally mandated all-digital transmission conversion in early 2009), and the Internet isn’t going to be the preferred method of viewing TV within months, or even the next few years. What is foreseeable, though, is a gradual convergence of the two platforms. That’s not news—Steve Jobs and Bill Gates envisioned the computer as innocuous appliance years ago. What we have now is a realization of those prophecies, However you slice it, Joost is a pioneering step in that convergence. Besides a remarkable llibrary that’s constantly expanding, it’s taking baby steps to that convergence, with forums, tech support and even user-based chat. In short, Joost has the potential to make TV fun again.

Perception of the Doors

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It’s easy to make a case that the Doors were one of the greatest bands in the history of rock. They were, after all, one of the first bands to top the charts by exploring the darker side of the flower power generation. It’s an equally simple matter to claim the Doors as the godfathers of pretension in rock. It takes a bit more than leather pants and concho belts to signal a death knoll to love power.

The one thing that can’t be argued is that the Doors’ eponymously titled debut remains, over forty years after its release, one of the most auspicious debuts in the annals of rock. As part of its continuing series, Classic Albums: The Doors explores the making of the album, as seen mostly through the memories of the survivors of those sessions. It’s equal parts retrospective and a fond remembrance, as seen primarily through the reminiscences of Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore, as well as recording engineer/ Bruce Botnick.

Love them or hate them, when their debut was released in January 1967, there was no band quite like the Doors. The members were educated—film school refugees (Morrison and Manzarek) and accomplished music theorists (Krieger and Densmore) who, consciously or not, would rewrite the rules of rock. They weren’t really interested in teen angst or Utopian visions of love—the Doors looked at what lay beyond those paths, and explored the more shadowy aspects of a world in the midst of a cultural revolution.

Classic Albums: The Doors touches on that mystique, but doesn’t waste a lot of time dwelling on it. Instead, it focuses mostly on the process of making the album. Much of it is anecdotal, of course, largely paced by the perpetually animated Manzarek, who often comes across with a Vegas veneer with his reminisces about the band’s origins. Botnick balances that vaguely schmaltzy exuberance with an engineer’s love of how the songs broke down technically.

Densmore and Krieger provide the greatest insights into how the band achieved its unique sound. Between the two of them, they managed to meld blues, bossa nova, flamenco guitar and funk in a single riff. With Manzarek, whose keyboard bass and soul and jazz inclinations cemented the Doors’ sound, they emerged as a band that sounded lie no other.

Despite all that, it’s impossible to discuss the Doors without placing Jim Morrison in the center of the context—not just of the album, but of the shift in American culture as a whole. The spectre of the Vietnam war would fragment the hippie movement, and Morrison’s lyrics, while not overtly political, reflected the gnawing restlessness of American society at the time. The Doors weren’t about love and peace so much as they were about inner turmoil.

The people involved in the album recognize that, as do such current personalities as Perry Ferrell and Henry Rollins, who provide a contemporary take on the legacy of the Doors. Sadly, aging Beat poet Michael McClure’s recitations of “Break On Through” only serve to diminish the impact of the song. His attempt to elevate the lyrics to the level of high poetry come off more as a Steve Allen routine than serious dissemination of the work.

All in all, Classic Albums: The Doors is an erstwhile addition to a series that is in itself proving to be an important chronicler of important pop music. As with the rest of the series, the Doors entry sidesteps hype in favor of focusing on how the album came to be, and what makes it an enduring classic. In the Doors’ case, this DVD focuses not on the decline and fall of a seminal band, but on the efforts that made them a seminal band. It’s objective reportage, laced with live footage and outtakes (notably the evolution of “Moonlight Ride”). Itdoesn’t shed any new light on the Doors mythos, but it does open a new perspective on the band. It’s been over forty years since The Doors was released, yet it remains a major influence on music today. By anybody’s standards, that constitutes a “classic” album.

This Day in History

We go through our day to day lives, blissfully unaware that every day has some small, sometimes major significance. We're so caught up in our present that we forget that every second of the past shaped us. With that in mind, I've decided to add a new feature to the sidebar, courtesy of the History Channel. Every day, you'll be able to see what happened on that date in history. Some days may be trivial, others, world-changing. Either way, it's guaranteed to broaden your perspective.

Contraband Considered As Video Angst

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You can pretty much lay that “fifteen minutes of fame” theory to rest. We move way too fast for that. You have fifteen seconds—and that’s if you’re very lucky. Our cell phone culture makes everybody and everything newsworthy for at least a blip on the cyberspace network. The most miniscule moment, whether it’s a clip of a skateboarding dog or an impassioned plea to save Britney, can garner rave reviews and a gazillion hits in a matter of hours. And it falls into oblivion even more quickly.

The graphic novel Contraband, by TJ Behe & Phil Elliott, attempts to look at the consequences of such homegrown media endeavors. It’s a day after tomorrow scenario in which a youth subculture records, and in some cases, manufactures events for fun and profit in hopes for a slot on the cell phone video network Contraband. It’s a concept not far removed from our current culture, replete with references to mercenaries in Afghanistan, club culture and YouTube-style “citizen journalism.”

Contraband has all the ingredients for a near-future cautionary tale, a noir-drenched mystery or a twisting and turning action story. Unfortunately, it never really settles on one point of view. Yeah, it’s serpentine, but the twists it takes are more convulsive than constructive.

A large part of the problem with Contraband is Behe’s propensity to talking a point to death. According to his bio, he’s spent the last few years “developing compelling mobile content for global entertainment companies including BBC, SkySports, Playboy, MTV, and O2.” It’s a pity he never learned to master the art of the graphic novel, even sadder that he doesn’t recognize the most basic rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell.

Graphic novels, by definition, are visual storytelling. They’re like cinema, letting imagery flow as the narrative device. When they succeed, graphic novels are beautiful things, with illustrations and words merging as a seamless whole. When they fail, they’re jarring, a cacophony of pictures sparring with exposition. Contraband falls into the latter category.

Despite UK illustrator Phil Elliott’s best efforts, the art in Contraband is overshadowed by ponderous soliloquies by the characters, most of which serve only to make the novel read more like a manifesto than an actual story. Word balloons, arranged haphazardly, crowd out the art in too many panels, resulting in a jumbled mess that’s at best confusing, and at worst, seriously challenges the reader’s attention span.

Elliot’s art doesn’t really mesh with Behe’s story—rather, it comes off more as hurried sketches more suited to storyboards than an actual graphic novel. His style is somewhere between R. Crumb and Herge, sans the subtle intricacies of either artist. Thus, the reader feels disconnected from the characters, despite Elliots keen sense of establishing shots and perspective. Behe’s story, with its arbitrary flashbacks and flash-forwards, grows tiresome quickly as it is, and Eliot’s simple drawings of the characters, devoid of any outstanding features, make the story all the more difficult to follow.

It’s all presented in black and white wash, presumably to give it a noir feel, but it only serves to make the characters less discernible, and the contrived story even more murky. Contraband might work as a B-movie, and perhaps that was the intention of the creators. As a graphic novel, however, it comes across as a poor adaptation of a movie yet to be made.

Has Shark Run Aground?

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Shark has always been more a guilty pleasure than a serious pursuit. It’s an old school series with an unlikely premise—that an amoral, high priced trial attorney with a taste for luxury would suddenly develop a conscience, shuck it all and go to work as a prosecutor. With a premise like that, it was inevitable that the show would have to have an actor who shamelessly chews up scenery as its protagonist, the kind of actor audiences love to hate, and hate the fact they love him.

In short, Shark was the perfect vehicle for James Woods. That has proven to be a Damoclean sword for the series, however. Woods’ bombastic portrayal of Sebastian Stark often borders on the campy, especially in the courtroom scenes. Without his over the top performances, though, Shark would be just another procedural courtroom drama, albeit one that owes more to House, structurally speaking, than Perry Mason.

Courtroom procedure is a constrictive canvas, especially in the case of a show like Shark, with a lead character broadly painted by Woods. It’s no wonder, then, that Season Two has gradually veered away from standard courtroom fare to explore Stark’s unsavory past.

In “Bar Fight,” Stark’s unsavory past comes back to destroy his present and future. It seems that in 1996, he witnessed a client dispose of a body, and failed to mention it to the authorities. Twelve years later, the birds have come home to roost, and Stark faces disbarment, as well as accessory to murder charges. Riddled by guilt (not to mention the possibility his life could crumble), he goes on a quest to solve the mystery of how the victim actually died, and who was ultimately responsible for her death. The fact that he’s prompted by the state attorney general’s office to do this is to clear his name is of little consequence, of course.

The story is all a bit contrived, and very little of it rings true. Villains who are presented as killers with no conscience spend most of the episode negotiating with Woods’ character, rather than merely eliminating him. Despite the TV formula script structure, “Bar Fight” finally offers plot surprises and double crosses that leave us begging for more.

Admittedly, Shark faces an uncertain future, and “Bar Fight” could signal the end of its run. If that proves to be the case, this episode lets it go out with a modicrum of dignity. If, on the other hand, this episode represents a turning point in the show’s direction, it’s a just maybe possibility that Shark can redefine courtroom dramas.

I’m not really betting on the latter. Trapped between the currents of Boston Legal, Law and Order and its CSI brethren, Shark is a fish out of water. It’s been moved in scheduling slots repeatedly, and now it’s pitted against the forces of American Idol. It’s not a pretty scenario, but Shark has a tendency to beat the odds.

Stay tuned.

The Car of the Future: So Many Options, So Little Time

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We don’t have a love affair with cars—we’re obsessed with them. The automobile is that teenage crush that still haunts you, that illicit love affair from which no good could come, that harsh consort teasing you with promises of unbridled vitality and sex appeal—at a price, of course.

In my case, it was a ’75 Pontiac Firebird Esprit—black with a metallic sparkle underpainting and over the canopy silver and gold striping, powered by a tricked out 350 cubic inch V8 with a four-barrel carb. Its rumble spoke volumes about the nature of masculine power. Its exterior made it a chick magnet. It didn’t matter to me that I paid nearly $200 a month (in 1975) to attract all that attention. Even though I had a perfect driving record (mainly because I was never nabbed for racing), and my insurance rates rose as the car was reclassified as a sports car, I was happy in the knowledge that this was the closest I was ever going to get to the Batmobile.

But my beloved Firebird averaged only about 15 mpg, and it wasn’t even equipped with an afterburner. Gasoline prices were skyrocketing from the 49 cents a gallon I was used to—hovering at nearly a dollar a gallon-- and insurance costs weren’t decreasing, either. The ‘Bird and I reluctantly parted ways, but the memory of the times we shared still hold a special place in my heart.

Some thirty-odd years later, my passion for fast, cool cars hasn’t waned a whit. It’s tempered, though, with awareness that over 800 million fossil fuel-breathing dragons prowling this planet’s highways can’t go unchecked forever. NOVA: Car of the Future, airing on PBS beginning Earth Day, 22 April (check your local listings) looks at the challenges confronting the automotive industry, and consumers as a whole, in the quest for efficient alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Besides being vastly informative, it’s also hugely entertaining.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, aka Click and Clack, hosts of NPR’s Car Talk series, frame the show as a quest to replace Tom’s beloved, but somewhat dilapidated, 1952 MG Roadster. Appropriately enough, a global road trip of sorts finds them exploring the future of the automobile, and more specifically, what will power it. Their journey moves from the traditional (the Detroit Auto Show) to the innovative (Iceland’s experiments with hydrogen-powered public transportation) to the explorative (the Tesla electric-powered sports car) and back again to the garage where it began. It’s sort of a magical mystery tour that explores the history of our love affair with the car while raising a brow or two about the consequences of that dalliance., John Lithgow

Hi-jinks alone do not a documentary make, of course, so Car of the Future balances out one-liner sarcasm, such as the ludicrousness of a 500+ horsepower Mustang, with somber narration delivered by John Lithgow, who points out that that the current number of cars on the road now would circle the Earth 1½ times, and that ratio is growing. That’s only a springboard, though. The show focuses more on alternatives than past mistakes. It’s interspersed with commentary from experts in various fields. David Greene, of Oak Ridge Laboratories, talks about the implications of the hydrocarbon footprint. Martin Eberhard demonstrates his Tesla prototype, an all- electric vehicle with a 250 mile range on a single charge, and capable of 0-60 in 4 seconds. Other experts, from diverse organizations ranging from environmental think tanks to General Motors, explore a multitude of options available as we wean ourselves from oil. They also delve into the problems those alternatives present.

In the end, Car of the Future poses more questions than answers. The future of the car is not uncertain—it’s only how it will change in a new environment. It’s an issue in which we all have a stake. To that end, PBS has a companion website to the show: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/production/ in which the public is invited to share their ideas about the automobile’s future.

There’s always going to be a place for Firebirds and MG’s. They’re just going to look a little different, and be a whole lot more efficient. We’ll all be driving Batmobiles someday.

The Amazon and the Lessons Learned

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As goes the Amazon, so goes the Earth.

Caught up as we are in the near-term effects of dwindling economies, political turmoil and profitable energy alternatives, we too often fail to see the core issues of the global environment. We leap aboard the latest fad, from soy milk to ethanol, and never pause to consider the effects those seemingly beneficial things have on the larger issue. We leap before we look, and pat ourselves on our collective back, confident that we have “gone green.”

Truth is, we can’t see the forest for the trees. The core reality is we’d best start looking at the forest. In particular, we need to look at the rain forests of the Amazon Basin. Consider this:

The Amazon is home to over half of the world’s remaining rainforests, and they produce 20% of the Earth’s oxygen.

A full 50% of the planet’s annual rainfall evaporates or originates from the Amazon rainforest to the atmosphere. Unbridled deforestation will result in less rainfall, thereby producing significant implications for the global climate.

A single big tree in the Amazon stores about 1.3 tons of carbon. The cutting and burning of forests alone accounts for about 20% of the carbon going into the atmosphere.

Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures: Return to the Amazon (airing on PBS this month, check your local listings) looks at the issues confronting the Amazon, and by extension, the entire planet. Airing in two parts, it’s a fascinating story that spans from the Amazon’s mouth at the Atlantic ports of Brazil to a glacier in the Peruvian Andes. It’s an inspiring journey, wrought with incredible natural beauty and laced with subtle warnings about the catastrophic consequences of ignoring the ecosystem of the Amazon.



In the 25 years since Jean-Michel first explored the Amazon with his father, the legendary Jaques Cousteau, potentially disastrous changes have altered the Amazon. An area the size of Texas has been deforested. Even though the Amazon is 4250 miles long, that’s a significant amount of acreage in the global scheme. Rainforest covers 1.9 million square miles of the Amazon basin—Texas covers over 268,000 square miles. Broken down, that accounts to over 18% of the rainforest lost to mostly illegal logging and burning of the forests.

As dire as that is, it’s not the focus of Return to the Amazon. Granted, the first part of the two-part show explores the fragile balance of the rainforest in the wake of developers, but it skirts any political agenda. It does scrutinize the issues of unregulated global commerce in the region that feed American, Asian and European egos. It’s ironic that we think of soy as a healthful alternative, but seldom think about the wholesale destruction of the rainforest in favor of plantations that make our “healthful” beverages possible. Illegal lumber trading makes luxurious mahogany flourish in upscale furniture markets. The list goes on—commercial fishing, exotic animal trafficking, exploitation of the native flora all share a vibrant underground commerce—often tainted by blood.

Whereas the first part of Return to the Amazon draws attention to the delicate ecosystem of the region, poignantly illustrated by the impact of human intrusion, the second half offers cautious optimism for the Amazon’s future. While government agencies struggle, with mixed results, to sustain the environment, indigenous tribes of the region seek to live in harmony with nature, rather than conquer it. Commercial interests are realizing it’s in their best interest to keep the region alive and vibrant. As a result, a sort of symbiotic relationship emerges, with new business models of ecotourism and the development of, and exportation of sustainable products and
medicines, leave a new footprint in the global landscape.

Ultimately, Return to the Amazon is a cautionary tale that offers hope for the planet’s future, while warning of the consequences that await the planet if we fail to heed the lessons learned. It’s never preachy, but it gives one pause to consider. . . and hope.

As goes the Amazon, so goes the Earth.

Sifting Through the Wreckage of the Writers'Strike

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The Writers’ Strike didn’t really alter the landscape of network television, unless you figure in the flood of game and “reality” shows left in its wake. Those were trying times, to be sure. But now that the dust has begun to settle, and the wounded sitcoms and dramas are limping into their abbreviated season finales, we can more clearly assess the damage the protracted war between producers and writers left in its wake.

Even before the strike began in November, the 2007-2008 proposed TV season was less than stellar. It was loaded with overly hyped shows that promised much more than they ultimately delivered. (Cane comes to mind.) On the other hand, it offered quirky nuggets like Pushing Daisies. In that regard, the strike was a godsend to viewers. It gave us a chance to take a deep breath, and decide for ourselves what may actually be worth our time.

The three-month strike ended in early March, and the networks are now trumpeting the return of scripted series with child-like abandon. All is well in TV Land once again, or so they’d have us believe. That pesky strike was only a minor diversion—a family spat, if you will. Family spats, however, lead to a realignment of hierarchies. And in the post-strike landscape, the networks are taking few bold steps. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the idea that there will always be some incarnation of the ER, CSI and Law and Order franchises.

That said, it’s unlikely that network television is going to undergo a revolution anytime soon. With all the ancillary markets out there—cable, DVD, online and so on—even the most ill-conceived project will find a niche somewhere. Jericho fans mounted a massive peanut campaign to save the series on CBS, but failed to turn out in numbers to save the series. No matter—they knew the Sci-Fi channel would give it the home they knew it deserved, if only in reruns. The most mind-bogglingly idiotic game show of all time, Deal or No Deal, has already found a rerun niche at NBC’s less than revered financial news cable offshoot, CNBC. Cable has become the dumping ground for series that couldn’t pull in mainstream ratings, where they can languish in perpetuity, bringing in enough viewers to keep the rabid fans happy while never posing a real threat to the networks.

Cult and critical favorite Friday Night Lights is a case in point. It will be back for a third season in October, but for only DirectTV subscribers will see it initially. Theoretically, NBC will air the new episodes in early 2009, but I wouldn’t hedge any bets on that happening. Sure, DirectTV has over 16 million subscribers, and a large reason for that is its sports programming. Friday Night Lights wasn’t really a sports program, though. My guess is it will flounder at DTV, be heavily promoted as a DVD boxed set and quietly die a lonely hero’s death.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. One thing the writers’ strike accomplished, however inadvertently, was that it gave programs an opportunity to live or die on the strength, or lack thereof, of their own merits. It also gave viewers more than ample time to consider where their preferences lay. As a result, some shows highly touted by the networks back in September are falling by the wayside, and other, more traditionally risky programs, are finding a second chance at life.

As a result, ABC’s Pushing Daisies is being renewed for the fall season, rescued from early cancellation, I think, by the writers’ strike. Without the abbreviated schedules and the juggling of timeslots that came about as a result of networks scrambling to hold onto viewers, it’s doubtful this quirky show would have had a chance to find an audience. Fortunately, Cavemen and Cashmere Mafia have been axed, and are unlikely to find their way elsewhere.

At CBS, fans can look forward to seeing their favorite CSI versions return, as well as Numb3rs, NCIS and Cold Case. Moonlight, the vampire detective melodrama is scheduled for at least four more episodes, and, if it’s retooled sufficiently, may have a chance to survive into the fall season. The Unit, however, may have fought its last mission, and Cane appears to be a casualty, as well.

Pseudo-science fiction didn’t work out too well for NBC last season, and the writers’ strike didn’t help any, either. Bionic Woman and Journeyman are both history, reduced to a faint possibility they may show up as filler on the Sci-Fi Channel. As feared, though, Knight Rider is scheduled to be a full-fledged series. Other than that, NBC’s schedule will stay pretty much the same. One thing I’m happy about is that the little viewed, but very intelligent cop drama Life will return in the fall.

The fates of newcomers Terminator: the Sara Connor Chronicles, New Amsterdam and Canterbury’s Tales are unknown at this point, but with American Idol, House and its Sunday night cartoon line-up, FOX really has no need to worry. I do think, however, that 24 may end up being a casualty of the writers’ strike. The series depended on momentum, and it lost it this year. Interest, I believe, has waned. On the other hand, Smallville and Supernatural have been renewed at CW, so anything’s possible.

At its height, the writers’ strike seemed a clarion call to revolution that looked poised to shake the studios to their core. But in the end, it was nothing but two factions nickel and diming each other. Now that the war is over, reconstruction efforts are centered on keeping that system in place. The writers are getting a bigger chunk of revenue from the ancillary markets, miniscule though that chunk is. What’s largely missing from the equation is any attempt to up the quality of programming across the spectrum. Instead, both the writers and studios are content to rehash the trite and true formulas with which they’re comfortable.

Admittedly, television ultimately exists as an advertising medium. Anything memorable that emerges from that is accidental. It’s all about demographics. Programs that sell product stay on the air—those that don’t, die. At least, that’s the way it worked before cable, DVDs and online programming. The viewer now holds unprecedented power in shaping the future of the medium. Both the studios and the writers need to realize that the profits they battled over will be linked to a product that holds up to repeated viewings. Otherwise, they’ll find themselves in the same position as the record industry, commiserating about the good old days, when mediocrity was enough to hold sway over the populace.

Third Watch Revisited

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It happens all too rarely, but every once in a while, network television hits a nerve in the collective consciousness, and makes a statement about society as a whole by examining its microcosmic components. For six seasons, from September 1999 to May 2005, NBC’s Third Watch consistently accomplished just that. Ostensibly, the show focused on the day to day exploits of the cops, firefighters and paramedics of the fictional 55th precinct )nicknamed “Camelot” by the cops who work there because it sits at the corner of King and Arthur) and 53rd Fire House of New York City, who work the 3-11 PM, or “third watch” shift. That was really only a springboard, though. Third Watch was really about humanity’s tenuous hold on the urban landscape it’s created.

Of course, the series had it antecedents—Hill Street Blues, ER and Emergency come to mind immediately—but Third Watch went a step further, weaving its characters into the larger personality of the city itself. What series creators John Wells (ER, The West Wing) and Edward Allen Bernero (Criminal Minds) accomplished with Third Watch remains a benchmark in the annals of dramatic television. And while it was never a runaway ratings blockbuster, it maintained a following sufficient for it to run 132 episodes over six seasons. Along the way, it garnered critical acclaim, Emmy nominations and awards for some of its actors. It was a complex series that literally hit the ground running, and ended even more explosively than it began.

Finally, almost nine years after it originally aired, Third Watch: The Complete First Season is available in the United States as a six disc DVD boxed set. (It’s been available as a Region 2 disc for a couple of years now, albeit slightly altered.) While it’s somewhat odd it’s taken this long for the series to make it to DVD, this edition was worth the wait. Admittedly, I may be a little biased. I watched Third Watch religiously throughout its six season run, rearranging my schedule constantly as NBC shifted it from one timeslot to the next. I’ll readily admit I was a junkie—the recurring characters made me care about them, and I ended up caring about the fleeting situations in which they became embroiled in the course of a shift’s work.

Time being what it is, I’d more or less resigned myself to the idea that Third Watch was consigned to syndication and basic cable, with disjointed episodes running out of context, much like 24 reruns. Third Watch: The Complete First Season masterfully lays the groundwork for the series, introducing characters who would be pivotal through the run of Third Watch. It was an ensemble cast to be sure, and no single character was a showboater—all were integral to the overall story to each individual episode, as they were to the larger canvas of the series, which continually evolved with each episode.

In the end, though, Third Watch wasn’t about cops or firefighters or paramedics—it was more akin to contemporary knights errant unknowingly slaying invisible dragons. They were blue knights who never strayed far from their blue collar roots. The fact that they were equally concerned with the rigors and pitfalls of their daily lives as they were with the demands of their jobs gave the series a resonance unmatched by any other series of its type. It moved at such a breakneck pace that sometimes the subplots seemed trivial—much in the same way real life works. Third Watch was a rarity—it moved at the pace of life, leaving ragged edges in its wake.

It’s fitting that the DVD collection is presented in 2.0 stereo and its original 1.33:1 video format. Enhancing it would only detract from its original intent. Extras are kept at a minimum, too—a retrospective featurette featuring the writers and some cast members, and the almost obligatory gag reel of flubbed lines. The almost 1000 minutes of drama in this collection make it stand as one of the greatest network series of the New Millenium, if not of all time.