The Bipolar Express

The right-wing guy is sitting on the left: the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly faces off against The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Courtesy CTV

For me, last year’s most seductive TV drama began during the Feb.1 Super Bowl when, at half-time, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson concluded a grinding duet with Justin, dressed as if he was nipping off to the corner store for smokes, ripping a strategic patch off Janet’s Matrix-y ensemble.

The resulting “wardrobe malfunction” – a long-shot flash of tan breast – was called “the social political event of the past year” by William Safire on NBC’s Meet the Press. Remarkably, given everything that happened in 2004, it probably was. U.S. church leaders, family groups and media commentators were unanimously appalled by the stunt. America, they argued, was going to hell and TV was the hand-basket.

The hell ride continued through the year with cable news shouting matches over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the escalating war in Iraq, gay marriages, and the deeply divisive American election. Every battle, it seemed, was framed to excite a blue state-red state civil war.

Here’s Bill Maher following General Grant into Vicksburg on (CNN’s) Larry King last August: “[The South] is the dumbest part of the country. Excuse me, it is. And also, they’re the super patriots – the one part of the country that ever actually seceded. … There’s too many people who think every problem can be solved with more guns or more Jesus. And like I said, I’m with people who are following the compass. Not the people who are reading the entrails of a chicken.”

And here’s Ann Coulter on Fox earlier in the year, “Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like Liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing.”

America’s war with itself – the Bipolar Express! – became, for me at least, a compulsive viewing disorder as the U.S. election played out. Why did I need a daily fix of rage on the recently-cancelled Crossfire (CNN) or Hardball (MSNBC)? American novelist Jonathan Franzen answered that question recently when he proclaimed, “hatred is entertaining. [That’s the] great insight of media-age extremists. … Whenever I think about politics, my pulse rate jumps as if I’m reading the last chapter of an airport thriller, as if I’m watching Game Seven of a Sox-Yankees series. It’s like entertainment-as-nightmare-as-everyday-life.”

Perhaps the most obvious sign of madness in last year’s TV season was that the controversies that ended in official rebuke, like “Nipplegate,” or Dale Earnhardt being stripped of his number 1 ranking by NASCAR for his NBC victory shout, “Shit!” (pronounced with four e’s), had nothing to do with what are surely the most troubling aspects of American television. The complaint against Justin-Janet was that kids were still up and so witnessed a one-second glimpse of forbidden flesh. But surely a child would encounter more provocative images strolling with mom past the magazine rack of a convenience store. Anyway, better to talk to kids about the birds and bees than tarantulas and coffins. How would you even begin to talk a child down from the episode in last year’s Fear Factor (NBC) where a woman is trapped in a casket with hundreds of prancing spiders? And if gay weddings are an attack on the sanctity of marriage, how about ’04’s My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé (NBC) where for $1 million a beautiful woman tricks her family into thinking she’s destroying her life by marrying a walrus-sized dunce? But there I go getting upset and making fun of people. That’s the whole point of so much reality TV and talk-show crossfire. They both traffic in ridicule and rage.

The most thrilling moment on television this past year came when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire to lecture the show’s regular combatants, Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, on civics, suggesting that their show promoted discord instead of debate. “It’s not so much that [Crossfire] is bad as it’s hurting America. Here’s what I want to tell you guys – Stop!” (And if you think Crossfire or Hardball were inflammatory, wait till you get a hold of Fox News, where every night a half-dozen hot-head anchors sit around the news desk, grousing about world events in the manner of stranded airline passengers bitching about cancelled flights.)

I finally got off the Bipolar Express shortly after the American election when the Internet came alive one afternoon with news that ABC Monday Night Football was staging a pre-game stunt that promised to top CBS’s Super Bowl striptease. Surely if I knew what was up, everyone at ABC and (parent company) Disney, not to mention the NFL knew trouble was brewing. Nevertheless, all parties pretended to be shocked, absolutely shocked, when that night, in MNF’s pre-game teaser, Nicollette Sheridan, the blonde tramp on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, faked a locker room ambush on Terrell Owens, the loudest-proudest African-American in sports.

Sheridan (wearing only a towel): “My house burned down, and I needed to take a long, hot shower – where you off to looking so pretty?” Owens (in uniform): “Baby, it’s Monday Night Football. Game starts in 10 minutes.” Sheridan drops the towel. “Aw, hell,” Owens grins, drinking in the view. “Team’s going to have to win without me.”

Everyone involved apologized the next day, of course. But the publicity had already been done. The Owens-Sheridan encounter would run front page, above the fold, in the Chicago Tribune, right next to “Bush taps Rice for State.” The Trib story commented on how the MNF stunt was sure to excite America’s culture wars. But surely all the episode truly proved was how Hollywood was always willing to shout “Sex” in a crowded theatre to gain attention.

Come and knock on our door: Nicollette Sheridan and Teri Hatcher in Desperate Housewives.Courtesy CTV

After swearing off over-proofed U.S. cable news shows last fall, I had time to look around and notice that despite all the junk, we seem to be enjoying another renaissance year of programming, even if the good stuff is sprinkled across 100 channels. I know that is an unpopular belief. But I came of television age when TVs went up to 13 and the Emmy Award-winning dramas were Marcus Welby M.D. and The Bold Ones. The medium is much more interesting now. Just this past season, I counted four new shows I’d gladly have a beer with any day. They are, in no particular order:

Deadwood (HBO-TMN) – Who said westerns were dead? The Sopranos on horseback.

Lost (ABC-CTV) – What a great idea! A passenger plane crashes in Jurassic Park. Best creepshow since X-Files.

Desperate Housewives (ABC-CTV) – Women without men, except for their plastic surgeons. Comic surprises galore. (Who knew Teri Hatcher could run funny?)

Huff (Showtime-TMN) – Imagine the old Bob Newhart Show crossed with The Day of the Locust. Hank Azaria is a Hollywood psychiatrist who can’t cure himself. Kooky best friend lawyer, Oliver Platt, is a binging sex addict. Another TV comedy staple – Mom (Blythe Danner) – lives upstairs. But no sitcom has ever played for such deadly laughs.

Combine these new shows with old favourites – The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, West Wing, Law & Order, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Arrested Development – and you begin to understand that, as I hope this column will prove, American episodic TV is better than ever. You just have to make sure you don’t get lost and take the wrong train.

Stephen Cole writes about television for CBC.ca.

Letters:

While I don't agree in but a few instances with author Stephen Cole's pick of television programs worth watching, I thoroughly enjoyed the wordsmith's review of 2004 TV on the Bipolar Express. US hypocrisy is only one-upped by its lust for ratings as Mr. Cole so humorously pointed out. More of this is much appreciated.

Brad MacDonald
North Bay, Ontario