We’re well into the TV season, though most of us have had more important things occupying our attention the last several weeks. But elections are over now, so we can all get back to the shows. In case you’ve been too busy to watch, here are some summaries to bring you up to speed.
The Nine — A recent episode of ABC’s The Nine featured a life-affirming story line. The drama chronicles the aftermath of a deadly bank robbery and hostage standoff. Lizzie (Jessica Collins), a social worker, was caught up in the disaster with her boyfriend Jeremy (Scott Wolf), who is a doctor. She had planned to tell him that day that she was pregnant; instead, their relationship founders in the wake of the traumatic experience. Lizzie begins to suffer panic attacks that impede her job performance and undermine her confidence. During her routine OB-GYN checkup, she asks her nurse, “How do you bring a baby into a world like this?” The nurse crassly responds, “You don’t have to keep it.” All of this sets up for the capstone scene of the episode. Lizzie suffers a panic attack and possibly a miscarriage, too. From her bed in the ER, she calls her new friend from the hostage situation, power attorney Kathryn (Kim Raver). “I don’t think my baby is going to be okay and I want it to be,” she sobs. Via phone, they share the joy as Lizzie sees a first glimpse of her healthy baby via sonogram. The woosh-woosh of the tiny baby’s strong heartbeat fills the ER. It is a beautiful scene, but the show doesn’t stop there. Later, Kathryn is having dinner with her overbearing mother, who also was in the hostage situation. Kathryn is quiet and pensive, and her mother asks her why. The successful, powerful, and still ambitious assistant district attorney confesses that she found herself pregnant at 27. She didn’t tell anyone because “she could handle it.” She took a few hours off and had an “afternoon procedure.” Then she took a cab by herself back to work and rested briefly. That day, she whispers through tears, “I won my first really big case. It was a really big day for me.” Tears stream down her face. In a powerful weaving of two women’s stories, the sorrow of abortion and the joy of life were brought into living rooms in a way that speeches and resolutions cannot.
Friday Night Lights — The band plays, the pom-poms wave, and the team takes the field in this beautiful show about high-stakes high school football. With strong characters and a terrible situation — the spinal cord injury of the quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter), on the field, during a game — the show looked interesting at its start. As the town of Dillon, Texas, reacted to the injury of a player and its implications for the team’s success, it turned to prayer: The coach led the team in prayer. The local African-American church thundered prayers for his recovery. The local white church whispered prayers for his family. And Street’s pretty cheerleader girlfriend Lila (Minka Kelly) prayed with him that God would help them prove themselves through this “test” and go on to their planned charmed life. The show had the potential to be an engaging and provocative examination of faith in the midst of tragedy. Would Street find comfort in his faith or be angry at God? Would Lila come to accept a different future than what she had thought God promised her? Since then, faith has all but disappeared from the plot line. Both characters were set up as people with at least a conventional and sincere faith, but no relationship with God is apparent as Street struggles to learn to use his arms again and as Lila begins a secret sexual relationship with his best friend. Lila’s actions could be portrayed as an angry and self-destructive rebellion against God, but that angle is not explored. Still, the show is wonderful in the way it follows Street’s struggle, and it has introduced a fascinating new character, Matt (Zach Gilford), the replacement quarterback who lives in poverty with his ailing grandmother while his father is in Iraq.
Studio 60 — Who would have thought that Americans, who so like comedy, wouldn’t particularly care for self-important dramas about comedy? Studio 60, a drama from West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin about life at a late-night comedy show, is about as popular with viewers in America as John Kerry is with soldiers in Iraq. Yet it has been ordered for an entire season, presumably because Hollywood loves it more than the rest of us. It doesn’t help that one episode featured both an interminable lecture on the history of comedy and a screed on that nasty blacklist, the go-to storyline on the victimization of Hollywood. While Hollywood rejoices in yet another show about itself, Christians might want to pay attention to Christian character Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson). Harriet is the only reason the show has the viewers it does. She’s smart, sassy, and conflicted. She loves a non-believer, but he can’t accept her faith. She clings to conservative religious theologies such as a literal seven day creation and salvation through Jesus. However, she recently announced, “I’m not against premarital sex. Hell, it may be the only kind of sex I ever get.” With that line, show creator Aaron Sorkin glibly dismisses one of the major distinctions between Christendom and the secular world, namely the ideal (if not always the practice) of sexual purity. After doing an excellent job of creating conflict between Harriet’s faith and the party-hard world around her, Sorkin fumbled.
Heroes — “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World.” Aside from one of the coolest tag lines ever (I’m thinking of getting a t-shirt made), this superhero series is gripping. A host of ordinary people — a regular Japanese worker, typical heroin-addicted artist, ordinary New York politician, and conventional Internet stripper — start developing strange abilities. One can fly, one can hear people’s thoughts, one can bend time, and the artist can paint the future — which is helpful, since the future doesn’t look good: it’s all grisly murders and nuclear destruction in New York City. Added to this is a sinister guy in horn-rimmed glasses and a shadowy evil-doer who likes to steal people’s brains. You got yerself a TV show right there. As the heroes learn about their powers and about each other, they piece together the puzzle that the cheerleader, another developing hero, is the key to saving the world. As with the best superhero sagas, the narrative of good vs. evil arches over the series.
Desperate Housewives — The wicked satire that made DH so addictive in the first season rarely appears now. Susan (Teri Hatcher), the klutzy housewife next door, keeps getting embroiled in various love triangles. You’d think she’d learn. Bree (Marcia Cross), who started out as a send-up of the perfect housewife whose most emotional act was to smooth wrinkles out of a bedspread, has crossed the line to creepy. Gaby (Eva Longoria), the once hilarious selfish trophy wife, is getting a divorce. And Lynette (Felicity Huffman), the mother of four who became addicted to her son’s Ritalin when someone told her it would give her energy, has gone back to work. Lynette still shows flashes of brilliance. She slips the little league pitcher $50 to bounce the ball off her inept son’s bat. She frantically relocates an entire birthday party, complete with clown, balloons, and a donkey, to avoid a party crasher. But amusing moments do not an entire show make. For the most part, the fun has gone out of the series.
Grey’s Anatomy — The hospital soap opera recently aired its obligatory gay flag-waving episode, apparently required by Hollywood contract at least once a season. On a boys-only camping trip, the doctors discover that two of the guys (both minor characters) are a long-standing couple. Fly-fishing in a beautiful stream, the gay character shares his wisdom about relationships and children with Dr. Webber (James T. Pickens), whose marriage is on the rocks. Meanwhile, back at the hospital, a man checks in for gender change surgery, accompanied by his wife. When the doctors discover that the hormones he’s been taking have given him breast cancer, he must choose between becoming a woman and life. With much heart-rendering pathos, he decides he can’t live as a man and will take his chances. His wife, apparently willing to accept his choice (and to become a lesbian), sticks by him, although not without some struggle. In continuing story lines, Dr. McDreamy’s marriage to Addison has fallen apart, Dr. Webber’s wife has left him, and both Addison and Callie are sleeping with Dr. McSteamy, even though Callie loves George. Oh yeah, and Dr. Burke and Christina are living together. So, we have yet another situation in which the hetero-marriages are riddled with unfaithfulness, lies, and heartbreak but the gay couples radiate wisdom and love. They couldn’t come up with even one strong marriage?
Twenty Good Years — What a great idea. Take two brilliant comic actors, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow, and build a series around two old fogies trying to live life to the fullest. Carpe Diem. However, the very first episode after the pilot featured a story line in which carpe-ing meant both guys getting the same girl in bed. At the same time. In a world in which there are mountains to climb, languages to learn, art to create, and righteous battles to be waged, this raunchy idea is the first thing that comes to mind? These guys don’t need twenty good years; they need to get a life. Happily, the network cancelled the show.
— Rebecca Cusey writes from Washington, D.C.