It’s Time To Put Up Or Shut Up About TV
Each new TV season brings some reviews about the declining quality of television which, as the weeks wear on, leads to a declining number of viewers. So what happens when one network - in this case CBS takes steps toward improving the quality of its prime-time programming by adding a show called “Promised Land,” a spinoff of its already successful series “Touched by an Angel”? The reviewers almost universally pan it.
Matt Roush of USA Today calls “Promised Land” “manipulative and simplistic, it ladles a tonic of family values and good-neighbor patriotism with as much glossy zeal as a political convention.” Maybe the nation could use a story about the goodness of America after the heavy doses of cynicism, trash and the hate-America-first attitude that has permeated entertainment for too long.
The Washington Post’s Tom Shales notes the high number of “smutty words and suggestive situations among the fall shows and … more explicit violence than in the freshman class of a year ago.” So what does he say about “Promised Land” which has none of these things? “It’s so warm and fuzzy it makes Frank Capra look like a sourpuss.” So why is Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” considered a classic and a perennial favorite no matter how many times we watch it? For the same reason I predict “Promised Land” will be a hit with everyone but the critics. It inspires. It uplifts. It encourages. It instills faith. It promotes good as more powerful than evil and hope over despair.
“It’s wholesome, all right,” says Shales, “but the sentimental mush reaches near-toxic levels.” Sometimes nothing less than strong medicine will overcome a nasty virus.
Actor Gerald McRaney’s character - an out-of-work husband and father who rediscovers the goodness of Americans in a marvelous scene on a bus after he’s had his pocket picked and total strangers give him money to get home - is described by Newsweek as bent on saving the nation from itself. What’s wrong with that? Who would argue that our nation is not in need of at least a major overhaul?
U.S. News & World Report calls “Promised Land” “benign, but banal.” It isn’t benign. It is reparative. And it isn’t banal. It is compelling.
Last week, McRaney and the show’s executive producer Martha Williamson came to Washington to tell members of Congress what they are attempting to do. Some of television’s strongest critics - including Sens. Paul Simon, D-Ill., Trent Lott, R-Miss., Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Edward Markey, D-Mass. - attended a reception and watched a screening of the season’s premiere episode. Nothing but positive “reviews” were heard. CBS earned much good will.
Yet an ominous note was sounded by CBS senior vice president Martin Franks, who indicated this is the public’s last chance to put up or shut up about decent programs. “If (the family-friendly schedule) is a terrible failure,” said Franks, “the industry has no alternative than to respond by moving in a different direction.” That can only mean the continuation of the slumming down of America.
“Promised Land,” like “Touched by an Angel,” takes some getting used to, because its likes are rare on network TV. But those who believe television can have a positive or negative influence on culture - especially those who have turned off or gotten rid of their TV sets have an opportunity and an obligation to watch these shows, patronize their sponsors and send massive numbers of letters to CBS pleading for more, more, more.
A good sign: The premiere introduction of “Promised Land” finished first in its time slot Sunday night (now it appears in its regular Tuesday-night spot). It ranked No. 5 in the weekly Nielsens, with an audience of more than 19 million.
As for the critics, who cares what they think? In November, the voters, not the pundits, will pick a president, and viewers, not critics, can make television history by the way they respond (or don’t respond) to two wonderful programs now showing on Sunday and Tuesday nights on CBS. In the words of CBS’ slogan for the new season, “Welcome home.”
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