There really is good news (occasionally) in the TV world.
Now we have fresh examples: “Ted Lasso” is returning … “Dark Winds” is prospering … And natural-world documentaries keep getting better. Details: Read more…
(Here, from the start, is the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” I’ll continue to post new chapters separately under “Stories.” After that, however, I’ll move each to its spot here.
This is Section One – “The Good Old Days (sometimes)” – and Chapter One.
To see how far TV has come, let’s step back a bit.
We’ll go to 1952 in Clintonville, a Wisconsin town of 4,600, known for big, tough trucks and (back then) big, tough football players.
I’m in the living room with my sister, our parents, a grandmother and a grandfather. Stationed a reasonable distance from the TV set, we are watching … well, a man playing records.
The man says what record he’s playing and starts it. Sometimes, the camera shows the record going around; sometimes it shows the man watching the record go around. Read more…
(This is the latest chapter of a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” If you scroll up one, you’ll see all of the chapters so far, including this one, in their places in the book.)
For 30 years, a fourth TV network seemed like mere myth.
That was after the death of DuMont and before the birth of Fox. There were several tries, all imploding quickly.
One such fizzle (a 1967 latenight show led by Bill Dana, shown here) was declared by Jack Gould, the New York Times TV critic, to seal things. It was “further evidence that expansion of commercial TV is little more than a pipe dream.” Read more…
1) “Doc” season-finale, 9 p.m., Fox. A great first season ends powerfully. After a crash, Dr. Amy Larsen (shown here) lost eight years of memories. Now she’s learned of her son’s death, her divorce and her mistreatment of colleagues (including TJ, shown here) in the dark times that followed. Also, a colleague saddled her with guilt over his fatal error Now that peaks, amid a mass casualty. Read more…
