THE FALL SEASON IN (P)REVIEW: SUNDAYS ARE BY FAR THE BEST NIGHT OF THE WEEK

Alright, so I’m four days late. Sorry. But this is a big undertaking, especially since Sunday nights are the best night for TV all week, and I’m not even including cable programming in the equation. HBO is a given on Sundays, but Showtime has been aggressively programming the night as well, and some of the other cablers pop-in here and there (like Sci-Fi and USA) with ambitious mini-series or movies. To make things more complicated, from 8-10 PM, the networks actually give audiences a variety of choices which are all, to some degree, worthwhile. And ABC, of all networks, pulled a major coup this past week – I’ll bet you their marketing department is celebrating some big ass bonuses right now – in scoring the number 1 show for the week in most key demos with the premiere of Desperate Housewives. To make matters even better for ABC, Desperate Housewives is a damn good show! (PS: Thanks for the pic, TV Guide!) So without further ado, here’s Sunday (main broadcast networks only):

&nbsp	ABC	CBS	NBC	FOX	WB	UPN
7:00 PM:	America’s Funniest Home Videos	60 Minutes	Dateline NBC	King of the Hill	Steve Harvey’s Big Time	Local Programming
7:30 PM:				Malcolm in the Middle
8:00 PM:	Extreme Makeover: Home Edition	Cold Case	American Dreams	The Simpsons	Charmed
8:30 PM:				Arrested Development
9:00 PM:	Desperate Housewives / Alias (in Jan.)	CBS Sunday Movie	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (replacing prev. announced The Partner)	Jack & Bobby
9:30 PM:
10:00 PM:	Boston Legal		Crossing Jordan	Local Programming
10:30 PM:

There are at least two options for every hour of programming on Sundays, the only night of the week with a “don’t miss,” or at least potential “don’t miss,” show during almost every hour. Sundays traditionally start early in the 7 PM hour, and the class choice, as it has been for the past 25+ years, is 60 Minutes. Regardless of the recent flap with Dan Rather and the Bush National Guard memos, 60 Minutes is still the best newsmagazine hour on all of television, and the flagship Sunday show proves why on a weekly basis.

The interesting thing about 7 PM is that none of the other networks air anything that’s awful. I mean, I’m not really into America’s Funniest Home Videos, but it’s a very easy show with a simple mindless format that does what it does as well as can be done. NBC’s Dateline doesn’t match-up to 60 Minutes most of the time, but if you’re in for something more sensational than what CBS is usually showing or you want your journalism of the People rather than the Time magazine variety, its stories are usually well-told. The WB has come closer than anyone at reviving the variety show into a viable commodity with Steve Harvey’s Big Time, for years a staple on Sunday nights with Ed Sullivan. They’ll never replicate real “must-see TV” like in the ’50s when Sullivan and Milton Berle could often command an actual majority (as opposed to plurality) of the national audience, but there’s nothing wrong with having one real primetime variety show on TV. Harvey is as good a host as any, and 7 PM Sunday is the time to air it.

Meanwhile, Fox exhibits a dominating night of comedy (that will get even better, it seems, come January) starting with King of the Hill and Malcolm in the Middle. Unfortunately, because of football running late, King of the Hill will most likely be repeatedly pre-empted. And both series have, in fact, seen better days creatively. But they’re still, at the very least, funny, which is more than can be said about most of the sitcoms on the air.

That’s not the case at 8 PM on Fox, though, when the miracle that is The Simpsons leads in to the now Emmy-endorsed best half-hour comedy on television (yeah, even better than the great Curb Your Enthusiasm, I think) Arrested Development. I applaud Gail Berman and Fox for sticking with this show last year and giving it a time slot that, along with its Emmy win, should help people find it. While on the surface it would seem that Arrested Development should have matched up well as a lead-out to Malcolm, the truth is that Malcolm skews towards a younger family audience than either The Simpsons or Arrested Development. I really can’t fathom anyone who loves The Simpsons not appreciating the dark comedy of Arrested Development, and if you’re not watching it yet, go rent some DVDs and then jump on the bandwagon when it returns in November. It is a brilliant show.
<pHowever, it's not the only brilliant show on at 8 PM on Sundays. It may be full of nostalgia and sentimentality, but NBC's American Dreams is one of the most overlooked quality shows on all of television. It has an incredibly likable cast, and it deals with one of those periods in our country’s history for which even those of us who weren’t alive at the time (such as yours truly) can experience a sense of nostalgia. The writing is wonderful in a simple way: the plotlines and themes, as they are, are very straightforward but not dumbed down at all.> Currently, the show is in 1965, and the eldest son is away in Vietnam. The eldest daughter is protesting draconian restrictions in her Catholic school while also beginning to protest the war. The father is running for city council to help protect his small business. The mother recently became a working woman for the first time. The story of American Dreams started on the eve of the Kennedy assassination, a time considered the turning point when our country lost its innocence. Could there be a more appropriate time for such a show than now when so many people are wearing blinders to our society’s current attempts to doom ourselves to the mistakes of recent history? There are multiple storylines occurring all at once, but keeping them straight is not a problem. It is an important show but it’s also a very entertaining show with interesting characters you want to know. I really can’t praise American Dreams enough, and I hope you’ll give it a chance.

The rest of 8 PM covers the spectrum. CBS’s Cold Case is yet another quality procedural crime drama. I can’t complain about it at all, and in fact have enjoyed it on several occasions. Kathryn Morris was a bit shaky during the first few episodes, but she grew into the role and has successfully carried the show as much as a program like this, where each week’s case is the real star, needs to be carried. If you like CSI and Without a Trace, you’ll most likely enjoy Cold Case.

The rest of 8 PM is a bit blech. I’ve always found it funny that ABC equates drastic plastic surgery with home renovation by creating Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, as if the two shows should be related at all. For people who just can’t get enough of the renovation shows, there’s nothing wrong with this one. The WB, on the other hand, really should realize that Charmed has outlived its welcome. This show became very tired at least two years ago. I used to watch it for its first couple seasons. While everyone else was loving Shannen Doherty and Alyssa Milano, I have to confess I was always a big Holly Marie Combs fan dating back to her time on Picket Fences. And at first, the witches of San Francisco thing was clever and a bit fun. Then it just got stupid and soapy, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. The demise of Charmed has nothing to do with the departure of Doherty and addition of Rose Magowan. It’s just a bad show with bad writing; it’s best days are done, and it should really just go away.

The same isn’t true for the new show that follows it, Jack & Bobby. At least not yet. The premise of Jack & Bobby – looking at the events in the life of an adolescent who will eventually grow-up to become President – is interesting, and so far the show has been somewhat compelling. I do worry that it’s a premise that won’t be able to sustain itself. The show’s gimmick involves people in the year 2049 involved with the president talking about these various qualities he has/had. The show then aims to tie an action he took as president with some sort of event that happened in the present day while he’s in high school. Does it work? I’m still on the fence. Often times, the future comments and the present action have a tenuous connection at best. The gimmick often seems forced in there. The present storylines might be interesting on their own, but the framework of the premise is what makes it different from every other teen-drama out there. A lot has been said about how strong a character the mother – played by Christine Lahti – is, but I’ve actually found her to be a bit of a bore. (The character, not Lahti.) The first episode tried to keep a mystery of which brother became president, but by the end it tells us that the older brother (Jack) died in relative middle-age before the younger (Bobby) ever even campaigned (and won as an independent) the highest office in the land. Hopefully this show will continue to grow and find itself. It’s definitely not there yet, but it has the foundation to become something special.

CBS decided to be the only network to still reserve a time slot for original movies, something which used to be a staple of the major networks but, especially with the cable competition and the costs of production, have become a rarity. NBC has Law & Order: Criminal Intent which I’ve often found to be the most enjoyable of the L&O shows mostly because of Vincent D’Onofrio’s lead detective, the one character on all the L&O shows who exhibits the most personality. Fox, I guess, doesn’t really know what to do with this time slot for now. They were originally premiering an Apprentice-like show called The Partner that would deal with the legal, rather than business, world, but just this week they postponed it in favor of a new fake reality show called My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss, a sequel/spin-off, of sorts, to the network’s successful but awful My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance from last season.

The class of the 9 PM hour, however, is ABC’s news show Desperate Housewives. After just one episode, I’m almost ready to give this show “don’t miss” status. Yes, it’s soapy, but not in a Dynasty/Falcoln Crest/Knots Landing way. It has too much self-awareness for that. The producers have assembled a fantastic cast and, based on the first episode, provided just the right mixture of comedy, mystery and drama. I couldn’t help thinking that Desperate Housewives was the worlds of The Stepford Wives and Edward Scissorhands placed into a more “realistic” setting with a taste of American Beauty, a well-written version of Melrose Place and just a wee bit of upside-down thirtysomething thrown in for kicks. I am absolutely fascinated to see where this world and these characters take me.

TV Guide calls the show, “The season’s juiciest must-see guilty pleasure.” I think that comment does Desperate Housewives a disservice. This is a show deliberately plotted with clever little twists, a fair amount of dark comedy and the while each of the characters seem to fulfill some standard nighttime soap role, they also show multiple degrees of depth that break-out of the simple stereotypes. The only problem with Desperate Housewives is that currently it is scheduled to give way to Alias when the latter show returns in January, and based on last season especially, Alias has a long way to go before it will be interesting again, especially compared to the promise shown in this first episode.

Of course, what may happen is that Desperate Housewives or Alias will get shifted to 9 PM once it’s discovered that it doesn’t matter how great your two main characters are if the rest of the show blows. I used to be an enormous David E. Kelley fan, but sadly, not anymore. Is he just all creatively played out? I don’t know, but he hasn’t created a good show in four years, and he hasn’t sustained a good show for the long term in much longer. Boston Legal, a spin-off to The Practice, doesn’t help this streak.

I’ve actually discussed this before, but I’m all rattled again. Kelley was a primary creative force behind L.A. Law. He went on to create Doogie Howser M.D., which, jokes aside, was actually a very good show. Then in 1992 came Picket Fences, possibly one of the most underrated series (Emmy awards not withstanding) of the last 15-20 years. He then created Chicago Hope which before it devolved into boring standard medical drama was actually a very interesting show with creatively complex characters, but it premiered the same year (and at first in the same time slot) as ER which became a sensation on a whole different level, and after being moved around the schedule and reconfigured several times, it no longer was the show it originally was meant to be. Then came The Practice and Ally McBeal in the same year: the former was the serious legal drama focusing more on cases than character; the latter, the funny and slightly absurd legal comedy which concerned itself more with the characters and their personal lives than the cases. There was nothing wrong with either of these premises, and both shows started very strong. Ally McBeal got more press, but The Practice was actually the better show. Then Ally McBeal became a caricature of itself, constantly trying to top its last absurdity only to become utterly ridiculous and repetitive. The Practice, meanwhile, became more sensational, trying to find drama in ludicrous situations and instead becoming an unintentional parody of the great legal drama it once was. More on that in a second.

Since The Practice, it’s been mostly downhill. I didn’t actually hate Snoops, but it wasn’t anything special either, and ABC didn’t really give it a chance to grow. Boston Public arrived the next year and it started off very well, but by the end of the first season and throughout the second, Kelley again started using these sensational storylines that were bigger than the actual world he had created. The show lost its own credibility, and it somehow managed to stay on the air at least one season longer than it deserved.

No words are necessary for either girls club (deservedly cancelled after two airings; even the lowercase title was demeaning) or The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire. These were simply awful shows that obviously made it to air simply because they came from the pen of David E. Kelley.

And now we get to Boston Legal. By the end of The Practice, everyone was just too damn serious about how serious everything was. A complete overhaul in the series took away the leads (who had become incredibly annoying and unwatchable) and left it with three supporting characters who never should have been more than that – supporting. That’s not a knock on any of the actors — particularly Steve Harris who was regularly brilliant as Eugene – but those characters could not hold together the show. So Kelley created Alan Shore, he was played by James Spader, and next thing you know, Spader has an Emmy for the role and he’s toplining a spin-off.

I didn’t watch The Practice much last year because I just couldn’t take it. From the few episodes I saw, I appreciated this ethically-challenged character Spader was playing, but as usual, the stories just made my head hurt. After watching both the series finale of the practice and the first episode of Boston Legal, my head still hurts with one basic difference: along with Spader’s great Alan Shore, Boston Legal has a perfectly cast William Shatner playing the delightfully eccentric Denny Crane. In just a few appearances on both shows, Shatner has already made the character’s name a catch-phrase.

But the show…. Oh dear god, the show. Basically, it looks like Kelley is taking the types of cases they would use on Ally McBeal with the more realistic world of The Practice and try to put it all in the same type of law firm he created for girls club. The first episode included a case where a mother wants to sue a stage production of Annie that wouldn’t cast her daughter in the title role because she was black. The issue itself isn’t uninteresting – why couldn’t Little Orphan Annie be black? There’s no actual reason provided in the story – but the way it was approached was with the same over-the-top approach we always saw on Ally McBeal and increasingly on The Practice. I was really hoping that Boston Legal would be enough of a departure from The Practice to bring Kelley back into my good graces. The cast is appealing (although I’m not sure what happened to my long-ago friend Fay Masterson who was once reported to be a series regular and has seemingly been replaced by Monica Potter, who doesn’t even appear on the show’s web page so maybe she’s not on for long either) even if most of the characters are standard and not all that interesting. Spader and Shatner are enough to make me watch it again, but I’m not holding out much hope.

Of course, it’s not like there’s such a phenomenal alternative. CBS has the second half of its Sunday movie and NBC has Crossing Jordan, a show that might as well be synonymous with the term “average television.” There’s nothing awful about Crossing Jordan, and Jill Hennessy is wonderful to look at, but any show that feels the need to bolster its character roll call with Jerry O’Connell is obviously hurting. Crossing Jordan was NBC’s attempt to put some CSI into a Law & Order-type show. And that’s basically what they got: a female Quincy for the modern era. Not bad, not good … just there. More reasons not to watch? During November sweeps, the show will reportedly have cross-over episodes with Las Vegas. No thanks.

Now, obviously Sundays become far more complex when you throw HBO into the equation. That 9 PM time slot especially becomes vicious. Currently HBO has the best show you’re probably not watching with The Wire, and that will continue through November. Still, if you watch one thing and record another on Sundays, you can have good TV to watch on all those other nights filled with crap.

That’s it for the major networks. I’ll be back with a wrap-up summary tomorrow.

SUNDAY RECOMMENDATIONS

(Cable not included)

Don’t miss:
60 Minutes;
American Dreams;
The Simpsons;
Arrested Development

Don’t miss — potentially:
Desperate Housewives

Worth watching:
Dateline NBC;
King of the Hill;
Malcolm in the Middle;
Cold Case;
Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Worth watching — at least for now:
Jack & Bobby

Tolerable:
America’s Funniest Home Videos;
Steve Harvey’s Big Time;
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition;
CBS Sunday Movie (case-by-case basis);
Alias;
Boston Legal;
Crossing Jordan

Snoozer:
Charmed

The verdict is still out (have yet to air/see):
My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (premieres 11/07)