"24" & Cosby

In recent years, I really haven’t wanted to watch TV. Lately, situation-comedies, popularly known as “sitcoms” but personally known as “shitty TV shows starring white people in New York”, have dominated the landscape and TV dramas all seem to feature either a courtroom or a hospital, two places that I just don’t have any interest in regularly visiting. The variety show really has been bad of late; “Saturday Night Live” is much better than it was five years ago, and even then, it is nowhere nearly as good as it was up until Phil Hartman, Kevin Nealon, Chris Rock and Dana Carvey were regularly on the show. And, talk shows? If I’m up that late watching TV, the box is usually tuned into “Sportscenter” or one of my movie channels.

And, don’t even get me started on MTV.

I have to admit it, though: having DirecTV has opened my eyes to TV again, primarily because of such highly-specialized channels. Last year, I fell in love with a few of my channels. The Game Show Network has “Family Feud” and one of my all-time faves, “Press Your Luck.” (“No Whammy, no Whammy, and.......STOP!”) TV Land was full of guilty pleasures, but none guiltier than repeats of “The A-Team.” FX (Fox’s cable wasteland) had, up until last year, the greatest variety show of my time, “In Living Color”, which has spawned a number of stars thanks to series creator Keenan Ivory Wayans. And, I didn’t tell friends or family at the time, but I did flip over to M2 every so often, because finally MTV got smart and gave the people back what they had taken from us...the actual friggin’ videos! One of my favorite shows from last fall was on M2—a video retrospective of Bjork videos; man, that girl is friggin’ weird! (For those of you that watched the “SNL” from this past Saturday will remember one of Will Ferrell’s best lines from that broadcast, during Celebrity Jeopardy!, when his Alex Trebek asks Winona Ryder’s Bjork, “Are you Icelandic...or, retarded??”)

In fact, I think I have fallen back in love with the TV thanks to my four-month engagement to poverty that I broke off this January. Man, that so-called idiot box saved my life. And, in saving my life, I got to regularly watch every episode this season of three different shows: “The Simpsons”, “Alias” and “24.” Now, I do have some sort of a life, so TiVo is the real reason that I got to see every episode...but, since I’ve got the technology, I really got into all of these shows since I never before made my schedule around a TV show. For the most part, I really enjoyed all three of these shows...although, “The Simpsons” has clearly seen its best days. In fact, the best episode from “The Simpsons” this season was the controversial Brazil episode; this was mostly due to some blatant racism, and that the show needed to do this in order to make me laugh shows you where this once-powerful juggernaut may be headed. Hopefully, like Elway or Kareem or Ripken, this show will be retired before it offends the very fans that hope for it to get better every day.

But, after watching all twenty-four episodes of “24”, I am ready to admit it: this was the single-best season of TV for one show I have ever experienced. And, you had to watch every single episode to get the worth out of it.

In fact, along with some of the elements of “Alias”, “24” gives me hope that regular, free local TV can really be quite excellent. Quite simply, this is the most original idea for a television show of all time. Period. Double-period. One season dedicated to one, 24-hour day...MINUTE BY MINUTE. Luckily for all of us who regularly watched the show, enough Americans sat around on Tuesday nights at 9 to watch it; man, it would have been criminal to see it pulled mid-season, because when Fox originally bought the show, they ordered 13 episodes with no guarantees.

From the pilot episode—with a go-for-broke approach and multiple storylines that kept you on edge—through tonight’s surprising conclusion, the show was incredibly well-paced. I think that is what I liked most about the show...just an incredible pace, and by limiting this scenario to one day with no promises, the writers killed off a major character almost every week while still maintaining a flow that had balance throughout the run. My man Chuck and I both thought this show was going to blow through the “overnight” hours (the show’s pilot took place from midnight to 1 AM)...what was Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) going to do for six hours until the sun came up?

Well, that was easy...have his family get kidnapped and have him try to expose a mole at his agency while participating in three different shootouts with bad guys while losing his boss to a gunshot wound. And, that was before 5 AM!!!! At the same time, the alternate plot for “24” was simply excellent. Fox has enough bad shows on the current schedule to fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket (what is that one coming up about bachelorettes in Alaska?), but having us follow around an African-American presidential candidate for a full day was really, really interesting. This was made all the more interesting because of the stunning performance of actor Dennis Haysbert. Why is this stunning?

THIS GUY WAS THE COOK FROM “HEAT”!!!

Sure, he has been in many other films, in bit parts...and, his most memorable character up till this point might be the character he played in “Major League”, as Pedro, the crazy baseball player that prayed to Jabu while sacrificing animals for good luck. But, to go from that to a smooth presidential candidate isn’t just a stretch, my friend...it’s like Schwarzenegger playing John Nash. Haysbert was just bad-ass in this show.

Equally as stunning, though, is Sutherland. Maybe, after all of this, Sutherland will admit it to himself—the guy is perfect for this role. And, I think he is also perfect for the medium...maybe, television is just his bag. He really looks worn out by the end of the last episode of “24”...and, I really got behind what his character was going through. He handles the action scenes as well as scenes with his wife (Leslie Hope) and daughter (Elisha Cuthbert) equally well, and he is fun to follow around as he yells at everyone that gets in his way.

The show was just damned near perfect. I will admit that a couple of the final six episodes weren’t as strong as the first 18; in fact, it almost seemed like the writers intentionally didn’t kill anyone off or have anything happen just to give us, the audience, some time to reflect on all that has happened during the course of the day. And, there are a couple of logistical problems that seem almost implausible (Jack’s cell phone has the greatest battery ever made, for example), but nothing that makes you angry. However, the plot twists, the way the show was filmed, the way the show seemed to keep as close to real-time as possible, to some of the best TV action sequences I have ever seen, to an ending that finally diverts from the Hollywood happy ending tradition—I loved this show, but...

I won’t love it if they try to do another season. Don’t get me wrong, I think that this format has plenty of life, and even if it were to feature Sutherland in the same role, I think I would still watch it. But, as a novelty, I am hoping that they will leave it alone, but I know in reality that this is a cash-cow for Fox. Much like “The Matrix”, I wish they would leave well enough alone, but I know that there is too much riding on its spot in the fall TV schedule to leave it out. And, this is where “The Cosby Show” fits in for me.

Did you watch that special on Sunday night? Man, I still think overall, “The Cosby Show” is still my favorite series of all time, just barely ahead of “The Simpsons.” I was damned near in tears watching it the other day, because I grew up on that show. When they showed the scene featuring the family’s rendition of that blues hit “Modern Days”, with little Rudy belting out “BABY!!” in karaoke miming, I tried to jump into my TV to join up with the Huxtables one more time. As a measure of prolonged excellence, “The Cosby Show” can’t be beat...and, it walked away at just the right time. If “The Simpsons” had gone ahead and called it quits say, four seasons ago, I might be singing a different tune. (Even then, the first two seasons of “The Simpsons”—poorly drawn and even more poorly timed in terms of its delivery of humor—are really not great, either.) But, every season of Cosby was just hilarious, and even now when I watch the reruns, there isn’t an episode that doesn’t have at least three good belly laughs.

And, to think, that was a sitcom...why don’t they make ‘em like that anymore?

All-Time Favorite TV Shows of Bellview (and, I’m sure I am forgetting some!):

“The Cosby Show”
“24”
“The Simpsons”
“The Price is Right”
“Band of Brothers”
“Voltron”
“Miami Vice”
“Transformers”
”GI Joe”
“Night Court”
“Project Greenlight” (Season One)
“Knight Rider”
“227”
“Family Ties”
“Taxi”
“The A-Team”

bellview--TiVo eternal

"24" and "The Cosby Show Reunion"