November Elections and TNT

Only two more weeks before the elections. Thank goodness. We’re being inundated with attack ads on the tube. I assume the same thing is happening all over the country, and that doesn’t say anything good about any of the candidates. Instead of telling us what the candidate stands for, what he or she intends to accomplish if elected, we get all these really vicious attacks on opponents, attacks that may or may not be true. I’d like to think that the voting public is smart enough to see through the technique, but, sadly, I also know that’s not true. So, whichever candidate has the most money to run the most attack ads will probably win. If candidates would devote the time and energy to tell me why I should vote for them instead of telling me why I shouldn’t vote for their opponents, I’d give them my vote, no matter what political party or persuasion they belong to.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again: TNT now and in the recent past has more really good hour-long dramas than any of the other networks, with the possible exception of Fox. Look at this string of winners: The Closer, Saving Grace, Southland, Hawthorne, Leverage, Rizolli and Isles, Dark Blue, and last, but certainly not least, Men of a Certain Age. The men are Scott Bakula, Adnre Braugher, and Ray Romano, and the three of them together create characters and story lines that are rich and complex. The three are lifelong buddies, all three of that certain age when male menopause kicks in. Ray Romano fooled me completely. I thought he’d never be able to escape his character on Everybody Loves Raymond, but in Men he portrays a man who has lost his wife and marriage because of a gambling addiction, who runs a party favor store, who is searching for a new identity in his late forties. Scott Bakula plays an aging actor with a string of lovers about half his age. And Andre Braugher is stuck in a job he doesn’t particularly like, selling cars for his father. The plots aren’t really plots at all, just character studies of these three men interacting and searching for meaning in their “certain ages.” If you haven’t seen it, you really must tune in: 11:00 p.m Mondays.