TV Update

We have to say goodbye to some shows, hello to a few others.

Harry’s Law got the boot after two seasons. I’m going to miss Kathy Bates and her crew. Some weeks were better than others, and I can understand just another lawyer show going under with viewers. We’ve had almost too many in the past forty years. And Harry was just another. The ratings were good, at least with the older set, but not good enough with the 18-49 crowd for NBC to continue it Harry defended a few that were intriguing and timely—the animal rights case where she tried to win “personhood” for the gorilla; the civil suit against the school to ban football because of the danger of concussion; the right to buy body parts instead of waiting on a list; spousal abuse; parental rights in the case of the Chinese couple who had lost their child to adoption. But on the negative side, there was far too much unrealistic banter between Harry and the district attorney, Roseanna Remmick (Jean Smart). No judge in the country would have allowed all the back and forth dissing between the two antagonists.

Most of the other cancelled shows I don’t really care about. I’m not going to miss Ashley Judd’s Missing. I don’t know how she thought that one-trick pony plot could survive more than one season. Awake put me to sleep because I didn’t want to work that hard figuring out the dual existence bit. Bye bye, Alcatraz. You should never have begun. Bye bye, River, and good riddance. Terra Nova is gone probably because of the production costs. Not even Spielberg’s money and influence could save it, and oh, those hokey dinosaurs. We sort of liked Unforgettable, but it too will soon be forgotten. I read somewhere that TNT might pick it up for renewal. I hope so. I enjoy watching Poppy Montgomery rushing around in those tight T’s.

Then there’s Brenda Leigh Johnson. She and The Closer will conclude after six more episodes. I’ll really miss her. The Closer may just be my all-time favorite show. Kyra Sedgwick is more Brenda Leigh than Kyra. I wonder how much of the character was written and how much was simply Kyra. I guess I won’t know until I see Kyra Sedgwick in some other role. She’s in the same boat as Ray Romano, who will always be remembered as the Ray we all loved. But then, he became a different Romano for his role on Men of a Certain Age.

Hooray for the return of So You Think You Can Dance. They’re still auditioning, but even their auditions are far better and classier than what we get from its fellow talent show, American Idol. The permanent judges, Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, are so much more knowledgeable about dance than the Idol judges are about music. And they don’t showcase stupid audition performances like we see too often on Idol. The background stories about auditioners are interesting, the dance is often unusual even though many don’t make the cut to Las Vegas, and the selection process allows talented dancers to show what they can do in the choreography session. Last night, two twin brothers had their fifteen minutes of fame but were let go because they were over the age limit. But that fifteen minutes will win them dance jobs somewhere. And the circus performer who danced with the huge aluminum hoop was fabulous but had to be let go because he didn’t demonstrate enough dance technique. The brother and sister who had only six weeks earlier suffered a near-fatal auto accident both made it to Vegas. Amazing. The brother was pronounced dead when he arrived at the hospital. But he survived, and only six weeks later he won a ticket to the big show. Amazing. And who would I rather watch and listen to—Ryan Seacrest or Cat Deeley? No contest.