Anyone who knows me is aware of my love for TV. This stems from our house in Monticello, NY where our first TV introduced me to such classics as "Kukla Fran and Ollie", "Howdy Doody", "Your Show of Shows", "Uncle Miltie" plus all of the great drama shows (Playhouse 90, US Steel Hour), talk shows (original Today show, Jerry Lester's Open House, Steve Allen) and specials (the US Senate Hearings, Joe McCarthy, Edward R. Murrow) and watching the Eichmann Trial. Couldn't get enough of the tube!!!
Our airwaves were governed by the networks with some local channels (in the NY area we had channels 5, 9, 11 as the independents plus 13 as the public network). So we saw what they decided to show us and the offerings were fantastic. To someone who wanted to be in "show biz" seeing the opportunities available were fantastic. Seeing the young Paul Newman and Robert Redford as young actors on "The Twilight Zone" and original shows such as "Marty" and Requim for a Heavyweight" gave this young man from Monticello the "bug" for the stage and the tube.
The advent of cable (remember the very long cords attached to the channel selector?) opened up a whole new world - no commercials for movies, sports shows that showcased the world and introduced us to sports outside of the US, local cooking shows from Hartford, Connecticut and the Hobby Show from Rochester, NY were also available on this expanded medium.
When I lived overseas the Foxtel Network in Australia opened up the world's TV to "us Aussies" and I was introduced to the Fox Network as well as MSNBC who followed the original CNN (where I watched the first Gulf War in my Australian office).
Now that I am back in the US I am in my glory - my DVR is working overtime to record the twice daily "West Wing" reruns on Bravo as well as the multitude of excellent shows on TNT ("The Closer" and "Rizzoli and Isles"), USA ("Burn Notice", "In Plain Sight", "Royal Pains") plus "Lie to Me" and all of the other excellent shows. Watching reruns of "Star Trek" (all of them), "Law and Order" (missed many while in Australia so can catch up on all of the franchise's various shows) and so on and so on. Not mentioning the over-supply of reality shows that keep coming and coming to fill the air time that the plethora of stations has created.
In the weeks that come I will be discussing my take on so many of these great shows (many have not been mentioned above) and will look forward to comments from you.
All who know me understand my love for TV. In fact I am in my home office and watching me from their specials places on the wall are the original Star Trek officers of The Enterprise, the cast from Cheers, Night Court's eccentric cast, Taxi's fantastic cast of characters and the fine cast of Hill Street Blues. All of these pictures have their accompanying original TV Guide (remember that weekly must for all to read?) on the table near their respective pictures. So yes, I love TV.
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