American - Writer | November 3, 1948 -
In the 500-channel universe, which may, of course, contain many more channels than 500, the fun never stops - fun at such a fever pitch as to sometimes seem threatening, numbing, even agonizing.
Tom Shales
FunUniverseSometimesMoreChannels
Perhaps unscripted reality shows and written fiction have already blurred together into some new amalgamated mush, just as the line between commercials and programs has been trashed.
TogetherRealityNewLineFiction
The once inviolate frame within which programs or commercials were displayed on television - always separately - has been violated to a pulp. Program content is seen increasingly as a mere backdrop on which ads are posted like billboards on a fence.
FenceTelevisionAlwaysFrameWithin
Gimmicks come and go; the cop show seems one genre that will never leave - not as long as people like to sit at home in the suburbs and see what awful things go on in the cities.
HomePeopleLongCome And GoGoSee
'Dragnet' (the 1951 original, transferred nearly intact from radio) served as a veritable template for all cop shows to come.
RadioOriginalCopComeShows
You don't hear TV cops griping because they have to enforce some Draconian law that shouldn't be on the books in the first place, or lamenting vindictive excesses in sentencing. Hollywood, supposedly a frothing cauldron of liberalism, has always been conservative on crime.
LawYouPlaceHollywoodConservative
Crime dramas will never go away as long as people turn to television for, among other things, reassurance and comfort.
PeopleLongTelevisionComfortGo
Perhaps Western civilization is in a post-decline phase, or maybe the decline is just taking a really long time, like the Roman Empire's did. The Romans had gladiators and Christian-hungry lions and that sort of thing. We have MTV.
TimeLongCivilizationLong TimeDid
By a twist of fate rather than anything approaching journalistic enterprise, I did the last major interview with Johnny Carson.
FateInterviewAnythingTwistLast
Like sugar and, oh - let's say the most tabloidy and gossipy reality television programs - credit is, for millions, genuinely addictive.
RealityCreditTelevisionSugarSay
Television's escapist programming naturally continues to endorse living beyond one's means as the time-tested American Way and rarely depicts families or individuals wracked by the pressures and miseries that come with excess.
AmericanTelevisionLivingWayCome
The perils of credit and debt, especially perilous in the computer age, have long been acknowledged in pop culture, but very infrequently by TV.
AgeCultureCreditLongDebtBeen
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