Call 2003 in television the Year of the Jessicas.
For better and worse, Jessica Lynch and Jessica Simpson can be made to stand for much of what distinguished, disgraced and, mostly, defined the medium since January.
One is a war hero whose dramatic rescue was initially misreported in the military’s and media’s desire to deliver a feel-good story from Iraq.
She symbolized both the impressive diligence American television brought to covering the war, its focus for much of the first half of the year, and the jingoism that often blinded it to asking tougher questions.
Then, completing the modern cultural cycle, Lynch became a prime-time newsmagazine staple, a book author, a coveted interview “get” and, inevitably, a made-for-TV movie.
The frothier Jessica is a middling pop singer who has become an avatar of the newest kind of “reality” TV, the one that dispenses with real people altogether by focusing its cameras on those who are already celebrities.
Simpson’s “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica” on MTV, chronicling her marriage to fellow bubble-gum popster Nick Lachey, became famous for the young bride’s bubble-headed understanding of real life. Chicken of the Sea cans, she surely knows by now, do not contain wet bird.
But in addition to demonstrating how ready we were for amusement, even as a war’s bloody aftermath continued, the series was significant, perhaps even meaningful, because it stripped away still more of the veneer that has been traditionally attached to the famous.
Back in 2000, the explosion of non-scripted, so-called “reality” shows seemed to deliver on the promise of everyone’s being famous for a quarter-hour. The new ones, also including the hit Paris Hilton travelogue “The Simple Life,” seem to treat fame as a sin worthy of a weekly half-hour of public humiliation.
But famous people from the political realm can be another matter. CBS learned that the hard way when its planned mini-series “The Reagans” drew preemptive, virulent criticism from conservatives upset that the film failed to depict a halo around the former president’s head.
CBS backed off, claiming the film as made for the network was unfair. But when it did air in November, on sister Viacom station Showtime, its blandness suggested the CBS executive corps is a few vertebrae short of a backbone, at least in standing up to criticism of the entertainment media as reflexively liberal.
But the mini-series is a fading genre, anyway. That both of the year’s Jessicas are real people, more or less, is not coincidence.
The old mainstay of television, scripted fare, is fading as new technology and boredom drive the medium to be more a chronicler of the here and now, less a presenter of reflections on life’s animating themes.
This is especially true among younger viewers, who tend to shun scripted shows and flock to reality fare both as good as “Survivor,” rejuvenated in 2003 by great new villains, and as tiresome and sloppily produced as ABC’s “The Bachelor.”
It is entirely possible, of course, that in the circle of media life the next generation of young viewers will reject absurdist Prince Charming fantasies and cheesy made-for-TV weddings to re-embrace, say, sitcoms.
In the meantime, though, 2003 TV was about the search for new reality. “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Bravo’s aggressively and ponderously titled look at gay “experts” making over straight schlubs, spawned a music video and multiple runs on the big network, NBC.
And despite trafficking in stereotypes, its irrepressible spirit probably did some good for the cause of homosexual tolerance, though observers stretch when they claim it’s part of a gay TV wave.
A `Simple’ hit
And even “Queer Eye” had more buzz than ratings. At year’s end Fox’s “The Simple Life,” featuring Ameritrash hotel heiress Paris Hilton among the supposed rubes in Arkansas, became the real new reality hit everyone spent the summer seeking.
Also scoring big was NBC’s “Average Joe,” which saw a typical reality-romance woman — fake blond hair, phosphorescent teeth, background as a pro-football cheerleader — courted by the kind of schmos “Queer Eye” likes to streamline.
But a scripted show, CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” remained the most popular series on TV, a throwback to old dramas that gives viewers a satisfying weekly resolution.
Viewers still want unreal TV, crafted by writers and performed by actors. They just seem to be getting pickier about it. NBC mainstay “Friends,” in the beginning months of a well-publicized final season, actually saw its audience numbers decline, while those for competing CBS reality game-show “Survivor” went up.
Modest successes
And no new scripted fare hit a home run, despite the debut of the supremely funny “Arrested Development.” Instead, networks were left to celebrate such modest successes as teen soap “The O.C.” (Fox) and teen pop-spiritual meditation “Joan of Arcadia” (CBS).
Saying farewell in 2003 was at least one great show, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and one, “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” that could have been if its network, Fox, had been more patient.
Actor John Ritter, a superstar through several decades of TV, died on the set of his ABC sitcom, “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.” The show, not surprisingly, returned during the November sweeps month to mourn/exploit Ritter’s missing character by making his death part of the comedy.
Also quitting the scene in 2003 was an early giant of unscripted TV, Fred Rogers, a man who thought it vitally important to clearly distinguish between his show’s real-world elements (feeding the fish, talking to kids) and imaginary ones (the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, entered via a trolley).
He departed as the boundary was blurring.
The low 5: Worst of TV
1. Coupling, NBC. Trying to find a replacement for “Friends” at the end of this season, the network in September began airing this American version of a British hit that was patterned on “Friends.” It was only so-so in the English version, but the American one stripped all the subtlety and intelligence away and left only the leering. It was gone by November.
2. Michael Jackson coverage as example of cable-news tabloid overkill, various. Cable news has yet to meet a story, even an important story, that it can’t make us all sick of and threaten to strip of its significance. The two waves of Jackson, in February and November, were only the most prominent example.
3. The Bachelor, ABC. There’s a lot of bad reality TV out there: “Paradise Hotel,” “Fear Factor” and so on, ad, sometimes literally, nauseam. But this one people actually watch, despite the plodding storytelling, the cookie-cutter contestants, the pathetic instant declarations of love. The upside: It makes any attached person thrilled to be out of the dating pool.
4. 24, Fox. What a steep decline for this once-innovative serial thriller. But the accumulation of absurd plot twists reached critical mass in December when — shades of Bobby Ewing — everything that had happened so far in the third season was revealed to have been fake, an elaborate (and ridiculous) setup by Kiefer Sutherland’s counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer. Well, guess what? Our interest in the show was also fake. See ya.
5. Iraq war coverage, various. This also almost made the best 10 list for the technological innovation and devotion of airtime by the news providers. It’s on the bottom, though, because American channels were so relentlessly jingoistic in their coverage. Instead of asking tough questions about, say, what happens after we get to Baghdad, they treated it more like a great patriotic video game. And fearful of becoming the Peter Arnett or Dixie Chicks of networks, they failed to express even an ounce of the usual reportorial skepticism.
— Steve Johnson
The top 10: Best of TV
1. The Wire, HBO. In its second season, David Simon’s novel-for-television, an extravagantly detailed look at Baltimore cops and crooks, also was a lament for the American blue-collar worker, as exemplified by the city’s disappearing longshoremen. No series is more ambitious, asks more of the viewer or gives more in return.
2. The Daily Show, Comedy Central. The parodies of television news from Jon Stewart’s gang have always provided first-rate comedy, but with the war and the impending election, the show’s deflation of public hypocrisy began to seem vital. Two examples: the show’s “debate” between President Bush calling for international aid on Iraq and candidate Bush calling for American isolationism, and the brutal ongoing coverage of the Democratic presidential candidates, labeled “Race From the White House.”
3. Scrubs, NBC. Rooted in a coming-of-age tale — a young doctor learns his craft — Bill Lawrence’s hospital comedy navigates masterfully between genuine emotion and giddy surrealism. The result has been the most consistent provider of laughs on network television over the past several years.
4. New York: A Documentary Film: The Center of the World, PBS. Finishing up his epic history of the Big Apple just as the Sept. 11 attacks happened, Ric Burns knew more had to be said. The result, two years later, was a final episode worth the wait, a story of the World Trade Center that demonstrates, in almost poetic terms, why the towers were always a target and a symbol, for everyone from the Rockefellers to a French tightrope walker and terrorists.
5. The Simpsons, Fox. Easy to overlook because it’s been so good for so long and is so easily found in reruns, the series is still deliriously funny. A nice bonus this year was seeing the great cast deliver lines in character on Bravo’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”
6. Without a Trace, CBS. In its second year, and with “The West Wing” and “Law & Order” fading, the missing-persons hour has established itself as network TV’s top drama. The storytelling is piano-wire tight, resolving a case against the clock each week but with just enough of the FBI agents’ personal lives sprinkled in to give the mini-mysteries ongoing resonance. And the cast, led by the almost haunted-seeming Anthony LaPaglia, makes these searches throb with pain and urgency.
7. Cable news hours for smart people, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC. So much of what cable news does — and is derided for (see five worst, below) — is pure and almost mindless tabloid exploitation. But there are islands of wit, insight and perspective in the established hours headed by Aaron Brown (CNN) and Brian Williams (CNBC, being replaced by John Seigenthaler) and in new ones fronted by Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) and Anderson Cooper (CNN). For those who say this list leans to one side of the political spectrum, I would expect Bush-backer Dennis Miller’s show to join it when it debuts next month. For those who say it lacks women, I can only say that Paula Zahn and Greta Van Susteren are no Linda Ellerbee.
8. Arrested Development, Fox. As a rule, a series should not make this list after only seven episodes. But Mitchell Hurwitz’s laugh-track-free look at an embattled, formerly rich family is simply extraordinary and probably would be No. 2 or 3 on this list if it weren’t so new. Funny notions don’t pay off just once, but repeatedly within episodes and over time. But even when the behavior is most absurd, Hurwitz and his writers and the cast led by Jason Bateman give these richly layered scripts just enough deadpan plausibility. More grounding comes from co-executive producer Ron Howard’s matter-of-fact narration.
9. Gilmore Girls, WB. Rattling off rapid-fire dialogue, Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham make the best parent-child tandem on TV. Even with daughter Rory off to Yale, their observations on life in their small town and their own shifting relationship are packed with truths and presented with unrelenting charm.
10. Celebrity-exposing “reality” TV, Fox and MTV. Turning darker than “The Osbournes,” the new video chronicles of celebrities aim to find the warts. Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson (“Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica”) and Paris Hilton (“The Simple Life”) think they’re TV stars, but essentially they’re just being placed in the public square for our amusement. Perhaps this is the beginning of “reality” TV’s final, decadent phase that will allow us all to start focusing, again, on good writing and good acting.
Note: HBO’s “The Sopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” did not air new episodes in 2003.
— Steve Johnson
