THE SILLIEST OF SEASONS

I mean, look at some of these. "Judging Amy" literally ends the season with a bang, as a disgruntled litigant apparently sets off a bomb. Who lives? Who dies? Who cares?

"Providence" is apparently putting its main character into deadly peril AT HE END OF THE SECOND SEASON, for crying out loud! I’m just a peasant, but it seems to me that it’s a little early to start dangling your star over the abyss. Hey, NBC! What are you going to do when contract negotiations come up? What are you going to use for leverage then?

I tell you, folks, I really ought to be a TV executive.

NBC’s great "The West Wing" ends with racist terrorists spraying the Presidential party (including the President’s daughter) with gunfire, but leaves open ‘til next season the question of who gets shot. (My money’s on the female secret service agent with the cute overbite. It can’t be the black aide who was the target of the death threats, because they’ve already killed one black guy early in the season.) And "The X-Files", which is known for cliff-hanger season enders, ends with David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder character getting kidnapped by aliens. Well, I guess it was his turn. Everybody else on the show has been.

Of course, in the case of "The X-Files", the kidnapping of Duchovny’s character is a way to gracefully cover the fact that he’s reportedly leaving the show to pursue his—chuckle—movie career. However, they’ve had him kidnapped, not killed, probably to give him a graceful way to ease back in when his movie career tanks, as it most likely will. I mean, he’s great as Mulder, but let’s face it. Duchovny’s range of on-screen emotions, in the words of the late great Dorothy Parker, "run the gamut from A to B". I haven’t seen Duchovny in his latest cinematic outing, but I understand it’s—get this—a romantic comedy. This I gotta see, but only when it comes out on video. Duchovny doing romantic comedy is like Boris Karloff singing the lead role in "My Fair Lady." But I digress.

I guess the point of these is to make you forget the fact that over half the season has been repeats of the other half and to get your butt back on the sofa next fall when the show returns, probably at another time, and maybe even on another network.

It’s enough to make you long for the days of classic TV, when shows came on early in the fall and didn’t go into reruns until summer. And there was none of this "blockbuster season finale" nonsense either. I mean, can you imagine it if the May sweeps had been filled with promos like: "Six Bradys—Who Will Live and Who Will Die…On A Season Finale That Will LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS!" or "A Forbidden Love Will Be Revealed…On the Shocking Season Finale of ‘Bonanza’!"

Anyway, as the season ends, let’s look back and take stock. The big winners seemed to be:

• Game shows, which prove that you can give away millions of dollars and still turn a handsome profit;
• So-called "reality-based" programming, like "World’s Scariest Police Chases" and "When Animals Attack", which prove that there’s nothing the Roman Empire could do that we can’t do better; and
• Newsmagazines like "20/20" and "Dateline NBC", which seem poised to devour whatever scraps of the TV schedule were left over from the game shows.

Death was also a big winner: Billy died of a brain tumor on "Ally McBeal"; the annoying Kellie Martin character Lucy got offed on "ER" (as thousands cheered); and of course, Kenny died on "South Park"—every week.

A lot of boundaries got pushed outward: gays and lesbians were coming out all over, there were several interracial relationships, and the word "ass" became entrenched as an acceptable punch line in situation comedy.

The most appalling trend came in local news, which suddenly seems to have given itself over whole-heartedly to the task of pimping for the prime-time schedule. "Tonight on Action News: An interview with the star of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’!" Real hard-hitting journalism, folks. What, there weren’t enough fires and shootings to fill the half-hour?

Who knows what the next season will bring? I don’t know, but I do know, I’ll be there, occasionally hurling empty beer cans and curses at the screen—but still watching. Right now, however, I’m going to go watch Comedy Central. Their season is just starting. Happy viewing!

COPYRIGHT 2000 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.