A brief history of the death of television

The children of baby boomers, were the first generation raised by television. As embarrassing as it is I have seen every episode, at least once of the following TV shows: I Love Lucy,  Star Trek, Here's Lucy, Seinfeld, The Bob Newhart Show, Hogan's Heroes,  Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart,  Project Runway, Dragnet, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The White Shadow,  Leave it to Beaver,  McHale's Navy, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Cheers.

In addition  the HBO series: The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire and  Rome; I not only have seen every episode, I own them.

I learned to speak from DesiLu Studios. I learned to cross examine and interrogate from Mark VII Productions. Sherwood Schwartz repainted the nuclear family and MTM showed how to live among idiots.

Someplace along the line Joe Friday died and Hawkeye Pierce assumed the throne.

Jack Webb loved this country, law and order, along with the higher principles of justice, sacrifice and duty. As Joe Friday, he delivered rapid fire, staccato questions. He cut people off when they strayed from “just the facts”.

Alan Alda took Richard Hooker's novel, injected it with pop culture ethics and advanced the idea that war was hell.  After the writers and producers  advanced beyond the need to interview actual surgeons from M*A*S*H units for story lines, the program became The Phil Donahue Show in fatigues with a laugh track.

Dragnet was a drama that became a campy the comedy.   M*A*S*H was a comedy became an antiauthority moralist play.

Almost 30 years later, the "antiauthority moralist play”  has morphed into Chick-ified Programming. Once ESPN carved male heads of households into 24-hour sports coverage, the only people watching network television were women, children and other shut-ins.

Extrapolating Homer Simpson to become every male role model has taken prime time television to a new level. For comedy or drama to work there has to be elements of  truth or risk. The premise and character structure in today's offerings are so stilted and formula-tic that it is almost impossible to sit through an episode, much less a season.

The viewers vote with their clickers. The next generation of shows will not be about serving niches, instead they will go back to bringing families together. Supporting and displaying natural relationship between people, families and friends.