As much as I liked The Man From U.N.C.L.E as a kid, I don’t recall ever lusting to see any particular episode more than once. In fact, we’d usually scorn the summer reruns as being beneath our dignity. Same with Bonanza, or Mannix, or Petticoat Junction. You’d fight for a place in front of the Zenith when they first aired; months later those same shows were of […]
"The Wire" revisited: It does grow on you
I was underwhelmed by the first couple of episodes of “The Wire,” but after renting a few more via Netflix, I’m beginning to see why this show has attracted a loyal following. While I still think Dominic West looks a little too much like a J.C. Penney model to be fully convincing (and his divorced, hard-drinking character is somewhat cliched), the rest of the cast and the […]
This jury’s still out on "The Wire"
We don’t watch a lot of TV here at the ancestral manse, and now that “The Sopranos” is history, we watch even less. My current viewing schedule is about the same as it was a decade ago: Reruns of “Seinfeld,” mostly, and the odd episode of “American Justice.” But whenever the wife and I rave about “The Sopranos,” certain friends and relatives keep insisting that the HBO […]
Speaking of crime writing …
… I’m still not sure if I like David Chase’s jerk-out-the-plug ending of The Sopranos. Yes, I was one of the thousands who thought my cable had cut out at the worst possible moment. But before I was able to start cursing the hardware, the credits began to roll. Huh? Was that it? Guess so. The best television series ever made died as it lived: on the […]