Television: Your Remote Patrol

Mandel Maven's Nest Television: Your Remote Patrol

I, Nora Lee Mandel, have come close to achieving a life-time dream of influencing what's on television: we were a Nielsen Family. But only for a week and not via a People Meter, only with a diary which I thought they only used during February Sweeps Weeks but we had it during January 2004 when many of my favorite shows weren't on and The Scion and The Younger were staying at college during intersessions so Nielsen once again lost young men.

I don't know how the Nielsen company uses the diaries vis a vis the People Meters, maybe just as a statistical check, but I now know first-hand how ridiculously out-of-date this measurement system is. It is oriented to a 1950's TV world of the over-the-air networks only and doesn't really take into account the cable cornucopia, VCR playbacks let alone TIVO, or the restless remote hunting and gathering of the male of the species.

In filling out the basic background information I was flummoxed by one of the first questions -- they expected me to write in all the channels I get! I pretty much referred them to Yahoo to identify my 250+ digital channels.

While they did ask if each TV was hooked up to VCR and/or DVD-R, it was very confusing how I was supposed to mark when I was taping what (and I taped far, far less than I usually do) and they didn't even ask when I watched those taped shows -- I guess because they know I'll zap through the ads and they only care about eyeballs on commercials.

They also only wanted marked down TV shows watched in 15 minute increments -- have they ever watched TV with The Grouch or any other male? Plus who can get a guy to fill in a diary? So I settled on checking on his watching a couple of times a night and marking what he seemed to watch the longest, or at least what was on when he fell asleep so stopped banging on the remote. So I could honestly mark his faves Discovery Wings, Tech TV, and the History Channel.

By sheer chance we did truly watch a lot of PBS that week -- for American Experience, Nova, Masterpiece Theatre, and Lehrer NewsHalfHour. I could honestly put in a vote for some of my favorites, listed below, as well as BBC America and MTV for local-Forest-Hills-boy-made-good Gideon Yago (Congrats on being nommed for an inaugural nontraditional News/Documentary Emmy Award for his coverage of post-earthquake Pakistan.) But it was very atypical that I didn't watch the Sundance or Independent Film Channels that week. I've since gotten hooked on IFC's Samurai Saturdays and CUNY Cinemateque for the history of international films.

With the Younger Generation gone, no one watched Fox Sports World, where they've become rabid fans of Australian rules football and rugby -- "the Game They Play in Heaven" (I at least made The Younger pull out an atlas to figure out where the teams were from he should learn some geography). While there is something to be said for watching barely-clad, muscle-rippling hunks working it out, about as much reality programming I can take is Comedy Central's Daily Show (Indecision 2004 out on DVD), Making-Of or Anatomy of Scenes docs, Sundance Channel's Doc Days and Tabloid Wars - who knew NY's Hometown Paper was staffed by so many non-diverse metrosexuals from out-of-town? No wonder most of them weren't still working there by the time this aired. I watched the first Real World decades years ago and got fed up with the house occupants complaining about each other--I can do that myself. So these pages are Three Cheers for Fiction and the Artists Who Create It! (updated 8/5/2006)

"57 channels and nothing on?" -Bruce Springsteen

I went to a lecture by an NYU film professor who bashed TV as crap -- and it turned out he doesn't watch any! So he doesn't even know that there is in fact gold among the dross! If you want to join me as a couch potato, I watch all "the scripted shows" (as they're now called) on TV so you don't have to. (But you don't need me to tell you about popular, bruited shows and I think E.R. and NYPD Blue are way overrated.) I give shows a few try-outs before recommending them, as usually all the talent goes into the pilot and not the subsequent episodes, so it takes me awhile until I test them out to post my opinions, though I do tend to prefer dramas over sitcoms. My comments on the networks' series selection and such late lamented shows as Under Suspicion and EZ Streets (now streaming online and on Sleuth TV and also atmospherically and eerily used Caroline Lavelle and Loreena McKennit songs) got lost in the ether in an earlier version of this web site. (updated 7/11/2006)

The excellent, though uneven and inconsistent, episode guides at TV provide pretty thorough credits, recaps and trivia, sometimes including music identification. TV Guide has Michael Ausiello's blog with a TV-lover's spoilers, background interviews and breaking news on specific shows and online video guide. (updated 10/19/2006)

Sardonic, detailed Episode Guides to guilty pleasures are at Television Without Pity.

I've categorized shows by the honest reason to watch them. Click on titles for my commentary.

Mandel Maven's Nest Lilith Watch: Critical Guide to Jewish Women on TV

Impact of 9/11 on NYC through TV Fiction

QUALITY TELEVISION

24 Brotherhood City of Men Curb Your Enthusiasm Dexter/Epitafios (Epitaphs) Flight of the Conchords Friday Night Lights House, M.D. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Lost Mad Men Mystery Mondays/Thriller Thursdays on BBC America The Naked Brothers Band The Office (Brit and U.S. versions) Prison Break Rescue Me Shameless The Shield The Treatment The Wire: The Best Novel on Television
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO

100 Center Street American Family Arrested Development At Home with the Braithwaites/Windfall Attachments BallyKissAngel/Haimish MacBeth/Monarch of the Glen Best of Youth (La Meglio gioventù) The Chris Isaak Show Cold Feet Cracker Dead Like Me Deadwood Glasgow Kiss Going to California Homicide In A Land of Plenty The Job Lucky Oz Project Greenlight: 1st Season - "Stolen Summer" Project Greenlight: 2nd Season - "Battle of Shaker Heights" Project Greenlight: 3rd Season - "Feast" Remember WENN/The Lot The Sins Six Feet Under Slings and Arrows Sleeper Cell The Sopranos State of Play Teachers (Brit) Tell Me You Love Me The Thick of It Third Watch This Life Traders Undeclared Viva Blackpool! West Wing

HALL OF DAMES

30 Rock Battlestar Galactica The Closer Damages Desperate Housewives Bones Greek/Quarterlife Grey's Anatomy Lifetime: Is This Television for Women? Lincoln Heights Medium The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman My Boys/The Huntress Samantha Who? Saving Grace Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Ugly Betty Weeds
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO

Alias Any Day Now Arli$$ Buffy the Vampire Slayer Charmed Dark Angel Earth: Final Conflict Falcon Beach/Beyond the Break Farscape La Femme Nikita Gilmore Girls Holly Oaks Malcolm in the Middle Once and Again Over There The Pretender Prime Suspect Sex and the City/BBC's Coupling Star Trek: Voyager State of Grace Veronica Mars The X Files
BRING 'EM BACK THEY WAY THEY WAS AND NEVER WERE: A PLEA FOR RE-RUNS/FIRST RUNS

Karen Sisco life as we know it/Manchild

HUNK 'O' METER: Televisa Para Planchar

Burn Notice Costumes-that-Come-Off Dramas: Sharpe's Adventures/The Tudors/Rome/Robin Hood Dirt Entourage Geek Love: Reaper, Chuck, Pushing Daisies Nip/Tuck Sci Fi Shows: Now and Into Rerun Infinity Smallville Supernatural Without A Trace
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO

Angel Carnivale Crime Does Pay: Hustle/Smith/Thief/Heist/The Kill Point Due South Felicity/Bedford Diaries Firefly The Guardian The Hunger Men in Trees John Doe Mr. Sterling The Nine The O.C. Playmakers Queer as Folk Resurrection Boulevard Robbery Homicide Division Roswell Saved Standoff Street Time Tilt Undressed Veritas: The Quest The Whistler/The Mountain Wolf Lake
BRING 'EM BACK THEY WAY THEY WAS AND NEVER WERE: A PLEA FOR RE-RUNS/FIRST RUNS

The Beat Boomtown Dream Street Eyes Wonderland

To the Mandel Maven's Nest Reel Life: Flick Picks

To the Mandel Maven's Nest Music Tips Like Dancing About Architecture: Radio Not Just For Listening

To the Mandel/Shultz Maven's Nest
Comments, corrections, additions, questions welcome! Contact Nora Lee Mandel at mandelshultz@yahoo.com

Copyright (c) 2008

These Web pages obviously aren't joining the campaign to boycott Yahoo, but shame, shame, shame:
“Suppose that Anne Frank had maintained an e-mail account while in hiding in 1944, and that the Nazis had asked Yahoo for cooperation in tracking her down. It seems, based on Yahoo's behavior in China, that it might have complied. . . .( Representative Chris Smith . . . drew the Anne Frank analogy.) . . . Chinese court documents . . . say that Yahoo handed over information that was used to help convict [dissidents]. We have no idea how many more dissidents are also in prison because of Yahoo. . .Yahoo sold its soul and is a national disgrace.”
From China's Cyberdissidents and the Yahoos at Yahoo by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, February 19, 2006