In mining possible story ideas to write about as I debut my television column, I found myself inundated by the same concept over and over again: "The Sopranos." But I'll refrain from writing here about HBO's award-sweeping seriocomic story about family and the mob ties that govern them for two main reasons: every other print magazine has already salivated over the show, and more importantly, I don't get cable here so I haven't seen the majority of its episodes this season.
Instead, I'll focus on network television and an overriding theme of the last few weeks: death. Not just death of beloved characters, but also about the impending murder of two of TV's smarter shows.
I'll start with Monday night's TV shocker: the sudden death (from a cerebral hemorrhage) of Billy Thomas (Gil Bellows), an original and central cast member on "Ally McBeal."
Series creator David E. Kelley treated his exit with dignity, celebrating how Billy shaped Ally's (Calista Flockhart) understanding of the world. I hope that this will steer the show back to the more realistic sensibility it abandoned earlier this season.
Billy purportedly will resurface as a figment of Ally's imagination, à la "Providence," but I'll wait and see exactly how vital his appearances will be.
Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) of "ER," however, is one character whose demise will definitely prevent her return. Ironically, her death injected more life into the medical drama than it has seen in three seasons. Its revolving door of actors has left it unable to develop any of them; old favorites became static while new characters never bloomed into three-dimensional ones. After a failed hookup with Noah Wyle's John Carter, the writers gave her character the short shrift. The ER surely will recover from her death, but "ER" has a long way to go before it begins to show signs of life again.
"Once and Again," however, only showed how much more the show has to offer than an is-there-love-after-divorce premise. As Lily (Sela Ward) grappled with the death of her father (Paul Mazursky), it became clear that the series' main emphasis is family.
As a result, creators Marshall Herskovitz and Winnie Holzman introduced us to Lily's schizophrenic brother (Patrick Dempsey, subtle and terrific) and got to see Bonnie Bartlett shine again as the put-upon widow. Billy Campbell, as Lily's boyfriend Rick, also got to expand his role as her loving supporter.
Lily and Rick's relationship may center the show, but it's truly an ensemble effort about how people react to life's ups and downs. I'm still hooked.
Unfortunately, ABC's other show "Sports Night," looks like it will follow the just cancelled "Freaks and Geeks" into that great Nielsen loser list in the sky. Both were intelligent and humorous, but never got the publicity they deserved.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that ABC renews "Sports Night" (after prematurely ending the current season Apr. 4) for its third season, or that rival NBC, which also runs creator Aaron Sorkin's other show "The West Wing," adopts it.
It's the least NBC could do to redeem itself; it never gave "Freaks and Geeks" a shot. It was the antidote to the WB - the kids (who were all first-rate) always spoke like kids, and the writers constantly treated their plight with humorous realism rather than cynicism.
Hmmm. Maybe if they'd staged a death or two, the shows could've found a way to stay alive.
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