By Sylvia Gurinsky
Watch, in between World Series Game 7, tonight's edition of PBS' Fall Arts Festival. It features the Miami City Ballet, directed for its first quarter-century by Edward Villella, who starred for the New York City Ballet. Villella will retire as artistic director after next season.
During the 1960s in particular, Villella was a frequent presence on television. He dances about 3:30 into this clip from a Perry Como 1969 holiday special. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ9wSmHvlx8
See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Week of October 10: "The Good Wife" Is a Shark Jumper
By Sylvia Gurinsky
Join the club, "The Good Wife."
The show that stars Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florick, the wife of a disgraced politician, had two seasons that put it among the finest legal dramas in television history. Margulies deservedly won an Emmy award for last season.
Then, creators Robert and Michelle King decided to break Rule One of television relationships: Never get two characters attracted to each other together until late in the series. They did so with Alicia and her boss/college friend/longtime crush Will Gardner, played by Josh Charles.
In so doing, the Kings tampered with the moral center of the show - Alicia - and with the focus of the scripts. The acting is as good as ever - the cast also includes Emmy winners Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi, "Masterpiece Mystery" host Alan Cumming and veteran Chris Noth - but the show has lost its bull's-eye.
Many would say the show has "jumped the shark." The term, developed after a "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank, was developed to describe programs that lose their creativity - and thus, the audience. (In fact, a website devoted to shows that have jumped the shark did the same thing when TV Guide's parent company acquired the site and diluted its contents.)
Can "The Good Wife" recover? History isn't promising. Shows such as "Moonlighting" have crossed the barrier and haven't come back. Some shows, such as "The West Wing," have come back. But "The West Wing" didn't have a romantic knot to untangle.
So far, "The Good Wife's" viewership has dropped by a couple of million, but that may be more because of a move from Tuesday to Sunday and the competition of NBC's football telecast. The real test will come when football season is over. Can Alicia and company get their game back on? More to the point, can Robert and Michelle King?
*************************************************************************************
YesterTube will be on hiatus for the next two weeks. See you in late October!
Join the club, "The Good Wife."
The show that stars Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florick, the wife of a disgraced politician, had two seasons that put it among the finest legal dramas in television history. Margulies deservedly won an Emmy award for last season.
Then, creators Robert and Michelle King decided to break Rule One of television relationships: Never get two characters attracted to each other together until late in the series. They did so with Alicia and her boss/college friend/longtime crush Will Gardner, played by Josh Charles.
In so doing, the Kings tampered with the moral center of the show - Alicia - and with the focus of the scripts. The acting is as good as ever - the cast also includes Emmy winners Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi, "Masterpiece Mystery" host Alan Cumming and veteran Chris Noth - but the show has lost its bull's-eye.
Many would say the show has "jumped the shark." The term, developed after a "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank, was developed to describe programs that lose their creativity - and thus, the audience. (In fact, a website devoted to shows that have jumped the shark did the same thing when TV Guide's parent company acquired the site and diluted its contents.)
Can "The Good Wife" recover? History isn't promising. Shows such as "Moonlighting" have crossed the barrier and haven't come back. Some shows, such as "The West Wing," have come back. But "The West Wing" didn't have a romantic knot to untangle.
So far, "The Good Wife's" viewership has dropped by a couple of million, but that may be more because of a move from Tuesday to Sunday and the competition of NBC's football telecast. The real test will come when football season is over. Can Alicia and company get their game back on? More to the point, can Robert and Michelle King?
*************************************************************************************
YesterTube will be on hiatus for the next two weeks. See you in late October!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Week of October 3: A Few More Minutes With Andy Rooney
By Sylvia Gurinsky
It's quite an achievement these days when a journalist can have the full, uninterrupted, unaltered career of his or her choosing without fear or favor. Andy Rooney fits the category.
As he said in his last regular weekly commentary that aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," he's a writer, and writers don't retire. But he's had a 70-plus year career, most of it for CBS, along with a syndicated column. The last 33 years have included the "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" segment at the end of "60 Minutes."
Rooney has discussed plenty of subjects in more than 1,000 commentaries, both trivial and not. He's gotten into trouble a few times, most notably in 1990 when he was suspended for a statement about "too many homosexual relationships."
Rooney explained the context of the comments and the suspension in his Academy of Television Arts and Sciences interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zognOu3SEAs
During World War II, Rooney was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes; among the stories he covered was the D-Day invasion. Here's a Rooney commentary from Memorial Day, 2005:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20112373-10391709.html
But let's wrap up with a 1988 Rooney commentary that's easy to agree with - the lack of truth in food packaging:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20112367-10391709.html
Thanks for giving us more than a few minutes, Andy.
**************************************************************************
See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!
It's quite an achievement these days when a journalist can have the full, uninterrupted, unaltered career of his or her choosing without fear or favor. Andy Rooney fits the category.
As he said in his last regular weekly commentary that aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," he's a writer, and writers don't retire. But he's had a 70-plus year career, most of it for CBS, along with a syndicated column. The last 33 years have included the "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" segment at the end of "60 Minutes."
Rooney has discussed plenty of subjects in more than 1,000 commentaries, both trivial and not. He's gotten into trouble a few times, most notably in 1990 when he was suspended for a statement about "too many homosexual relationships."
Rooney explained the context of the comments and the suspension in his Academy of Television Arts and Sciences interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zognOu3SEAs
During World War II, Rooney was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes; among the stories he covered was the D-Day invasion. Here's a Rooney commentary from Memorial Day, 2005:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20112373-10391709.html
But let's wrap up with a 1988 Rooney commentary that's easy to agree with - the lack of truth in food packaging:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20112367-10391709.html
Thanks for giving us more than a few minutes, Andy.
**************************************************************************
See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!
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