Banner Graphic, Volume 16, Number 220, Greencastle, Putnam County, 25 April 1986 — Page 15

Dickens of a year

It was the best of times and worst for TV networks

By 808 WISEHART c. 1986 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK barrassed to say it, but there’s no alternative: TV has never been better than it was last season. Shocking, isn’t it? Yes, I’m talking about the 30-week season that ended Sunday, the one with “227,” “The Insiders,” “Charlie & C 0.,” “Hollywood Beat,” “Misfits of Science,” and “The Colbys,” a “Dynasty” spinoff even more vile than the fetid sump from which it sprang. I’ll get to the nuts and bolts later. For now, it suffices to say that NBC, powered by the mighty engine that is Bill Cosby and guided by the calm stewardship of Grant Tinker, trounced CBS and ABC for the first time in 30 years. Better yet, NBC won for all the right reasons. It has most of the best shows and they are among the most popular shows, too. Good. Not that the past 30 weeks were one long delirious jaunt down the yellow-brick road. Miniseries were nothing short of putrid. The decision on whether to devote several hours and nights to one is easier than ever because chances are it’ll be terrible anyway. What should be TV’s finest work is suspended in an aspic of formulas that can reduce anything to a trifle. Remember George C. Scott doing his “II Duce Knows Best” routine in “Mussolini The Untold Story”? The highest-rated miniseries, “North and South,” was a pulp novel turned pulp TV. Who did penance for Joan Collins’ “Sins”? Anyone who watched it. “Peter the Great” was really “Peter The Not Bad If You Didn’t Have Anything Else To Do.” TV movies weren’t much better. The two most popular

PROGRAM SCHEDULE Time Monday-Friday Saturday Sunday Time Monday-Friday Saturday Sunday 6 00am Jimmy Swaggart Cartoons ToGo Cartoons ToGo 4 00pm Thundercats Saturday Mcnde3 ! Sunday Movie 3 6 30 a™ Superfriends KideoTV Cartoons Report from the Statehouse 4 30 pm * Transformers 800 am The Fl.ntstones Wh.z Kids 1 J [ 600 pm Star Trek ' Matt Houston Sunday Movie 4 8:30 am Mighty Mouse j | Amazing Grace 630 pm 9 00am FfymgNun WXIN 59 Saturday Morning Kids Inc 7 00pm Too Close for Comfort [ Black Sheep Squadron 9: 30 am My Favorite Martian Wbrldof iPhotography j Funtastic Sunday 730 pm Taxi . - 10: °Q am . The Munsters j Switch ' B OOpm * The 8 O Clock Movie WXIN 59 Saturday MTV Top 20 Countdown 10:30 am The B*g Ntalley j ___ j 830 pm 8 O Clock Movie 11 00 am J Saturday Movie 1 Star Trek |~~~ 9:00 pm ' Hollywood Cto seup 11:30am Mr. Ed j ' I 9:30 pm Bizarre , '2 00n • I Love Lucy SundayMovwl 10 00pm Bob Newhart ’ Tajes From Ihe Oarkside ’ The Ted Knight Show 12 30 pm Dick \&n Dyke 10 30 pm Matt Houston Saturday Late Movie | The Blue Knight h 100 pm Mannix Saturday Movie 2 1100 pm _ , 11 30 pm The Honeymooners Cannon frOOgL.] Sunday Movie 2 'l2 00m Benny Hill Show 1 ' -r5S i>m *!r T,r tl ir-»~B~r -j~rs 1 I 12:30am Comedy Tonight j Fridays' t Thriller Movie Tales From the Darkside 300 pm He Wan 4 Masters ol the Unfa , Saturday Mdvie 3 ] t OOam * Carol BurhetTShow 1_,3:30pm | Sheßa I . 1 30am ,nSearch:,. Vn.Mowe [ j

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VALERIE HARPER: Unexpected success without pal Mary

“Return to Mayberry” and “Perry Mason Returns” weren’t exactly “Citizen Kane.” We’re a long way from Oz when the best the networks can do is rummage through their archives. Nostalgia and old shows done new ways were popular, but no

cinch. Mary Tyler Moore’s ballyhooed return to primetime was an unexpected failure while Valerie Harper, Moore’s crony on the old “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” was an unexpected success with her new series. The difference, perhaps, is that we expected a lot from

Moore and not much from Harper. Weekly series still are the networks’ heart and soul and intelligent people discovered they can’t ignore prime-time as blithely as they once could. With more top-of-the-line options than ever, there a

8 O'clock MOVIES APR. 28 THE STONE KIUER Charles Bronson • Martin Balsam APR. 29 HOMBRE Paul Newman • Fredric March APR. 30 WALKING TALL Joe Don Baker * Elizabeth Hartman MAY 1 BAD BOYS Sean Penn • Reni Santoni MAY 2 VERTIGO James Stewart * Kim Nook BMID

night of the week without at least one good show and some nights have several. Predictably, NBC has most. My list starts with “The Cosby Show,” so popular that even its reruns outrank everything else. “Family Ties,” “Cheers,” and “The Golden Girls” all are fine comedies. “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Amazing Stories” hit and miss, but they’re always trying. The quirky “St. Elsewhere” may be the best drama on the air. “Hill Street Blues” resembles an aging ballplayer who’s lost the moves of old, but still shows occasional flashes of how it was. Fans might add that inscrutably dizzy designer show “Miami Vice.” It Ls different, but so is hanging by the heels in a vat of pudding. At CBS, the proud but battered runner-up that had won six times in a row, there’s “60 Minutes,” “Newhart,” “Kate & Allie,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “The Twilight Zone” and “The Equalizer.” ABC is last in the ratings and last in the heart of America, but as long as there’s “Moonlighting” there’s hope. Sultry Cybill Shepherd and the gleefully randy Bruce Willis took a standard crime-comedy hour and turned it into something so fresh it deserves a new label: A “crime-edy?” Face it. We’ve always watched TV, we were just too embarrassed to admit it. The difference between then and now is that we’re not embarrassed anymore. TV isn’t as ravingly stupid as it used to be For the record, NBC won with a season-long rating average of 17.5. CBS was second with 16.7 and ABC finished third with 14.9. (One rating point equals 859,000 homes.) How did we arrive at this happy state? A combination of Continued on Page 10

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