The Front Page: June 4, 2008

By Randee Dawn

I confess: I recently went through an annoying phase where I forced everyone who visited my place to sit and watch an episode of "Let's Make a Deal" with me. (Need I say that these shows were from the 1970s, courtesy of GSN?) The clothes! The incredibly awful interior decoration! The concept of a TV-set sized microwave as an innovation! (My favorite item was, without a doubt, the refrigerator -- which came with a built-in cassette recorder. I kid you not.)

Well, it turns out I'm not alone, based on James Hibberd's article today. GSN is bringing back other 1970s classics, with "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game." Unfortunately, there's a hitch: "They're much-loved shows, and we thought the time was right for a revival," GSN's Jamie Roberts told Hibberd. "We're pretty confident we'll get there and possibly put them to series for 2009."

They're probably right, but they're missing the point. Put aside all of the gawping you can do at clothes and kitchen design, and what really had me kind of misty-eyed about the 1970s "Deal" was just how bloody excited everybody got. For the chance at the smallest of possible prizes, like $50 if you had a nickel in your wallet, folks would jump up and down and go completely bananas -- while wearing outlandish costumes that clearly had taken some time and thought. So not only did these people dress up and look foolish, they got really, really, really excited at things like washing machines. And sensible cars. And refrigerators with cassette players. These days, you can't even convince people on "Deal or No Deal" to take $300K and walk away.

Clearly, something's been lost -- and I don't know if an updated "Newlywed" or "Dating Game" can recapture it. I just think there's going to be a lot more dramatic lighting and higher cash pots. I also doubt anybody will be watching these shows in another 40 years. But ... that could be the wrong answer, after all.

As for current TV with a retro twist I've been keeping an eye on, Kimberly Nordyke reports today that "The Tudors" jumped 83% in the ratings as compared to its first season finale, with the second season ender from the other night. The episode really was a bit of a surprise; history and the show itself had already doomed Anne Boleyn to the tower and the loss of her head, so how interesting could it be to watch the death march for 60 minutes? And yet it was, not just in the tower itself with the Queen, but the continuation of Henry's damnation was just beautiful and perfect, as he watched Tony Soprano-esque out his window at swans in his pond. Of course the audience knows, swans mate for life, ha Henry, there's the finger in your eye -- but the revelation at the end, when post-beheading his minions carry in a small covered palanquin made me wonder: Is this a John the Baptist moment?

Nah. But let's just say, Henry got the bird and Jonathan Rhys Myers dove in with relish. Eerie and perfect. And 852,000 viewers agreed with me on Sunday night (combined, the two Sunday airings of the finale actually brought in 1.1 million viewers).

Finally, to round out our all-TV Front Page today, be sure to tune into Hibberd's roundtable with some of the small screen's best showrunners, as part of the Emmy Watch: Producers issue. Bryan Fuller, David Shore, Damon Lindelof, Matthew Weiner and Craig Thomas all get into the swing of things -- including talking about what is and isn't allowed on their shows. A snippet:

Fuller: We had a baby being born on the show. And when the doctor spanked it, we had to cut the entire scene.

 

Thomas: Wait, when you say "spanked it" ... ? (Laughter.)

 

Fuller: We couldn't show a naked baby because it was an FCC issue. And it was a plastic baby, and its bum didn't even have a crevice.

 

Shore: That is disturbing, actually!

 

Fuller: We were told that it was an FCC issue regarding pedophilia.

 

Shore: We did an episode in which a guy confessed part way through it that he had had sex with his daughter. That was OK. Then the next episode we had a story, which was a B story, but -- believe it or not -- it was integral to the story that the guy confessed to his attraction to cows. And they would not let us do that.

 

Lindelof: Just memorize the following sentence: "Do you watch (ABC's) 'Boston Legal'?" That show gets away with everything. They're having sex with cows on camera!

Cows and swans in the same post. What more can you ask for?