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These are a few of my favorite ... By WALT BELCHER/Tampa Tribune Television Critic Read other Television columns and news
As the century winds down, it's time for a look back at personal favorites.
This summer marks my 19th year of writing about television. I have been watching it a lot longer.
When I got this job in '81, the top TV series included ``Dallas,'' ``The Dukes of Hazzard,'' ``The Love Boat,'' ``The Jeffersons,'' ``Little House on the Prairie,'' ``M*A*S*H,'' ``Alice,'' ``Real People,'' ``Three's Company,'' ``Magnum, P.I.'' and ``One Day at a Time.''
There wasn't much for me to get excited about because I had only two favorites: ``M*A*S*H'' and ``The Greatest American Hero.''
I rooted for a new kind of drama called ``Hill Street Blues,'' which was struggling in the ratings. ``Cheers'' excited me the following season. It also struggled at first, but the TV landscape was changing.
During the ensuing years, my list of favorites grew: ``Miami Vice,'' ``Moonlighting,'' ``The Cosby Show,'' ``Newhart,'' ``L.A. Law,'' ``The Wonder Years,'' ``Murphy Brown,'' ``Designing Women,'' ``Picket Fences,'' ``The Simpsons,'' ``Northern Exposure,'' ``Twin Peaks,'' ``Home Improvement,'' ``Quantum Leap,'' ``Frasier,'' ``Mad About You,'' ``Seinfeld,'' ``Law & Order,'' ``King of the Hill,'' ``The X-Files'' and ``Ally McBeal.''
Eventually, there were fewer soaps like ``Dallas'' or simple dramas like ``Murder, She Wrote.'' When I started this column, much of prime time was safe, predictable and boring. Some people like it that way and wish TV would return to that.
As we get older, there is a tendency to dismiss the new and long for a time we think was better.
Not me. This season, I find The WB has the most innovative programs in ``Roswell,'' ``Popular'' and ``Jack & Jill.'' And NBC's ``West Wing'' and CBS' offbeat ``Now and Again'' are fresh, too.
COMPARED WITH MY first season on the job, television is better than ever.
Dickens nailed it when he wrote that his generation lived in ``the best of times and the worst of times.'' That line applies to any moment.
The 1950s are ``golden'' as some claim. My favorites from that era include ``I Love Lucy,'' ``The Honeymooners,'' ``You Bet Your Life,'' ``The Jack Benny Show'' and ``Alfred Hitchcock Presents.''
The best of the 1960s weren't great television, but they sure were fun: ``Gilligan's Island,'' ``The Twilight Zone,'' ``Star Trek,'' ``Gunsmoke,'' ``The Beverly Hillbillies,'' ``Bonanza,'' ``The Monkees,'' ``The Wild, Wild West,'' ``The Dick Van Dyke Show,'' ``Bewitched,'' ``I Dream of Jeannie'' and - one of my all-time favorites - ``The Andy Griffith Show.''
From the 1970s, my faves include ``All in the Family,'' ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show,'' ``The Bob Newhart Show,'' ``The Rockford Files,'' ``Happy Days,'' ``Taxi,'' ``M*A*S*H'' and ``Barney Miller.''
Television is an ever-changing medium that holds a mirror up to our culture. The reflection may be a little distorted, and sometimes we don't like what we see, but we help create it because if no one watches a program, it quickly disappears.
IN A MEDIUM where the programming is designed as filler around the commercials, it's amazing that anything close to ``art'' is ever created.
At this moment in its evolution, television could use programs that reflect more class and less vulgarity, more compassion than revenge, more commitment and less casual sex.
We could use more dramas that explore the human condition and the angst of living in this high-tech, media-bombardment age instead of superficial TV movies ripped from sensational headlines.
If nothing else, television is better today than when it started 50 years ago because we have more choices than ever, from documentaries on The History Channel to reruns of national lawn-mower racing on TNN to vintage animation on The Cartoon Network.
For me, the glass is always half-full of promise instead of half-empty, so I'm expecting television to get better.
