Keith B. Darrell's Blog, page 53
February 17, 2012
House of Cards Trilogy
(This post is partof a series on the 14 Top TV Dramas You've Never Seen)
Number 7 in our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You'veNever Seen, is the House of Cards trilogy, consisting of House of Cards, To Play the King, and TheFinal Cut. Machiavelli could have taken lessons from Francis Urquhart, thefictional British politician in this trilogy. Ian Richardson is brilliant inthe role, as he schemes to become leader of the governing party and PrimeMinister.
The series finds inspiration from...
February 14, 2012
Playhouse 90
(This post is partof a series on the 14 Top TV Dramas You've Never Seen)
Number 8 in our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You'veNever Seen, is Playhouse 90. A product of the Golden Age of Television, Playhouse 90 cementedits reputation as TV's most distinguished anthology drama series. From 1956 to1960, Playhouse 90 broadcast 133 90-minute dramas. The series began itsbroadcasts with live shows, but later switched to videotape. Except for aChristmas episode, they were all shot in black and...
February 13, 2012
Roots
(This post is partof a series on the 14 Top TV Dramas You've Never Seen)
Number 9 in our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You'veNever Seen, is Roots. Allright, maybe you have seen this one. I watched it with my college journalism gangwhen it was first broadcast. The show made television history for many reasons.It was one of the first miniseries and ABC took a tremendous gamble bypre-empting a week of prime time programming to show Roots every night. Thegamble paid off: the finale remains the...
February 11, 2012
Garrow's Law
(This post is part of a series on the 14 Top TV DramasYou've Never Seen)
Continuing our countdown of the Top TV Dramas You've NeverSeen, we come to number 10, Garrow's Law. William Garrow was a real-life Britishbarrister in the late 1700s, a time when the accused were at the mercy of thecourt — and the court was not very merciful. These were times of speedy trials —many court hearings lasted only eight minutes, often followed by horrific deathpenalties (hanging and then being drawn and...
February 9, 2012
Los Plateados
(This post is part of a series on the 14 Top TV DramasYou've Never Seen)
We continue our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You've NeverSeen with number 11, Los Plateados.Admittedly, one wouldn't expect to find a telenovella in a top drama list.Novellas are Spanish soap operas, but unlike American soaps, they arestructured like novels, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The typicalnovella is poorly written, sometimes written days or weeks before episodes arebroadcast, leading to hackneyed...
February 7, 2012
Tom Brown's School Days
(This post is part of a series on the 14 Top TV DramasYou've Never Seen)
We continue our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You've NeverSeen with number 12, Tom Brown's School Days. There have been many adaptationsof Thomas Hughes' classic novel, but the one I'm referring to the five-episodeminiseries first broadcast on PBS' Masterpiece Theater in 1973. Set in theVictorian era, young Tom Brown suffers trials and traumas of an Englishboarding school, proving bullying is not a recent phenomenon...
February 5, 2012
Life on Mars
(This post is part of a series on the 14 Top TV DramasYou've Never Seen)
We continue our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You've NeverSeen with number 13, Life on Mars. I'm referring to the original UK series, notthe lackluster American remake.
Detective Sam Tyler (John Simm) has a near fatal car crash in 2007 andwakes up in 1974. Is he dreaming? In a coma? Dead? Or is something else responsible?Tyler has to solve the biggest mystery of his life while reprising his role asa police detective in...
February 3, 2012
Cadfael
(This post is part of a series on the 14 Top TV DramasYou've Never Seen)
We begin our countdown of The Top TV Dramas You've NeverSeen with number 14, Cadfael. I came into this series cold, knowing nothingother than Derek Jacobi starred in the title role as a detective. Havingrecalled Jacobi from his outstanding performance as the Emperor Claudius in "I,Claudius", I would have tuned in to watch him read the phone book, so I knew Ihad to watch "Cadfael".
Cadfael is a Welsh monk in the Middle...
February 1, 2012
The Vast Wasteland
When we speak of writing, we often think of the print media,but some of the finest writing has also been found on stage and screen, and onrare occasions, on the small screen. Television, as former FCC CommissionerNewton Minow once said, is a "vast wasteland".
"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not themagazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad,nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your owntelevision set when your station...
January 28, 2012
Joe the Plumber?
Ever had a houseguest who's overstayed his welcome?
He's broken everything in your home and on his way out thedoor, he stops to use your bathroom. He flushes the toilet and it overflows."See ya!" he shouts, heading out the door.
You rush into the bathroom and discover two inches of rawsewage lining the floor and see a geyser of sludge bursting from the latrine.Quickly, you trod through the muck, bend down and turn off the water valve. Thegeyser recedes, but your shoes are covered in something...
