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- <text>
- <title>
- (Jan. 06, 1992) Television
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Jan. 06, 1992 Man of the Year:Ted Turner
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- TELEVISION, Page 80
- BEST OF 1991
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> 1. THE CLARENCE THOMAS/ANITA HILL HEARINGS
- </p>
- <p> In a year when real-life courtroom drama became the stuff
- of TV entertainment, a Supreme Court nominee's confirmation
- process was suddenly transformed into a riveting version of
- Rashomon. On one side was the composed college professor
- charging sexual harassment; on the other the outraged judge
- crying racism; in the jury box, a gaggle of Senators fumbling.
- After this and the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, how can
- anybody watch L.A. Law again?
- </p>
- <p> 2. HOUSE OF CARDS (PBS).
- </p>
- <p> Masterpiece Theatre has had precious few masterpieces in
- the past few years, but this intricate, lacerating political
- thriller atoned for a lot of boring nights with Alistair Cooke.
- Ian Richardson played a conniving Tory leader who took us into
- his confidence as he schemed and blackmailed his way to the top.
- If only real political skulduggery were this much fun.
- </p>
- <p> 3. THE SIMPSONS (Fox).
- </p>
- <p> O.K., we were wrong. Everybody's favorite cartoon show
- seemed, for its first year or so, longer on sass than satire.
- But this season Homer has supplanted Bart at the program's
- center, and the series has soared to inventive new heights,
- skewering everything from multinational corporate takeovers to
- America's Funniest Home Videos. No doubt anymore: it's TV's most
- dangerous sitcom.
- </p>
- <p> 4. THE SCHWARZKOPF BRIEFING.
- </p>
- <p> Maybe the best army recruiting ad since John Wayne's
- farewell to his troops in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. In
- explaining before a rapt press corps how the gulf war was won,
- the general embodied a nation's ideal of the perfect warrior:
- tough, professional, charismatic, compassionate. And gave a
- great lesson in military tactics in the process. Now if we could
- just figure out what it was all for.
- </p>
- <p> 5. PUBLIC ENEMY #2 (Showtime).
- </p>
- <p> SCTV alum Dave Thomas times two: as a luckless actor who
- plays a serial killer on a TV true-crime show, and as the real
- serial killer who gets revenge for the indignity. This cable
- special could have settled for simply lampooning America's Most
- Wanted, which it does to perfection. But it grew swiftly into
- a hilarious satire of America's celebrity obsession.
- </p>
- <p> 6. CONEY ISLAND (PBS).
- </p>
- <p> The Burns boys are TV's hottest brother act. PBS's
- blockbuster The Civil War, which Ken directed and Ric helped
- write, was the TV event of 1990. Ric was responsible for this
- smaller slice of Americana, a wistful look at the glory days of
- America's greatest amusement park. The turn-of-the-century film
- clips were nostalgic yet startling, the documentary enthralling.
- </p>
- <p> 7. THIRTYSOMETHING (ABC).
- </p>
- <p> The quintessential yuppie drama for the '80s had begun to
- grow a bit thin and self-indulgent as the new decade dawned.
- But with its end drawing near and character crises mounting--a cancer scare, a sudden death--the show revealed that it was
- made of sterner stuff. No network series has captured a milieu
- with such uncompromising fidelity. And Homefront is no
- substitute.
- </p>
- <p> 8. NAKED HOLLYWOOD (A&E).
- </p>
- <p> Egotistical producers, pampered actors, ill-used writers,
- oily agents: the familiar cast was on hand as the BBC poked its
- nose into the film capital. But producer Nicolas Kent enlivened
- the old story with an outsider's perspective and a filmmaker's
- brashness.
- </p>
- <p> 9. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT (NBC).
- </p>
- <p> Brian Dennehy, hair dyed a sinister black, starred in this
- horror story about a bully who terrorizes a Missouri town while
- the wheels of justice grind slow. Directed by James Sadwith, it
- was the scariest TV movie of the year, partly because it came so
- close to justifying vigilante violence.
- </p>
- <p> 10. I'LL FLY AWAY (NBC).
- </p>
- <p> Sam Waterston's plodding earnestness can be a bit much,
- and the political-correctness level is inordinately high. But
- there is much truth and tenderness in this family drama set
- against a backdrop of racial tensions in a 1950s Southern
- community. Easily the best of a dismal crop of new network
- shows.
- </p>
- <p> THE BIGGEST LETDOWNS
- </p>
- <p> Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal made their grand return to
- television in CBS's Good Sports. Their strained repartee made
- Nick & Nora look like a match made in heaven. Producer Norman
- Lear was born again in CBS's Sunday Dinner, a family comedy with
- a religious twist. Jimmy Swaggart's sermons got more laughs.
- James Garner, starring as a con artist turned city councilman
- in NBC's Man of the People, proved likability goes only so far
- in TV. You also need a script.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-