Charlie Finley's A's of the 1970s, Part 3B: The Long Strange Trip To The First World Championship

 

Baltimore’s offense dropped precipitously in 1972 after Frank Robinson was traded and Brooks Robinson began to slump at the plate. The Orioles dominance, which had been unmatched the previous three years, similarly dropped and the AL East was involved in a four-team pennant race between Baltimore, an aging Detroit Tigers and a resurgent Red Sox and Yankees.

The Yankees didn’t have enough depth to go the distance and dropped out first. The Orioles pitching was as good as ever – their ERA of 2.54 led both leagues – but with no offense, the team fell into third place. The Red Sox were led by the Rookie of the Year Carlton Fisk and a rejuvenated Luis Tiant, who in August went on a 10-2 tear that involved four consecutive shutouts. The Tigers had the nucleus of the team that had won the World Series four years earlier but they were all shells of their former selves. Mickey Lolich’s powerhouse season – he won 22 games and struck out 259 – was enough to give Detroit the title  by a mere half of a game over the Red Sox.

The A’s had been looking forward to facing Detroit – for more than one reason. In an August matchup between the two teams Martin ordered his reliever Bill Slayback to throw brushbacks to Campaneris and outfield Angel Mangual. Mangual would punch Slayback, both benches would empty and the fans in Tiger Stadium hurled garbage on the field.

Before 20,000 empty seats in the Coliseum, Catfish Hunter and Mickey Lolich faced off in what would be an eleven inning game. Detroit took the lead 2-1 in the tenth when Al Kaline hit a home run to put the A’s on top off the eleventh off Rollie Fingers. After nine innings it was 1-1. Lolich lasted until the eleventh when Bando and Epstein hit back to back singles. pinch hitter Gonzalo Marquez drilled a single to Kaline which he bobbled allowing the A’s to win 3-2.

In Game 2 Campaneris took the offensive, getting three hits in the first five innings, stealing four bases and scoring three runs. By the 7^th, the A’s had a 5-0 lead. Blue Moon Odom had just given up three hits. Billy Martin was pissed (which was his normal state) and pitcher Lerrin LaGrow drilled Campaneris in the ankle when he came up for the fourth time.

Campaneris got to his feet, considered charging the mound – and then side-armed his bat at him. He then headed for the dugout. Martin stormed the field and had to be restrained by three umpires. Incredibly that was all the violence that ensued. The umpires ejected both men and the game ended at 5-0 two innings later.

Martin screamed obscenities at Campaneris’ reaction and denied it had been an intentional act on his pitchers part, something that no one on either team believed for a moment. That no longer mattered; Campaneris’ action did. American League President Joe Cronin suspended him for the remainder of the series; it was an open question if he would available for the World Series.

The A’s flew to Detroit up two games to nothing and needing just one more victory. Joe Colman, the Tiger starter, denied them by striking out fourteen A’s as Ken Holtzman just lasted four innings in a 3-0 loss.

In Game 4, Williams chose to go to Catfish Hunter on two days rest, rather than start Vida Blue. It almost worked. Hunter pitched  seven innings, giving up just five hits and a single run. Mickey Lolich matched him during that same period. Blue came in during the ninth and retired the side. It was 1-1 going into the tenth.

Matty Alou and Ted Kubiak drove in runs to put the A’s up 3-1. They just needed three more outs. The final inning was a disaster. With the bases loaded and no one out, the A’s were caught short because of Campaneris’  suspension. Catcher Gene Tenace was playing second base for only the third time in his career. Catcher Bill Freehan bounced to third. Bando went for the double play and Tenace lost the ball. The next pitcher walked in the tying run and Jim Northrup hit a fly-ball to give the Tigers an improbable 4-3 win to tie the series.

The A’s were unsettled going into the deciding game but Reggie Jackson convinced the A’s they would be okay. Blue Moon Odom would be the starter for Game 5.

In the second, with Detroit leading 1-0,  Jackson walked, stole second and moved to third on a fly ball. Epstein was hit by a pitch. Williams called for a double steal. Halfway home Jackson’s  left leg twinged. Twenty feet from the plate a muscle tore, then ruptured. Reggie’s steal tied the game. As the As celebrated they immediately realized their best player couldn’t get up. Jackson was done for the season.

The A’s got another run in the fourth. Odom got through five innings with a 2-1 lead before he started to dry heave. To this day it is a subject of debate why. All that matters is that Odom thought he could keep going and Williams didn’t. He called in Blue. Blue went four innings and gave up just three hits.

The A’s had won the first pennant in the franchise’s history since 1931. But in the midst of the champagne celebration Blue walked up to Odom and told him he’d choked. A furious Odom began to hit the partition then charged Blue before his teammates pulled them apart. Odom would later refuse to accept Blue’s apologies.

But there was gloom. While Commissioner Kuhn ultimately decided Campaneris’ suspension would take place at the start of the 1973 season, which made him eligible for the series the A’s had lost their best offensive player. No one – not even the A’s themselves – thought that they had a prayer against the Reds without him. Most observers didn’t think they would have had much of a chance with him

After losing the 1970 World Series to the Orioles, the Reds had their worst season of the decade, going 79-83 in 1971. However Howsam managed to complete two trades that cemented the dynasty for the rest of the decade. Few noticed the first which in May of 1971 led to George Foster coming for shortstop Frank Duffy and pitcher Vern Geishert. And Foster would not be much of an impact player immediately, spending most of the following year on the bench and the next year in the minors. It wasn’t until 1974 that he became the powerhouse he would be.

The more significant trade involved Lee May, Tommy Helms and Jimmy Stewart (not that one) for Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, Denis Menke, Ed Armbrister and pitcher Jack Billingham. This was one of the worst trades of the decade and probably all time.

The most critical players to the team would be Morgan, Geronimo and Billingham. Morgan made an immediate impact in his first season, leading the National League in runs scored with 122. He stole 58 bases and hit 16 home runs. Geronimo was less significant but he would win the Golden Glove four times with the Reds. Billingham would win 65 games with the Reds during his first four seasons, a steady force in a pitching staff that led to Anderson earning his more famous nickname “Captain Hook.”

The offense had been incredibly explosive with Morgan and Pete Rose, who played left field and led the National League in hits with 198. (If the 1972 strike hadn’t happened, he would certainly have had yet another 200 hit season. The offense was very evenly spread but the major force was Johnny Bench, who had hit 40 home runs and driven in 125, winning his second MVP in three years.

There was also the fact that, unlike the A’s, the Reds were clean shaven and were prohibited from growing facial hair – something no one really cared about on the team. The 1972 series was framed by some reporters as ‘The Hairs versus The Squares’. No one knew at the time it was a face-off between two of the greatest dynasties in baseball history because at this point the world was sure there was only one dynasty here. And it might have been that way in 1972 were it not for a player no one thought would be significant at the start of the series – not even him.

Gene Tenace had spent most of the 1972 season as back-up catcher to Dave Duncan. Duncan was by far the better hitter that year, hitting 19 home runs to Tenace’s 5. But during the season Duncan, who in the Marine Reserves, spent two weeks out of town. During that period, while the A’s were stumbling, Tenace had helped steady the team and earned the starting job. In the ALCS, however, he had only gotten a single hit which had driven in the winning run in Game 5. But he had still gone 1 for 17. Tenace was going to start in the series over Duncan, but no one expected much from him – until Game 1.

In the second inning, with George Hendrick on base, Tenace came up to bat against pitcher Gary Nolan. Nolan didn’t seem to be throwing that hard to Tenace. And on the fourth pitch, he hit out of the park for a 2 run homer.

The Reds fought back in the bottom of the inning, loading the bases against Ken Holtzman with nobody out. People might have thought Holtman would fold. The last time in 1971 he’d started at Riverfront Stadium; he’d thrown his second no-hitter. He got Geronimo to pop out. Dave Concepion grounded to short. He struck out Nolan. The Reds were retired with just one run.

In Tenace’s second at bat, Nolan threw a glacial curve ball and Tenace hit out of the park even further, becoming the first player in World Series history to hit two home runs in his first two at bats. It was 3-2. Holtzman went 6 1/3 innings and Fingers closed it down. The A’s had struck first.

The next day the Reds faced off against Catfish Hunter who spent the entire day humiliated the Reds in his first World Series start. He shut the Reds out for eight innings, drove in the go-ahead run himself while Rudi hit a home run. He had a 2-0 lead in the ninth.

Then Tony Perez led off with a single. Denis Menke hit Hunter’s first pitch on a high arc towards the 12-foot wall in left field. It looked like a game-tying homer. Even Hunter thought so.

But the moment the ball left Menke’s bat Rudi started to calculate. He ran towards left field, right up to the wall. He had nowhere left to go,  so he leaped up – and caught the ball. He hesitated a moment, which almost certainly stopped any possibility of catching Perez – who was already at third – from getting back to first.

Still there were two outs to go. Geronimo hit a fastball that first baseman Mike Hegan caught. Perez was dead, but then Hegan lost the ball trying to throw to second. Pinch hitter Hal McRae hit a line drive that scored Perez. Williams took Hunter out and Finger retired the last batter to get his second save. The A’s were up 2 games to none, having won them both on enemy turf.

Finley announced on the plane ride back to Oakland that he had renewed Williams’ contract for two years. No one knew that he would be eating those words the next year.

Game 3 was postponed because of rain which pissed off Kuhn. The next game, scheduled to begin at twilight, made the game havoc with hitters. Blue Moon Odom struck out 11 batters in seven innings. Billingham struck out seven over eight. It didn’t help that the field was sodden with rain from nearly a week’s worth of deluges.

In the seventh, Odom gave up a single to Tony Perez. Menke sacrificed . Geronimo hit the next pitch into the outfield which was now a swampland. Perez lumbered around third, stumbled but a slow Hendrick didn’t bother to travel. Perez scored, giving Cincinnati a 1-0 lead, their first of the entire series.

The game was notable for something that no series had ever seen. With two on and Johnny Bench up and a full count on him, Williams set things up as if he were going to walk him but ordered Fingers to actually throw a pitch to strike him out. Fingers thought Williams was crazy and Tenace was baffled. It shouldn’t have worked – Morgan caught on the moment Fingers threw – but it did. Bench was retired. It didn’t matter in the short-term – the Reds still notched their first win – but it showed the kind of manager Williams was.

The next day Holtzman was nearly as dominant in Game 4 as in Game 1. He gave up just four hits in seven innings. Tenace hit a home run for a 1-0 lead. Williams brought in Vida Blue  - who spent most of the postseason working in relief. This time with two on and one out, he walked Morgan and Bobby Tolan drove in 2 runs. The Reds were up 2-1.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Reds were still ahead. What happened next was more improbable than the trick play in Game 3. After one out, Williams called Gonzalo Marquez to pinch hit for Hendrick. Marquez got his four pinch hit of the postseason. Tenace singled. Two on. Don Mincher went in to pinch hit for second basemen Dick Green. Mincher had hit .148 for the season. Mincher hit reliever Clay Carroll’s second pitch to tie the game and move the runner to third. Angel Mangual was sent in to pinch hit for Rollie Fingers. Williams replaced Mincher with Odom as a pinch runner – and then before Odom went out, changed his mind and left Mincher in. The infield played in, expecting a suicide squeeze. Mangual slapped the first pitch up the ground, past a diving Morgan. The A’s had won 3-2 and were up 3 games to 1.

The Reds were on the verge of annihilation. Their pitching staff had given up just eight runs in four innings, but they were on the cusp of defeat. All they needed was one more win and Hunter was pitching Game 5.

But Pete Rose had no intention of letting the Reds go quietly. He hit Hunter’s first pitch of Game 5 for a home run. It was a sign that offense, which had been in held in check for four games, was in business.  Tenace hit a three run homer in the second, but the Reds recovered with a homer by Menke and two rallies that Rose started. The final one put them up 5-4. In the ninth the A’s put on a rally. Tenace led off but Anderson ordered him walked. Ted Kubiak popped out. Williams inserted Odom as a pinch runner. Duncan hit a single. Bert Campaneris just needed to hit a fly ball to tie the score. Unfortunately, he hit a foul pop-up. Morgan called for it, then slipped as he caught the ball. Odom was running, but Morgan made a perfect throw to Bench. The Reds were still alive.

The next day was a disaster. With their pitching plans shot, Williams found that he had only one option for Game 6 – Blue. Blue, however, had pitched in relief in three of the five series games already  and seven in the post season.

Blue was exhausted but pitched fine for five innings, only giving up two runs. Then in the sixth, Tolan hit a double. Williams went to his bullpen and it became a rout. The Reds won 8-1 and the series was tied at three games apiece.

The momentum had shifted back to Cincinnati. And it didn’t help the Reds were stealing the A’s blind. Tenace had been the offensive force, but defensively he had allowed thirteen stolen bases in six games. He’d also received a death threat just prior to Game 7 from a bitter Reds fan who claimed he would shoot him if he hit another home run – and was found with a loaded hand gun. The FBI was called in for protection.

At the start of Game 7, Williams made a decision that he hoped would solve two problems. He moved Tenace to first base, replacing him with Mike Epstein who was in the midst of a 0 for 21 slump. He placed Duncan, the better defensive catcher, behind the plate.

It was a rematch of Game 3 with Billingham facing off against Odom. In the first, with two out and Mangual on third , Tenace tapped a two hopper to Menke…which hit a seam in the artificial turf at Riverfront. Menke missed it and Mangual scrambled home. 1-0 Oakland.

In the fourth, Morgan walked and took off to second. Duncan nailed with a bullet. Morgan did not test Duncan again.

In the fifth, Odom faltered. With 2 on and a 2-1 count on Concepion, Williams called in Hunter in relief on two days rest. Hunter finished the walk. Anderson sent Hal McRae in to bat for Billingham. McRae hit a fastball that looked like it was about to leave the park. Mangual caught it. Perez scored but that was all the Reds managed. The game was tied.

In the sixth, Tenace hit a double to score Campaneris and Bando drove in another run. It was 3-1. All the A’s needed was too hold on. Like everything else in the series, it didn’t come easy.

It would take Hunter, Holtzman and Fingers to get through the eighth and even then, the Reds got another run. With a 3-2 lead, Fingers got the first two batters easily. Anderson was left with the last man on the bench, Darrel Chaney 0-7 in the series. But Fingers hit him by accident. Now he had to pitch to Pete Rose. Williams wanted to pull Fingers. Duncan talked him out of it.

Rose hit a ball to left-center. Rudi grabbed it. The A’s had won their first World Championship since 1930. At the Oakland Coliseum, filled to capacity with fans watching the Raiders play the Broncos, burst into applause as those who had transistor radios learned the happy news.

The unlikely hero was Gene Tenace, who had hit .348 with four home runs and 9 RBIs. No other A had managed more than 1. The most runs the A’s had scored in any game was 4 in Game 5, which they had lost. The starting pitching , the bench and most of all Tenace had won the Series for Oakland over the Big Red Machine.

It was probably the most unbridled joy in the aftermath of an A’s championship. 30,000 fans were waiting when the A’s touched down in Oakland the next day. It was a madhouse that few who had seen the nearly empty stadiums during the season could have expected. Even Charlie Finley was beginning to get his due. The Sporting News named him the Sportsman of the Year, trumpeting his innovative bent for increasing baseball’s appeal.

But even here, the A’s were still not taking seriously by the baseball establishment. The widespread sentiment was that the A’s Championship was a fluke.

The next article will deal with the 1973 season where some of Finley’s idea continued to gain traction in the establishment and the A’s continued to find that no matter how much they won, they would never get respect – certainly not from the owner.

But before that, I will deal with the most significant and controversial change he made.

What We Get Wrong - And Right - About Andrew Johnson, Part 3: How Johnson and Robert E. Lee Never Get Credit For Ending The War

 

 

Note: For much of the material in this section, the author is grateful to the work of  Jay Winik author of  April 1865 and a section in What Ifs of American History.

 

The biggest burden that Andrew Johnson has borne by history was that he was almost singlehandedly responsible for squandering the possibilities in the post-Civil War world. That he utterly destroyed the plans for Reconstruction and that his willingness to accept the South back so quickly and with so few restrictions led, to within a decade of the end of the war, to the rise of Jim Crow in the South and any chance for civil rights and opportunities for African-Americans for nearly a century.

In the next article in this series I intend to go into the fallacies both in that argument as well as the inevitable problems Lincoln would have faced had he not been assassinated, but what I want to deal with in this article is a fact so obvious that most historians tend to leave it out of any story of the Civil War. And indeed, it is for that reason that two of the most controversial figures in American history have never gotten credit for what happened in April of 1865.

Like most of you I assumed that the end of the Civil War occurred on April 9^th 1865 when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. That date is so fixed in the average history book that, even after years of demythologizing both the war and why it was thought, we still make that assumption. Indeed, that was far from the truth – and even the idea of the surrender was never carved in stone.

Lee was the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and by 1865, commander of all the Confederate Armies. By April 2^nd the siege of Richmond had been broken and Lee had abandoned the capital. But even when Grant broke through, he didn’t believe that meant the end of hostilities. On April 8^th Lee managed to elude the Union Army, and on that day he seemed determined to fight to the death.

On the morning of April 9^th Lee did intend to fight, but his cavalry learned quickly there were two solid miles of Union infantry. He summoned his generals, trying to figure out to fight or surrender.  E. P. Alexander suggested an option that was favored by many – including Jefferson Davis, running for his life, still favored.

Simply, the army would scatter and assume guerilla warfare. As America would learn all too late in Vietnam, this kind of warfare can be enough to break a military. There had already been countless examples of this by the 1860’s and Lee’s own father had used it against the British during the Revolutionary War.

The Confederacy had some of the greatest guerilla fighters in history on its side; Nathan Bedford Forrest, William Quantrill; John Mosby and several brothers from Missouri led by Frank James. The Confederacy knew the countryside intimately, and it was more than suited for it: long mountain ranges, endless swamps and dark forests. In order for the Union to win, they would have to occupy the entire Confederacy. That meant federal forces would have to subdue, patrol and police an area as large as France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Poland combined.

And in this conflict, these forces would have no real rest, or respite, or any true sense of victory. With no sense of closure, eventually the Nation already exhausted from the conflict, would demand to sue for peace. The Union had already learned the hard way how horrid guerilla warfare was in Missouri where the carnage had been so great, even some Confederate generals had been appalled by it.

Robert E. Lee has been canonized in the South as a misunderstood hero, which is incredibly wrong. But history never credits him for defying Davis and his generals and deciding not to take this option. “It would set brother against brother as killers and marauders and the effect on the country would be too great.” It’s also worth noting that when Lee did surrender, it did not mitigate the feelings of vengeance in the North. The day that Lee surrender an article in the Chicago Tribune recommend he be hung.

But this gesture did not mean the end of all hostilities, something all – including Lincoln knew. Florida and Texas were still in complete control of the Confederacy. Over 175,000 men were determined to fight to the death, and Davis and his government were running deeper into the South. Even Lee’s wife said as much: “The end is not yet. Richmond is not the Confederacy. General Lee is not the Confederacy.” In the 1860s, it could take weeks, perhaps month before the news reached all the soldiers still fighting. Anything could happen to destroy the mood for tranquility. Five days later, something did.

After Lincoln’s assassination, the North was paralyzed with fear. In America’s young history, a President had never been assassinated before, certainly not with a war underway. As I mentioned, two Presidents had died in office within the past twenty years but the method for Presidential succession had never been tested in this way. And that was before you considered Johnson was also a Southern Democrat – essentially the enemy.

  There was genuine terror about the repercussions. Would the South take advantage of the chaos and resort to guerilla warfare? Would the Cabinet, who had no use for Johnson before his drunken performance at the Inauguration and were, after all, not members of his party, allow him to take the oath of office? Some thought the cabinet might attempt a regency government, and some feared for a military coup.

And even when Johnson was sworn in, there were calls for blood and vengeance throughout the north. Lincoln had never been immensely popular during this Presidency (and as we shall see in the next article, there was more than genuine reason for that animosity from both parties) but John Wilkes Booth and turned him into a martyr. Lincoln might have called for magnanimity and the spirit of Appomattox but large portions of the country did not feel that way at the time – and after all, the man had been murdered by those same people he had wanted mercy for.

It is very possible that had another Republican taken the oath – Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s first Vice President – that very well might have happened regardless. Lincoln had always managed to balance the Radical branch of his party who conflicted with every aspect of how he waged the war and certainly did not share his views on the peace. (I will deal with some of the most specific individuals in the next article because they are, in fact, critical to why Johnson was impeached.) Indeed a critical factor may have the way that Congress worked in the 19^th century. Congress had been sworn in along with Lincoln and Johnson but would not return for its first session until December of that year. Had a Congress completely controlled by the Republicans been in DC at the time,  Johnson might not have been able to withstand the calls for vengeance and indeed another Republican themselves would have been more inclined not to even hesitate.

Even if this had not been the case, Johnson would have been within his right to call for vengeance upon the South. His immediate superior had been assassinated; he had barely escaped death that same night twice. Robert E. Lee was back in Richmond. Johnson could have given into the mood of the papers and ordered Lee and his fellow generals executed without a second thought. The consequences might well have disastrous, but no one in the Cabinet or the North would have blinked twice.

But Johnson chose not to do so. His first act was for a day of national mourning. Then he presided with dignity over Lincoln’s funeral ceremony in D.C before his predecessor’s body was sent home to Springfield. Not long after, General Sherman reported that he had, without consulting Washington, reached an armistice agreement with Confederate General Joseph Johnston for the surrender of in North Carolina in exchange for the existing government remaining in power. Slaves would remain in chains. Johnson refused to accept this and sent word to Sherman to secure the surrender with no deals in politics. He also placed a bounty of $100,000 on Jefferson Davis which gave him a reputation for being tough on the South.

Lee, now safe in Richmond, again publicly spurned any temptation for guerilla warfare and called for all Southerners to become Americans. The generals chose to follow Lee’s example and not their Confederate commander-in-chief. By the end of April, the war was over.

Those who yearn for an America where we merely let the South secede in 1861 or demand more strict returns would do well to remember that neither case would have been peaceful for the country. It is impossible to picture a two state solution for the continent where the rest of our history would involve anything but constant internecine warfare.

This also leaves out the critical fact that since the majority of African Americans were in the South, we would have a nation that was still half-slave and half-free. The slavery question would have just continued in one part of the county and very well might have continued to this day. Does anyone truly believe that the South would have been inclined to let their property escape to a foreign nation – which is what the North would have been – and it would not have led to greater and more constant conflict?

 There would have been no peace if the South had just gone  - and the ‘Negro problem’ would have been ignored in the North for the rest of our history. Why should they? Slavery was a Southern institution and few had listened to abolitionists before the war. Even during the war the idea of abolition was repugnant to the Democrats that still remained and even the existing Republican party was divided over it. Those who feel America’s problems of today would be resolved if we’d just let the South go are guilty of, at best, willful blindness.

And to that the nation does owe a debt to both Johnson and Lee. The nation very well could have, rather than be united, end up becoming the Balkans, the Middle East – or Vietnam. The actions of Lee in calling for peace instead of guerilla warfare and Johnson decided to accept the spirit of Appomattox rather then the calls for bloodshed are something that nation has decided to given the credit for doing.

But then Johnson did squander the opportunity he’d been given. However, it’s worth remembering that was not entirely his fault, even though he does deserve much of the blame. In the next article I will deal with the flaws in Lincoln’s history tends to ignore and the major figures among the Radical Republicans who were critical to Johnson’s downfall.

 

 

FX's A Christmas Carol: The Mix of Peak TV and Dickens I Didn't Know I Was Looking For Until Now

 

By the end of December the average TV viewer,  whether they want to or not, will have encountered A Christmas Carol in so many variations that they might very well wish programming executives to be visited by three spirits to convince them to make sure that they keep it only once a year.

And to be fair, I have long since given up trying to count the variations of the story, authorized, adapted, or contorted out of proportion have been made by this point. The classic versions – the 1938 Reginald Owen and the 1951 Alistair Sim – are so good that you really wish Hollywood could have quit while they were ahead. When I was still a child, I saw a CBS version where George C. Scott played Scrooge so perfectly no variation has ever been able to top it. Patrick Stewart would so later in a movie for TNT in the mid-1990s.

Those are just the direct versions. There is of course the Broadway adaptation Scrooge!, filmed in 1970 with Albert Finney, who can not sing, in the title role. There’s Scrooged where Bill Murray plays a heartless network executive bullying his colleagues and forcing America to stay home on Christmas Eve to watch a live version of A Christmas Carol, purely for the sake of ratings. I’ll confess I’m fond of this version not just because of Murray’s performance or how it can be darker than some dramatic ones but because Murray’s version of a TV executive is completely fitting with the character of Scrooge. (“But people watched Sports Night! “Bah, Humbug! We must deplete the series population!”) I have not seen the TV movie with Susan Lucci as Ebbie and don’t track it down and inform me about it if you have by chance.

And every child by the time they are six or seven will have seen at least a couple dozen variations of it in the world of animated cartoons. When I was growing up they were showing what I assume was a Rankin Bass version with Walter Matthau doing Scrooge’s voice, and some pretty decent songs. The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, The Simpsons, they’ve all done versions at least once – hell, there was a long forgotten 80s cartoon called Beverly Hills Teens that did a three part story on it. And those are the children’s versions. God help me, Melrose Place did one where Heather Locklear was visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past and saw her future. Of course because this was 1990s soap opera; the lessons didn’t take beyond the next week.

A Christmas Carol is so ubiquitous that it may be the only work of Charles Dickens that most Americans have read or even know he wrote. One film actually completed the parallel about this called The Man Who Invented Christmas with Dan Stevens playing Dickens. And I am certain that most British citizens and literary scholars are justifiably appalled that the man who has little peer as the greatest author of the 19^th Century is remembered for what is, with little question, his least Dickensian novel. For one thing, it’s his shortest book, barely tapping at 250 pages. It also follows a single narrative as opposed to just one and follows everything through a single character’s perspective, which is far from anything Dickens usually did. But it is also Dickens’ most accessible work and because of that, it is far easier to adapt to film than any of his other novels.

Of course the movies have been doing this as long as there have been movies. From A Tale of Two Cities to David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby, the film industry is constantly trying to capture the magnificence of Dickens on screen. David Lean may have been the most successful at it: during the 1940s he directed two masterful adaptations Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. And making musicals from his work has always been a source of success: Oliver! Was a winner at both the Tonys and Oscars and they even managed a successful adaptation of his final, unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But the problem adapting Dickens successfully always runs against the brick wall of the fact that his best works contain so many characters and plots that a two or three hour film cannot encapsulate them.

That it was the best adaptations have exclusively been BBC miniseries going back as far as the 1970s. From major works such as the ones I’ve listed to Bleak House and The Old Curiosity Shop  works by Dickens have been one of the leading projects of both British theater and TV for more than half a century. And anyone who knows how Dickens originally told his stories should be stunned by this. When Dickens serialized his stories in London magazines, there were tales of thousands of Londoners crowding newsstands and waiting in harbors for delivers of the next installment of one of his stories. In a sense the works of Charles Dickens are the model not merely for so many great writers to come, but also the literary equivalent of how Peak TV would come.

Which brings me to FX’s version of A Christmas Carol which came out in 2019. I didn’t watch it when it came out nor over the several times it has ended up repeating during successive Christmases on FX. There were several changes to the makeup of it that sounded odd at the time, and frankly I didn’t really see a need to watch it. But this past week, I had occasion to do so and since this is the time of year to being writing these kinds of reviews, I figured why not.

Let’s deal with some of the changes that many considered controversial. The biggest is that Scrooge is played by Guy Pearce and where is he is not the youngest actor to play the role (Albert Finney was thirty-four when he played him in Scrooge) all previous Scrooges have looked to be elderly and on their last legs. Pearce’s is not only not decrepit; he looks vital and almost handsome. It’s worth noting that ‘elderly’ in Victorian England had a different connotation then it does today, particularly in an era with rampant disease and nothing resembling modern medicine. (Dickens himself died at 58, an age that in his era was considered among the elderly.)  The problem is that both Pearce and Stephen Graham (who plays Jacob Marley) do not seem like the kind of geezers that we have associated with the roles.

Pearce and the writing make up for that with the fact that Scrooge’s cynicism and darkness is just as apparent, and its clear that his contempt is not merely for Christmas but the world at large.  That actually makes some parts of the first episode better in some ways. You got the feeling in previous versions that people were being generous to Scrooge because they thought he was old and frail. It’s a lot harder to hold your disdain for a man who is both wealthy and looks stronger than you.

There are also images throughout the series that border on Dickensian as well as the mood of the characters. A Christmas Carol is a ghost story but the ghosts seem to be trying to help Scrooge so the supernatural elements, at least until the end, seem benevolent. Here the writers don’t hide the trappings not merely of horror, but also gothic horror.

There’s also a benefit that the story being split over three nights (appropriately) helps add depth to the other characters. Some have complained that Scrooge is the only character in the novel who is anything more than a caricature, and there is some literary merit in that. Spread out over three episodes, the writers have the ability to give the other characters – including Scrooge – depth that was lacking. You get a sense of it in each of the episode.

The first part is titled The Human Beast. Marley awakes in his grave after a youth has pissed on it and is crying for peace. We see him yanked from his grave and eventually see his chains being forged. They are forged by one of the workers who died in an explosion in a factory that was acquired by Scrooge and Marley and that they cut the corners to the point that dozens died. Scrooge eventually sees this explosion. Dickens only says that Scrooge is a monster because he is a usurer and loves money. This adaptation makes it very clear what the cost of that wealth was and it’s the kind of thing Dickens would use in other novels.

In the novel both Bob Cratchit and Fred are cheerful and kind to Scrooge in the opening chapter. This is not the case here. Cratchit is clearly exhausted with Scrooge and his boss now seems to enjoy lording his authority over him and flaunting his power. Cratchit tries to be patience because he wants to go home early. Scrooge just seemed cheap in previous versions; Pearce’s seems cruel. When Bob completes a task perfectly and on time, Scrooge mocks him and then purposely creates another one for him to do.

In all other versions Fred is always cheerful despite Scrooge’s disregard for him. In this one, Fred seems to have little patience for his uncle. There’s a weariness in the behavior between them absent from previous versions. And there’s a sorrow. Fred tells his uncle that he’s will never invite him to another Christmas, and that he has kept doing so over his wife’s objections. When he leaves, he actually tells Scrooge he doubts he’ll ever see him again.

There’s also a deeper cynicism to Scrooge here. He hates Christmas because he considers it a lie to how human nature works. Man is a beast 364 days of the year; why is he only on Christmas? What’s telling that this attitude frequently pervades much of Dickens’ other work; the cheerful attitude so many of the poor and downtrodden in this story is an outlier for almost the rest of his fiction.

We also see for the first time Scrooge actually misses Marley. He talks to him as if he is still there frequently. And it’s also worth noting that unlike other incarnations, the element of the supernatural start early. There are signs of ghosts, in terms of coins and relics well before Scrooge even gets out of the office and by the time he sees Marley on the doorknocker, his reaction is such that he breaks off the jaw. When Marley manifests, the jaw is still off and he has to repair it.

The actual meeting takes less time in this version, but for once we don’t need it to. Marley has shown us in his own encounters how unlikely he thinks it is Scrooge will end up repenting and tells as much to the Ghost of Christmas Past. Scrooge’s reaction doesn’t change, but the fact that Marley knows his colleague makes it clear he thinks Scrooge’s repentance is impossible.

The second part is titled: “The Human Heart.”  It deals entirely with the visitation of the Ghost of Christmas Past. This ghost does not take the form of a benevolent old lady, as is traditional but a more sinister man. We see him in the first part, throwing toys of Marley on a fire speaking with little regard for Marley or Scrooge.

In this part we get a very clear picture of Scrooge’s past, and it bares little resemblance to what we see in the novel or any incarnation. For starters, we get as clear a picture of Scrooge’s father in a single incident that is clearly representative of the man he was. We see it in a moment of a single incident where Scrooge remembers the only present he got – a small mouse with a bell around its neck. Scrooge’s father comes home drunkenly singing, berates his family and screams at the idea of the gift, snapping the mouse’s neck. We get a sense of how much Scrooge has been equating love with money ever since. And the Ghost (Andy Serkis) wants him to unlearn this lesson.

Throughout the past the Ghost (as is appropriate for a character played by Serkis) takes the form of memories from past. And unlike previous incarnations which show Scrooge seeing pleasant memories that he took wrong; this one concentrates more on his worst aspects. I have to say I actually view this as a positive change as well as making Scrooge more of the kind of industrialist Dickens loathed.

We do see the scene at the boarding school he stayed at, but this time the memory is not pleasant. Here we see his sister Lotte come to bring him home, and that Fezziwig refuses initially. It’s part of the novel that Scrooge’s father never brought him home for Christmas; here the implication involves a certain amount of extortion and probably worse. Then we see a mining disaster caused by the work of Scrooge and Marley’s purchases and the two men extorting a weaving owner to by a company for pennies on the dollar. Scrooge is revealed to be a cross between the robber baron and the corporate raiders of today, buying companies and selling them for parts. There is no mention of Elizabeth in the past except for one scene; we see nothing of Fred after the pilot. The images that is critical are those of looms, turning into printing presses and printing out money in masses.

The critical moment in The Human Heart plays out in the third part. We see just Tim being born and that he is in poor health. Then we see Mary come to see Scrooge on Christmas Eve to beg for a loan for surgery to save her sons life. Scrooge listens to her disinterestedly and says he will give her the money as a gift – if she comes to his house that Christmas Eve.

The conclusion is called ‘A Bag of Gravel’ and begins with the scene that follows. Here I will tread carefully because most of what happens in the final part is divergent from what we have seen. Mary comes to Scrooge’s home fully expecting that she is there to prostitute herself. He does not do that. What he does is far worse than any sexual offense he could ever put on a woman. I won’t tell you what but what it seems to be is a variation on the moral arithmetic he has been doing through the first two episodes. I have to say this part of it somewhat Dickensian, certainly keeping with 19^th century literature. What follows does seem a bit too feminist for me and may lead some viewers to think it is some kind of correctness gone amok.

Scrooge tries to justify his actions and the Ghost of Christmas Past leaves in disgust and anger. The Ghost walk back to Marley, still in the snow, who feels nothing can change.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is also different – it’s Lottie, Ebenezer’s sister. I favor this change as it is keeping with the more traditional model of the ghost story. Lottie talks to Ebenezer in scientific terms about the moral arithmetic he mentioned earlier and then they go to the Cratchit’s house. (Fred is absent after the first episode.) We see the Cratchit’s building gifts for their children and then Christmas dinner.  At that dinner, there has been a gulf between Mary and Bob we saw in the previous two episodes that they’ve been trying to put off.  Mary wants to tell her husband about how she got the money, but she can not tell the truth. So he invents a story. Bob forgives her and we seem to be past it – but what happens next shows that the spirit of Scrooge’s menace (Mary can see Scrooge for a moment) will hold over them.

The next scene takes place at a Christmas memorial for all those lost in the mine explosion we saw in the second episode. We also see the young man who ‘paid his respect’ to Marley in the opening; he lost much of his family. For the first time Scrooge begins to feel regret and shame for what he is. In the final scene between him and Lottie, he apologizes for not being the kind of person he should have been. She warns him that the next ghost has no room for excuses.

The Ghost of Christmas Future takes the form of a pale man with his lips sewn shut – “because no one can no the future, he cannot speak.” This scene is also very different in several sense that I will leave you discover, save for the death of Tiny Tim. Scrooge is also at his grave but unlike past versions, he is aware of it and no longer cares for his own fate.

The major difference at the end of this is that he has a conversation with Marley. The next part is not remotely something that Dickens would write but in all honesty, it may be a better ending than the one we have gotten all these years. The fact that Scrooge learns he will die alone and unloved, with vultures picking his bedclothes is a very Dickensian theme – but the way that it is told as if he is completely oblivious to the fact that they are speaking of him all this time, seems beneath someone of his intelligence. Here Ebenezer makes a more telling decision that is different because it is far more rational.

I won’t reveal the final minutes because they are also vastly different from the ones we have spent years playing and replaying. What I will say is that there is no God bless us everyone, that Scrooge’s noble gestures are made more real because it is clear they are not necessarily going to be accepted – and that at the end he knows that his journey towards salvation is something he will try for but no longer cares if he receives it. I have to say there is something refreshingly unsentimental and sappy about this for any Christmas story, particularly this one.

What you will end up thinking of FX’s A Christmas Carol might paradoxically depend on how much you like the holiday season. If you like sentimental, often treacly holiday specials that fill the year and if you want to get away from the grimness that pervades so much of our television, I can see why you might not want to indulge in a story that is more Dickensian than this story is.

If, however, you want to see a superbly written series, with very good performances and some truly memorable imagery and direction, if you want to see what Christmas would truly have been like in the world of Dickensian England rather than the version we get in this story, if you actually want to see the gothic and supernatural nature that this story promises but often get lost in the sometimes saccharine nature of the fable – and perhaps most importantly, what the spirit of Christmas should be as opposed to what we seem to think it is – then you might be the kind of person for whom the FX version fits.

  My advice, next Christmas search it out on Hulu and visit it over three nights. And then, if you’re like me, make plans to see the version of Great Expectations that dropped this year to see what Peak TV can do with the real Charles Dickens.

The Best TV of 2023: Jury Prize

 

Those of you who have read these end-of-year pieces know that in recent years I have added ‘Jury Prize’. This term was used by Roger Ebert for his Best of the year list for films that he considered brilliant but not worthy of being in the top ten.

This year, in large part because of the strike, I’ve decided to change the format. I intend to have a section of series that ended in 2023, some by cancellation, others because of the writers decided to end them on their own terms. Some made the list in past years; others might have in future. Call it an ‘In Memoriam’ for shows that were taken from us too soon.

 

Network Comedy I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

The Wonder Years

As you might recall when this reimagining of The Wonder Years debuted in the fall of 2021, I immediately put it on my ten best list. It was one of the major phenomena of ABC’s fall season, was renewed for a second year…and then for reasons utterly inexplicable didn’t debut in the fall of 2022 or even in this winter. Instead, the show’s second season was essentially burnt off during the summer.

This is one of the more baffling decisions any service made in all of 2023 because I still don’t know why they soured on the property so quickly. It certainly had nothing to do with a decline in quality; the second season of the show was, if anything, better the first. It explored more thoroughly some of the deeper issues that were coming to light at the end of the 1960s -  homosexuality, swingers, the process of using African-Americans to lower rent in white neighborhoods, education. And the show remained one of the funniest series on any service, perfectly cast, with sublime references that show not only how far we’ve come but how far we haven’t. The new version of The Wonder Years was targeted by review bombing at the start, proved that it was a masterpiece in its own right, and was cast aside for reasons that none will understand. It’s a sad ending to a series that in just two seasons had proven it was as much a masterpiece as the original.

 

Network Drama I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

The Company You Keep

ABC killed a lot of shows at the end of 2023 that may very well have been victims of the strike. A lot of them were high among the best quality dramas they’d done: Big Sky and Alaska Daily each made my top ten list in past years. But the one I’ll miss the most by far is The Company You Keep. An inspired mix of genres that kept you guessing every step of the way and powered by the incredible chemistry of the two leads Milo Ventimiglia and Catherine Hae Kim, this show was one of the reasons Sundays in the spring of 2023 kept my DVR extremely crowded as I kept trying to choose which series to watch and which to record.

The show featured some incredible performances by superb character actors Polly Draper, Saarah Wayne Callies and the incomparable William Fichtner as the Nicoletti family, a family of con artists who really are Robin Hoods. In a matter of a handful of episodes they were all fully and completely realized, particularly in a struggle with the mysterious Daphne, a character who was by far one of the most intriguing antagonists all year. She spent much of the period a villain, but when you finally learned her backstory you saw she was a victim. The parallel line involving the Hill family had its own moments of power dynamics and had moments of similar intrigue along the way.

The HCA nominated the show for several awards in its only season and I think it could have contender for more in other years. I know the ratings were never great for this show and it was a freshman series, but I think it would have survived had it not been for the strike. I will miss it.

 

Cable Comedy Series I’ll Miss The Most

Breeders (FX)

My only real complaint about the final season of Breeders is that it didn’t seem like a final season – even the last episode seemed to leave room for more stories to be told. But I have confidence that Martin Freeman, the series star and co-creator, knows enough about television that you want to leave your audience wanting more and that life doesn’t have a real ending.

Freeman and his co-star Daisy Haggard were sublime in the final season as they found themselves becoming grandparents and coming to terms with the fact that their children were leaving them, but not necessarily changing. The series flashed forward five years and we saw that Luke and Ava (now played by new actors) were still capable of making bad decisions but now they had no power to fix them. Luke and his girlfriend Maya were having a child, which infuriated Paul and Ally but not Maya’s parents (or his mother to be specific) and Ally found that she was beginning to be pushed back. Ava realized that she was attracted to girls and spent most of the final season attracted to one girl and then seemed to realize at the end of the series, she truly loved her best friend. Meanwhile Paul’s parents reached their eighties, were stealing with the ramifications of Frank’s infidelity and the fact that the mother was dealing with senility.

As I suspected the series did come to a conclusion but not an end, and it would have been too much for a hope that it would be happy. But it was a realistic and completely sympathetic one to a family that every single one of us would recognize  and therefore is probably the most realistic one we’ll ever see on TV.

 

 Drama I’m Glad We Got A Second Season

Perry Mason (HBO)

Apparently we weren’t even supposed to get another season of Perry Mason. And Matthew Rhys made it very clear that while he might want to do a third season, part of him felt that it would be fine if the story ended here. So in that sense, we shouldn’t mourn the loss of the second season but count ourselves fortunate to get one. And it was just as remarkable as the first.

In a twist that has never happened in a century of the character’s existence Perry Mason was defending two clients who were guilty of the crimes that they were accused of. And in a move that is fitting with this Perry Mason, he immediately tried to wash his hands of it. But the story of the murder of a wealthy socialite by two homeless Latinos in the Depression, the writers told a story that we all can recognize – the xenophobia, the media driving to judgment, the racism and homophobia that today’s LGBTQ+ and African-Americans can’t even begin to fathom, no matter what they read in books.

And at the top of the chain was Hope Davis in one of the great character performances of the year. A wealthy female socialite who Della Street admired at her core, but proved herself to be as ruthless, monstrous as any man then or now. And when the second season ended, there was no more sense of justice served that at the end of the first. One man still went to prison for the rest of his life, and there is no evidence that the people responsible will ever pay for their crimes.

At the center of the show was Matthew Rhys, demonstrating he is one of the greatest actors of the past decade. His Perry Mason is self-destructive, paranoid and dealing with the trauma that the client he got acquitted committed suicide. In the final episode, he is sitting in a prison cell but the look on his face is as close to being at peace that we’ve seen him in the entire series. There’s the slightest chance he might yet be able to move forward.

Given the nature of Peak TV, it is possible that someday we will get another season of Perry Mason regardless. But even if we don’t, I’m still glad I saw this incarnation. It was the version this century needed – and was somehow true to the original while being completely its own beast.

 

Cable Series I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

Lucky Hank (AMC)

Like I said, my Sunday nights were busy and much of them starting in April were from watching the superb dramedy Lucky Hank. The show was as clear a portrait of today’s colleges are like, from the faculty infighting over mediocre stakes, to students needing to be told they were perfect and being bought off by faculty rather than deal with them, to a university president who didn’t want to pay for anything. Bob Odenkirk’s follow-up to Better Call Saul allowed him to play someone funny (and his own age) as well someone emotionally crippled by a father whose success he can never achievement and whose abandonment he can never understand.

The supporting cast led by such talents as Mirelle Enos, Diedrich Bader and Cedric Yarborough were all hysterical as they dealt with all the horrible frustrations of life we just can’t ignore but think we have to. Hank’s wife wanted to leave him but didn’t have the energy. His daughter was too lazy to find a job. Hank cared for his TA enough to get her a new job but not enough to sleep with her. Even his act of rebellion in the final episode was clearly something neither his employer nor his wife really believed was genuine.

The decision to cancel this show is another sign that AMC is moving away from the prestige series that made it great into the world of supernatural franchises that are easy. (Though their support for Dark Winds is encouraging.) Lucky Hank didn’t fit any real category on TV today. That used to be a reason to keep it going.

Enough of what we lost. I’ll wrap this up with some great shows we gained.

 

Network Series That Gives Me Hope for the Future

Accused

Admittedly the brilliant concept – each series following a single character through a crime that ended them in court – did not always pay off every time. But it did so  often enough that it gave life to a genre that has almost disappeared on network TV: the anthology show.

Howard Gordon helped adapt a British TV series that follows each major character dealing with issues that are timely in every way: mass shootings, white supremacy, cancel culture, homophobia, internet conspiracies, relationships between teachers and students. And while not all of them were equal in quality, enough of them resonated and had the actors to back it up. From Michael Chiklis and Jason Ritter to Abagail Breslin and Keith Carradine,  the show featured exceptional performances showing how so many characters could make mistake after mistake and end up in situations they could not get out off. The talent also extending behind the scenes as Marlee Matlin, Mary Lynn Raskjub and Billy Porter took time directing.

Accused received many nominations from the HCA and was renewed for a second season. It is not clear yet when it will debut but it is a breath of fresh air, both for the genre and the source.

 

Streaming Hit More Than Worth The Eyeballs

The Night Agent (Netflix)

I watched this series with some of my closest friends over this past summer. The three of us don’t agree about a lot of TV in any service but all three of us thought it was a masterpiece.

I’m not entirely thrilled with Shawn Ryan’s attitude during the WGA strike, considering he was one of the loudest voices about not getting a fair shake from streaming. That may have been one factor for my not putting it in the top ten. But as both an action series, a political thriller and a straight drama, The Night Agent managed to fire on all cylinders on every scene I watched it. Newcomer Gabriel Basso was superb as a man who is given a job where nothing happens and whose life changes when the phone that never rings actually does. He then finds himself drawn to a conspiracy that reaches very high in the corridors of powers and leads to dozens of people dying before it is over.

The show also had some of my favorite character actors of the past twenty years in critical roles that Ryan seemed to cast as much for their abilities as performers as winks to prior roles. Hong Chau, Bruce Greenwood, DB Woodside and Kari Matchett were all perfect in every scene and you never knew who to trust or how many angles they were playing. Throw in two of the most frightening killers I’ve seen since the days of Vince Gilligan and you have the making of one of the most brilliant thrillers.

I understand completely why the show was renewed for a second season so quickly; it is the masterpiece so many think it is. And while Ryan will be leaving the novel the story is adapted from, I have complete faith in both him and the talent he assembles for another great story.

 

 

 

Series That Almost Made Me Change My Mind on Reality TV

Jury Duty (Freevee)

While the rest of the world was falling in love with Jury Duty this year, my prejudice towards reality television – which I thought it was – led to be ignore it no matter how many awards it got nominated for. Even the Emmy nomination for Best Comedy was not enough. Were it not for the strike, I would not have even bother to watch it. But I did – and I get it now.

To be clear Jury Duty isn’t reality TV in the traditional term so much as it is experimental. There’s only one person in the entire series who isn’t in on the fact that this is scripted – and its Ronald Gladden. Everyone else is an actor, and the only reason Gladden didn’t cop to it is because one of the people called for jury duty is James Marsden in one of the more sublime works of self-parody in history. For seven episodes everything that possibly can go wrong for Ronald seems to and he has to keep reacting to all of the ridiculously absurd things that are going on around him. In the finale, when he is told what is happening, the cast and creators admitted as to how shocked they were not only that he handled it so well, but that there were times he actually seemed to be ahead of what they had planned in the next episode. Credit to Gladden that he seems to be as much a good sport about this when the truth came out. (Though the $100,000 he was paid must have helped.)

I think it’s going to be impossible for the creators of this show to ever do this exact thing again. Now that Jury Duty has become a phenomena, if they even try to have a camera in a courtroom or if say, Evan Rachel Wood shows up for jury duty, everyone’s going to be suspicious. Still, we should be grateful for what we got.

 

Jeopardy Masters

Even if I were not the die-hard Jeopardy fan I was this show has made an impact almost entirely separate from the original. Several consider among the best new shows of 2023, it averaged more than 10 million viewers an episode and it has been nominated for Emmys for both the show and Ken Jennings as its host. And it was one of the anticipated shows well worth the wait.

James Holzhauer, Amy Schneider, Mattea Roach and Matt Amodio have all more than earned the title Master and during the 2022 Tournament of Champions both Andrew He and Sam Buttrey proved their skill as Jeopardy champions. In their interactions with Ken Jennings, who officially found his perfect balance as host this year, the banter was at a level I don’t think would have been possible with Trebek, particularly between him and Holzhauer given their history. All of them were brilliant to watch play, hysterical in their interviews and clearly having a huge amount of fun in so many places: Holzhauer took the mantle of ‘game show villain’  and somehow managed to make everybody who had hated him in the past love him now.

There was a huge amount of respect and banter between all six players, surprises in every game and some twists along the way. James Holzhauer’s win was well earned: he was dominant throughout the quarterfinals, but with each round it got tougher and only a last minute twist in Final Jeopardy allowed him to win the inaugural prize.

Jeopardy has been going through some tough times this past year. Mayim Bialik’s departure, the problems with recycled clues in the new season and the ‘Tournament Hell’ that the fan is beginning to lose patience with. But as long as Masters exist, I have great hope for the show’s future in the post-Trebek era – and I look forward to seeing the second edition this spring.

 

All in all, there was still a lot of great TV in 2023. And now that the strike is over, I expect there will be more in the year to come. But before that in the next few weeks, I will be dealing with my predictions for the various awards shows that will be airing in the opening weeks of 2023. (Not the Emmys, I spent the last few weeks covering them.)

Defining The Truth In America, Part 3: When It Comes To Today's Politics, How Much Time on 'The tRUTH' should we Spend?

 

 

Earlier this month, I was unintentionally listening to MSNBC. (Over the last two years I have almost completely erased my exposure to cable news except on cases of absolute necessity.) Two pundits were discussing one of Donald Trump’s criminal trials: the details escape me and are irrelevant to this story. What matters is that one of those pundits, thinking about next year’s election mentioned this random statistic. I don’t know where he got it, but unlike most statistics, I’m convinced of its accuracy.

In a mournful voice this reporter said: “The average American thinks about politics an average of four minutes a week.” It might have been a day, but that wouldn’t have mattered: all that matters is that this reporter says it’s not enough.

When I heard this stat I agreed with it. In fact, I’m convinced the number is inflated. But after a few weeks, I’ve come to grips with what this figure makes me feel to this average American.

Envy. Sheer, unadulterated envy.

 As one of those Americans who thinks considerably more time each day than that person, and who has written so much about it over this past year, I am inclined to think when it comes to the world of politics today – hell, for much of my lifetime – ignorance is bliss. Indeed, little that I have encountered in any major source of discussion of politics – the mainstream media, cable news, social media, even the countless columns that I read on this very blog – have done much to convince me that the people who supposedly know far more politics, who live and breathe it,  are making the best possible argument for a well-informed populace on the subject of politics or history, particularly the American version.

Now I speak as someone who probably spends closer to an hour a day dealing with politics – and has been encouraged by those who care about him that it’s in his interest to perhaps not to obsess over it as much as everybody else. And they’re not entirely wrong. Because even if you spend those four minutes in a day listening to discourse on politics from those who are more knowledgeable, there’s a certain argument to it.

There are a lot of things I get from all of the writing, TV, social media, and basically everything I have absorbed from politics for the last fifteen years, well before the time Donald Trump came on to the scene. The specifics are irrelevant; I’m going to concentrate to tone. They all involve some combination of outrage, dismay, hostility, depression and particularly on sites in the blog, a sense of impending doom. In the latter case, I’ve noted that some of the people in this column seem to be looking forward to that impending doom, which is what they have in common with so many other people who claim to speak the ‘truth’ on politics’: self-righteousness.

The combination varies from source to source: mainstream media tries to be objective in its reporting, but the sense of dismay seeps in, nonetheless. Cable news deals with anger and outrage on some channels; contempt and dismay on others. In social media with no filters or safeguards, they all overwhelm you.

At their core, what you find everywhere is blame for why the world is like this. And the scapegoats are everywhere. The left loves to blame rightwing media and the repeal of the fairness doctrine. The right is just as rabid at blame the coastal elites and the decline of family values. Depending on the narrator on social media, you can blame the problems in America on everything: institutional racism, institutional sexism, institutional homophobia, failure of education, failure of the right kind of education. Rich white people are usually the top to blame. The electoral college, too much democracy, too little democracy, Citizens United, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, the designated hitter – basically everybody but the person writing the column and the identity group they belong to.

But at a certain point, in all of these narratives, someone will eventually blame the average American. Not of course, the people who are the loudest voices at columns these. But really, everyone else. They blame them for many things: they are held as being vessels for cable news to fill them in on the right, for living in rural states, for believing in God instead of science (because in their minds the two are mutually exclusive). On the right, the inverse is always the truth: because they don’t live in real America, they don’t have the values and logic and keep falling for the Democrat spiel. The news media will blame it on other factors, usually the cable network that gives the opposite message of them and is poisoning the listeners with the wrong message.

And at the core of it is a subtle, underlying truth: if the average person were better educated (by the education they agree with) if they were better informed (by their sources of media) or paid more attention, we could begin to fix America.

The thing is, all of the people purveying these messages are better informed, educated, and pay more attention. In many cases, their employment depends on it. And none of them seem particularly happy to know everything that we should know. The constant underlying tone from everybody who spends their life and careers in the political system is that the world is doomed and nothing that anybody can do will stop the apocalypse.

If it doesn’t happen this year – like many ‘informed people’ thought was going to happen in the midterms last year – they don’t take it as a sign things will get better, they shrug and just say that the apocalypse has been postponed by a couple of years. The purveyors of doom-porn on this blog are just the social media example of what we see constantly on CNN and really every other news channel. The world’s going to end in a few years and nothing can change that. I remember Michael Moore saying in Fahrenheit 11/9 Donald Trump would be the last president of the United States. He still hasn’t offered a retraction from that after five years.

So I think it’s good that the average American doesn’t pay more than four minutes a day or a week on politics. If they spent half an hour a day on the subject on any major news network, I think the only realistic reaction would be an inability to get out of bed the next day. If the average American had absorbed the narrative of 2022 they would have believed with every fiber of their being that it didn’t matter if they voted, democracy would end after election day that year. The fact that the red wave never happened is a demonstration that all of these people who spent their lives eating and breathing politics more than the ‘average American’ are no more able to see the future than the rest of us.

Now I’m not going to lie and say that the person that spends less time then me on politics in the course of the day is the paragon of happiness: I have little doubt they have their own miseries and struggles that make their lives barely tolerable at times. What I am suggesting is that because they aren’t drowning in the obvious morass of our system the way so many of us do, the politics of today aren’t living rent-free in their head. Perhaps its easier for some of them to enjoy life a little more than so many of us well-informed people who talk about the subject. I certainly get the sense that most of the people who write on any part of politics are utterly despondent and miserable in a way that dominates their lives that they are incapable of expressing any other emotion in their writing.

Similarly I’m not going to dare to suggest that the answer to all our problems in America lie in caring about the precarious state of our nation less. But let me speak from experience here. To obsess about any single subject – particularly one where you can do nothing to change no matter how hard you try – almost always brings anguish in the short and long run. It’s one thing to write these columns because you find them therapeutic, as I often do. But so much of the writing in these columns, so much of the political discourse, all of the polarization in our society seems to be built on three little words:

Misery loves company.

I honestly feel that’s the reason so much of our discourse takes this form. It’s not about telling ‘the truth’ or informing the public or even to express our common outrage. It’s because for some people, our misery about society is so horrible that they can only feel whole when they build a community of people who are as unhappy as they are or want them to be as unhappy as they are. How much of this is built into the very real flaws of our system or the idea of some kind of misguided utopia that can not be formed but they still think would be possible will differ from person to person. I do know that solutions are less important to them than being upset at how broken it is.

I won’t lie that  now America is currently broken or that fixing it may be impossible. The difference is the modifiers in both statements. The electorate has spent two centuries performing in ways no statistician can ever predict. It’s the most frustrating thing about the democratic process. It’s also the most reassuring. Every two years, we put the faith of our system in the hands of people who pay infinitely less attention to the political process than the talking heads spends do. It’s scary for all of these people, I grant you. And I have to tell what scares me more than that is that some of the loudest voices – the ones who think more than four minutes a day on the subject – have decided the best thing to do is not do what all of them are willing to do.

So I’ll ask those very people who might read this column: if the knowledge of ‘the truth’ of how our American democracy works has made you feel so superior than those who don’t think about as much as you that voting is something you feel is beneath you, then maybe, just maybe, these people who don’t pay as much attention to American politics as you do, care about our democratic system then you do. They may not be smarter than you or me but speaking for myself, I respect them infinitely more than you.