This week in TV Guide: August 2, 1986

I've been doing this gig now for what, 12 years? You'd think I'd know the answer to that, but it's been demonstrated that many of you out there are more familiar with what I've written than I am. Anyway, during all these years, one of my constant themes has been the intimate role that television has played in people's lives. This week's lead story, by Joanmarie Kalter, examines how television "shapes the lives" of people in retirement communities—how, in fact, it is the only link to the outside world for many.

Kalter reports from On Top of the World, a middle-class condo community of about 8,000 in Clearwater, Florida, where the residents aren't afraid to admit that not only do they watch a lot of television, they love doing so. (I wonder if it's too late to get a condo there.) They use it for, among other things, keeping track of the world. "I do like to tune in on Washington Week," says Arley Sica. "And I'll tell you why. Those fellows are specialists. They have contacts in the Pentagon, entree to Congress. They're very important for understanding the news of the week." Among other favorites, they enjoy watching Wall $treet Week, 20/20, Dallas, Cosby, and Dynasty. He'd go into more detail, but he excuses himself, telling Kalter that it's time for the news.

Helen Martin looks at Today hosts Jane Pauly, Briant Gumbel, and Willard Scott almost like friends. Clarence Mahrie enjoys Hawaii Five-O, Police Woman and Barney Miller; he likes these kinds of shows that "solve the problems and it comes to a finish, which you know from the beginning anyway.  Sophia Karageorges watches shows like Highway to Heaven "where things come out good in the end, because life isn't like that. So you find it where you can." And when dinner's through, everyone crowds around, talking about their favorites, what they like and what they don't ("We already know what goes on in the bedroom," one says about the sexier shows on the tube. "They don't have to show us."), and they just laugh when Kalter tells them that TV often portrays older men as "bad" and older women as "unsuccessful." Says one woman, "Television is the best thing that was ever invented. That's all I can say." (These people really are kindred souls.")

Although advertisers poo-poo them, senior citizens are among television's most loyal viewers. They're also among the wealthiest; according to business-research group The Conference Board, "poverty rates among the elderly are now lower than for others, while those aged 65 to 75 enjoy more income per person than those under 45; 'The older consumer, so cavalierly ignored by so marketers, is in fact the prime customer in the upscale market.'" And slowly television has started to respond: Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Joan Collins, Lauren Bacall, and others are showing that "consumers in retirement are not ready to be old; what they seek, instead, is a final chance to be young."

Television does more than just fill time for these people; rather than being turned into couch potatoes, it keeps them involved. They're "far from old friends, from children, from work and the old home town," Kalter points out, and "television bridges the distance; it keeps them involved." They watch the news, they keep track of movies, they look for public television to replace the culture they left behind in big cities. It stimulates the mind, one person says, and adds, "There are some ladies here who just sit and sleep. They don't know nothing from nothing. It's a shame." The rhythm of their day is shaped by what time their favorite shows are on, and, says 84-year-old Miriam Hartline, "I'd be lost, terribly lost without it." 

Kalter charmingly describes this generation as one "for whom the wonder of television has never quite worn off." "It's all still new to us," Mary Brown says, and I understand exactly what she means. The residents all recall their very first set (so do I), and whether or not they took out a loan to get it; they remember the small screens and the magnifiers that were used to enlarge the picture, and they remember "how the neighbors would all crowd in to see it." They are fond readers of TV Guide, and they carefully mark the shows they plan to watch. They're purposeful on their viewing, and don't leave the set on as background noise. For them, television is not something to be taken for granted.

A few years ago, a writer in his late-twenties named Rodney Rothman wrote a book called Early Bird, about his experiences living in a Florida retirement community for a few months because he wanted to "practice living old," and it now appears that I’ve spent more or less my entire life doing just that, sitting in front of the television when I could have been out somewhere breaking world records or curing diseases or changing the destinies of various nations. The flip side of that, of course, is that I might not have survived to write about any of this, whereas watching television is a fairly sedentary activity where the risks are limited to things like diabetes and obesity and high cholesterol. But, you see, those people in Florida have that beat, because they’ve already lived through most of life, and if they do come down with any of these diseases, well, it’s probably better to have them at the end of your life instead of when it’s just starting out. That may sound cold, but it’s also probably true. My way, the biggest risks are those that you assume by reading what I write

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I know this might be a bit hard to swallow, but there was a time when Cosmopolitan was a sophisticated magazine, It was famous for publishing novellas and short stories by writers who were or would become famous; H.G. Wells, O. Henry, A. J. Cronin, Sinclair Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London were just some of the authors who had their works published in the magazine. 

Then, Helen Gurley Brown became the editor, and turned Cosmo into a soft-core porn rag. 

I wonder if Helen Gurley Brown would have been published in the TV Guide of the 1950s or '60s, or even the '70s? We're past that point now, though, and so she features in this week's article, "How to Outfox TV's New Breed of Macho Men." It even reeks of sensationalism, doesn't it? The "macho men" in question—perhaps they'd be called "toxic males" today—are Sam Malone, aka Ted Danson, of Cheers, and David Addison of Moonlighting, also known as Bruce Willis. Now, I'll admit right off the top that I never watched either of these series, nor do I read Cosmopolitan, so I'm basing all my opinions on their respective reputations, as well as my skill at reading about popular culture. 

As Brown enters the scene, her question is a simple one: why do these women spoon for men who are "probably the wrong men," men who'll make them losers even if they win? "Smart Women, Foolish Choices!" she says. Take Diane (Shelley Long), for instance—smart, sensitive, attractive; "why is she hiding her brains in Sam's bar, waiting on machos and men who are afraid to go home to their wives?" Even if she does succeed in landing Sam, she'll still be working at the bar, while he's out playing the field. (So much for the redemptive love of a good woman, I guess.) Here's Brown's prescription for Diane: "Let Sam propose to slick councilwoman Janet Eldridge," she says. "That way, Diane can have the more rewarding role of The Other Woman. Sam is bound to cheat on Janet once he has her." 

As for Maddie (Cybill Shepherd), she's stuck pining for "a Peter Pan unwilling to grow up." Her suspicion is that Maddie would find David a better lover than husband, so she suggests the writers consider having Maddie give in to him. Or they could "have Maddie make the first official move on David, with him being chased around the desk and told he could either give in our lose his job." Wouldn't that be a switch? After all, she's the boss of the firm, and if things go south, it's always the lesser person 

According to Brown, both Diane and Maddie are suffering from "a real-life condition: men who are unwilling to face the responsibility and lack of excitement of a long-term relationship." All Diane gets is "great verbal sparring at which she wins only some of the time." Maddie, meanwhile, is "so involved with David professionally she doesn't get much of a chance at an outside life in which she might meet a prince." Could Diane and Sam, and David and Maddie, live happily ever after? Brown doubts it, and besides, "Their series would be canceled."

The whole article, well-written and witty though it may be, sounds exactly like one would get from a magazine like Cosmopolitan. And while some of her advice is actually insightful—Diane, for example, "may seem a feminist but is actually caught up in the time-honored, one-sided love affair in which a masochist is more in love with a semi-sadist than he is with her."—the whole thing seems, I don't know, so—shallow. There's no depth to these relationships, which always revolve around sex and sexuality, rather than sense and sensibility. And overriding all of this is the idea that for men and women, true equality means letting women benefit from easy sex and shallow connections, just the way men do. I know that there's more to this article than that, but really: isn't the Cosmo lifestyle just the Playboy philosophy for women? I rather think that the answer lies not in bringing women down to the level of men, but raising men to the level of women. But then, I'm old.

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It's what Judith Crist calls a "between-seasons" movie week; that doesn't mean, however, that it lacks for quality. The week's major premiere is that of David Lynch's magnificent The Elephant Man (Monday, 9:00 p.m. PT, NBC), featuring a "remarkable performance" by John Hurt as John Merrick, for which Hurt received a well-earned Best Actor nomination, coupled with Anthony Hopkins' compassionate performance as Frederick Treves, who struggles to help Merrick. The black-and-white cinematography paints a grim picture of Victorian London, and Lynch's direction gives a disorienting aspect to a movie that could easily have drifted into sentimentality in the hands of a lesser director. The result is a movie that makes "a deep mark in our sensibilities." 

Anthony Hopkins is back, and "memorable," in a rerun of the 1982 TV movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), which Crist describes as "a brilliant, glowing version" of Victor Hugo's novel, with Lesley-Anne Down matching Hopkins's performance. Hopkins isn't in Absence of Malice (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., ABC), but it's not lacking for star power, with Paul Newman and Sally Field leading the way in "a slick and witty melodrama." And then there's the documentary The World of Tomorrow (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., PBS), a wonderful and evocative (and occasionally bittersweet) look back at the 1939 New York World's Fair, narrated by Jason Robards. It's a "first-rate" look back at what Crist calls "a lost American yesterday."

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It's football season again, at least the practice version, euphemistically referred to as "pre-season" games. On Saturday afternoon (11:30 a.m., ABC), Wide World of Sports presents the NFL Hall of Fame Game from Canton, Ohio, pitting the New England Patriots and St. Louis Cardinals. The Patriots are off of a 46-10 drubbing in the Super Bowl at the hands of the Chicago Bears, but the real attraction of this game is at halftime, with highlights of the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, with honorees including Paul Hornung, Fran Tarkington, Ken Houston, Willie Lanier, and Doak Walker. What a group.

On Sunday, the league takes its road show overseas, as those very defending champion Bears take on America's team, the Dallas Cowboys, from Wembley Stadium in London, England. (10:00 a.m., NBC) It's the first game of what would come to be known as the "American Bowl" series of pre-season games played outside the United States; while most games in the early years were played in London, the sites expanded to include Japan, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Ireland, Spain and Canada, before being phased out in 2005. Nowadays, the overseas games get played during the regular season. 

There's one more Hall of Fame worth celebrating, though; on Sunday, ESPN has coverage of the National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremonies; the great Willie McCovey, who hit 521 home runs during his illustrious career, is the sole inductee from the Baseball Writers Association of America, guardians of the gates of the Hall. Bobby Doerr and Ernie Lombardi were elected by the Veterans Committee.

We all know the start of the NFL season means the practical end of any other sport, but they keep trying; on Thursday and Friday, ESPN presents first- and second-round coverage of the 68th PGA Championship from the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio (11:00 a.m.); Bob Tway wins his only major with a two-stroke victory over Greg Norman. 

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There are a few other things of note in a month that's usually given over to summer reruns. On Saturday night, we've got a couple of failed pilots, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why: In The Family Martinez (8:30 p.m., CBS), Robert Beltran plays a young lawyer who, on his first day in court, has to figure out how to sneak his fugitive client back into jail. Maybe not the worst plot in the world, but what do you do for an encore? Later (9:30 p.m., NBC) Sylvan in Paradise stars Jim Nabors as an inept but well-meaning bell captain at a Hawaii hotel, where his disasters have a way of working out for the best. That one's all too predictable, even with Brent Spiner playing a man with the unlikely name of Clinton Waddle. After that, a name like Data seems almost normal.

On Sunday, Motown Returns to the Apollo (8:00 p.m., NBC), a three-hour, star-studded tribute marking the 50th anniversary of the famed Harlem theater, dominates the evening. It's hosted by Bill Cosby, and stars Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr., the Commodores, Lou Rawls, Mary Wells, the Four Tops, Martha Reeves, Luther Vandross—well, just about anyone and everyone you can think of, plus Rod Stewart, Boy George, and Joe Cocker thrown in. Anyone left out is due strictly to tired typing fingers.

Throughout the week, PBS's American Masters has "The Long Night of Lady Day," a 90-minute documentary on the often-sad life and hard times of jazz great Billie Holiday. I'd try catching it on Tuesday, unless you're committed to watching 1986, (10:00 p.m.), which was NBC's 14th failed effort at putting together a weekly newsmagazine. It's hosted by Roger Mudd and Connie Chung, and as I recall, the most notable thing about it was that it used the Rush song "Mystic Rhythms" as the theme. It was probably also the best thing about it.

There are a host of other relics of the '80s, lesser series that failed to reach the heights of, for instance, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Magnum P.I. or Cheers but still help to define a decade: Knight Rider, Remington Steele, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Silver Spoons, Hunter, Hotel, Perfect Strangers, Webster, and others. It's far from my favorite decade of television, but, as we've seen today, there's still enough to keep viewers occupied.

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The reason I chose this particular issue to look at this week was that I felt in it was a foreshadowing, as it were, a shape of things to come. I spent a lot of time looking at two articles that didn't really have all that much to do with what was on television, but they said a lot about what kind of people we were to become. 

I enjoyed the article about the Florida retirement community immensely. It reminds the reader that television is fun, that there's no such thing as hate-watching a program—if you don't like it, you don't watch it. Viewers discuss the shows not over social media, but around the tables after lunch or dinner, and trade stories about their favorites. And yet, you can see a shadow of the future, can't you? Some can't afford any kind of entertainment or exposure to the world other than television. Many of them no longer have family and friends around; they've all moved away or died. There's an isolation to their lives, even if it doesn't weigh them down. But that isolation will only increase over the years, and not just for the elderly, but for everyone. We all live in our own little worlds now, the metaverse, or whatever kind of alternate reality you want to call it, and if that wasn't bad enough, the absurd virus lockdown was about enough to finish us off.

And while Helen Gurley Brown's article had its moments, it points toward the pornographic society we live in today, one where everything goes, and magazines like Cosmopolitan are at the forefront of it. They've succeeded in making women as randy and debauched and depraved as men—that is, if they even recognize such a thing as women, among all the genders, and cis-this and trans-that and how to have sex with anything that moves. I suspect Brown's Cosmo was tame compared to today's, but you still know them by their fruits. 

A fascinating issue, and at the end of the day I'm pulled back to the movie about the New York World's Fair on PBS. The World of Tomorrow, that fair was called. Indeed, we now live in the world of tomorrow that this issue of TV Guide might have presaged, and as we look back to 1986, we see our own "lost American yesterday." TV 

The consoling presence of television

It used to be said, before the internet made a hash of things, that there were three topics one never discussed in social settings due to their tendency to provoke: sex, politics, and religion. Well, we all know how that’s turned out, and one thing has to be admitted about old sayings—they’re often right.

What brought on this philosophical rumination? Well, the news really has been ghastly lately, if you’re the type that keeps up with these things. I won’t go into any details about just what they are or how ghastly they’ve been (see first paragraph for details), but suffice it to say that I’m not the only one who feels this way. The headlines tell us that more people seem to be depressed, anxious, or on edge about the world today. (Yes, I know they’re the same headline writers who tell us how bad everything is, which suggests something of a conflict of interest since the one type of headline would appear to be responsible for the other, but in the case of making us all Nervous Nellies, they appear to be right.) Under the circumstances, some light form of entertainment would seem to be called for, and since entertainment doesn’t get much lighter than television—and, after all, this is a website about television—it’s not surprising that this is one of the directions I head in when everything else gets to be a bit too much.

One of the knocks against contemporary television, and it’s a knock I’ve used more than once, is that it’s heavy, dark, nihilistic. That’s not to say that there isn’t a time or place for heavy, dark television; I’m rather fond of it myself. But television programs today can also be subversive, not in the creative sense of subverting our expectations, for example, which is what good mystery writers do, but in subverting ideals, values, even the very definitions of things which we as a society used to hold in common. (That is, when we had a common society in the first place.) Television, we have to admit, must bear its own share of accountability for helping make things the way they are, whether by creating the trends or simply promoting them. If you’re any longer in doubt of this, two words: Love Island. I rest my case.

Having read back what I’ve just written, though, I’m afraid that, rather than providing you with an escape for you from the pressing demands of the world, I’m probably just making things worse. That won’t do at all. So I’ll get back to the point that I started out to make in the first place, which is that one can still find, in the words of my friend David Hofstede, “Comfort TV.” Think of it as something to make you feel better, to give you that warm glow that you’ve been missing lately, like a bowl of mac and cheese. (Unless you’re lactose intolerant, that is, in which case I’m afraid I can’t help you, but perhaps one of the medical shows out there can.) For this, you don’t need to look any further than DVDs, streaming video, and even the occasional new show, and you can do it all without bingeing.

If you get the Smithsonian Channel and you don’t watch in on a regular basis, shame on you. There are some really quite fascinating programs there, shows that will get you interested in things you never thought you were interested in, and then hook you into watching four or five seasons’ worth without getting up from the couch. As with anything, don’t put 100% credence into what you see, but the shows tend to be more accurate than, say, the average article on Wikipedia. Lately, I’ve been watching Apollo’s Moon Shot, a history of America’s manned space program leading up to the moon landings. This was an obvious choice for me since I’ve been a space buff from the time I was little, but even though an entire 60 minutes can go by in which I’ll learn only one new thing that I didn’t know before, that one item is often enough to justify the whole series. Did you know, for example, that on the Apollo 10 flight (the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11), the LM started spinning around violently while separated from the Command Module? I didn’t know that either, or at least didn’t remember it, but hearing a cool customer like Tom Stafford exclaim, “Son of a bitch!” tells you all you need to know about how serious the situation could have been. And it is nice to go back to a time of big dreams and heroic figures. The series has now wrapped up, but if you get Smithsonian, keep a close eye out for reruns; they're on all the time.

If you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes, you’re probably most familiar with one of two versions: Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone. You might have seen Ronald Howard’s version, which is pretty affordable, and pretty good. But have you ever seen the portrayal by Douglas Wilmer*? If not, you’re in for a treat; Wilmer’s take, from 1965-66. casts Holmes as serious, sarcastic, determined, with an arrogance that is both bracing and fully justified. Dr. Watson, played Nigel Stock, is still a boob, but more bumptious than stupid—after all, the man is an M.D. Fewer than a dozen of the episodes still exist, but they’re collected in a DVD set that I think you’ll really like, because I do.

*And don't be intimidated by the price; I found my copy for less than $10.00 at Half Price Books.

And who out there doesn’t like a good Nazi documentary? Seriously, they’re everywhere (except YouTube, which confoundingly classifies much of its Hitler material as “hate speech” and bans it; I don’t know anything that brings home the evil of the Nazi regime more than their own words, so this is about as counterproductive as you can get), and while you can find a lot of documentaries on World War II, I find that the most interesting are those that focus on the Germans, specifically the Nazi party. Unless you see Hitler and Goebbels, unless you learn about the Treaty of Versailles, unless listen to what happened at the Wannsee Conference, you don't really know World War II, and you can't understand how a civilized country like 20th Century Germany could fall into the Dark Ages. Watch the brilliant TV-movie Conspiracy with Kenneth Branagh as Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann; the powerful Downfall with Bruno Ganz in a towering portrayal of Hitler; or several of the Hitler documentaries on—you guessed it—Smithsonian.* It's perhaps the least comforting of this comfort TV, but you'll be fascinated by it. And, considering how loosely the word is thrown around today, you'll find out what real Nazis were like.

*While you're at it, read Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels and learn about Germany before, during, and after the war.

There are any number of series out there that provide good fun; The Wild Wild West, with Robert Conrad and Ross Martin; The Persuaders!, a blind buy that was surprisingly good, with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore; the aforementioned Coronet Blue with Frank Converse; and Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which is lots of fun and answers the question, "What if the Old Man from A Christmas Story hunted vampires?" Maybe you've never asked that question, but watching this will make you wonder why you didn't ask it before.

Television has always been a wonderful source of entertainment, a way to escape the pressures of real life, or to make that life more interesting than it was before. It's easy to bash TV, and quite often that bashing is deserved. But all it requires is a judicious use of judgment, a sizable chunk of common sense, and a willingness to be challenged. Believe me, I'm glad I have it today. TV  

This week in TV Guide: May 18, 1968

You're going to have to trust me on this: you would not see an article by someone like Dr. Karl Menninger in today's version of TV Guide. Back in 1968, however, TV Guide was more than open to great intellects engaging in serious discussions about television and its role in popular culture.

Dr. Karl Menninger was one of the most prominent American psychiatrists of the 20th Century, co-founder of the famed Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. His book The Human Mind, written in 1930, did much to introduce psychiatry to the American public, and he sought to educate Americans on the true nature of mental illness and other behavioral disorders. He was a harsh critic of the way the justice system dealt with mental illness; he once famously said that courts wasted their time with questions such as whether or not the accused knew the difference between right and wrong, when instead they should be asking, "What went wrong in this man's life that he is here instead of out on the road? How is it that he is in trouble with his people, his city, and his government? What is different about him from the rest of us? What do we do about his present predicament-and ours?" And yet he wasn't a mere apologist, either, as he pointed out in his book Whatever Became of Sin?, in which he discussed the role of sin when it came to guilt and responsibility. "The word 'sin' has almost disappeared from our vocabulary, but the sense of guilt remains in our hearts and minds," and while it would do no good for someone to try and repent of an illness, it is a different thing altogether to repent of a sin. I think you could probably make a good case that TV series such as Breaking Point and The Eleventh Hour wouldn't have been around were it not for Menninger and his ability to argue that psychiatry was a true science, and mental disorder.  a true illness.

So, you're probably asking yourselves about now, what is Karl Menninger doing writing for TV Guide?

It's the fourth installment of a series entitled "In Defense of Television," the purpose of which is "to analyze the beneficial effects television has had on our world and its citizens." Prominent figures in public and private life have been invited to share such positive aspects, "even though they may also have some negative attitudes about television and its performance." Menninger's essay is entitled "Television - The Comforting Presence," and he begins, as he does so often, with a story, or rather, a couple of anecdotes. The first tells of a man who detested air conditioning, but nevertheless had just had a unit installed in his office "because it helped to drown out the noises of the city." The second involves a young college girl who'd been given "a turtle-shaped electric appliance which had no other function than to make a whirring sound, halfway between the sound of an electric razor and an electric fan. The sound, described as extremely soothing and reassuring, was said to be a great aid to studying in a college dormitory."

From this, Menninger postulates something that I've long felt and, to the eternal frustration of my wife, practiced - "[S]ilence is not only unattainable but not necessarily desired. Sounds - and lots of them - are an inescapable part of life in the city. Peace (for people) seems to lie not in escaping from sound but in making it acceptable, comfortable, reassuring, even noncommunicative. The sound must not have a pronounced, foot-tapping rhythm nor an arresting loudness, but should produce a feeling of intimacy and companionship. No rhythm, no melody, no racket - just a presence." In other words - the sound of a television set.

For Menninger, this was the answer to an observation he had often made, that of "homes where the television was turned on while every member of the family was engaged in some activity - playing cards, reading, sewing, studying, writing, cooking, or even using the vacuum cleaner." When queried about this, people gave him similar answers: "It helps me concentrate," "It gives me a feeling of life around me," "It's sort of scary without it." And think about it - television is, as we have observed time and time again, the most intimate of media, in which we invite total strangers into our homes, to the point that we come to see them not just as invited guests, but friends. And, as my wife as observed while I'm sitting here typing on the laptop, it's not important that we may not be conversing, or engaged in the same project. It's just enough to know that I'm here, in the same room as she is. Is that not similar to what Menninger writes?

In 1967, Richard Schickel, in an article for The Urban Review, had described television "less a means of communication ('the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, and information by speech, writing or signs') than it is a form of communication ('act of sharing, or holding in common; participation, association; fellowship')." Studies that indicate the average household has the TV on for five-and-a-half hours a day fail to take into consideration that the set is not necessarily being watched for all of those five-and-a-half hours. It is a presence, waiting for a time when it is needed - for a show that someone particularly wants to watch, true, but also for a space flight, an assassination, an international crisis. "These are the hours when the television set becomes a tie that unites us with people all over the Nation, even the world. For a time we are experiencing the same scenes and sounds as thousands or millions of other concerned persons."

Beyond this, Menninger takes a look at the effect television has on people, particularly children. "One current research concludes that TV appears to have little effect, either positive or negative, upon school grades; that a child's use of TV depends upon his intelligence and his relationship with his parents; that there may be a connection between viewing violence and enacting aggressive behavior; and, perhaps most important, that TV does tend to teach beliefs about the nature of the world and the motives of people around us, and set up stereotypes and 'heroes' - often of the wrong kind."

This is something I've been increasingly convinced of over the last few years, thanks to those of you who've asked the simple question: does television cause behavior or reflect it? Over this time, I've come to view television as reactive, rather than proactive; anyone who's seen the medium's painful attempts to be "hip" and "with it" in the '60s can understand how TV was far behind the curve, and the same could be said regarding every social issue from crime to abortion to divorce to homosexuality. What television is very adept at, however, is becoming an advocate once it decides on which side of the fence it stands. Recall the issue from a few weeks ago in which Edith Efron took a look at how television portrays the drug crisis. Episodes of Dragnet and Adam-12 are laughable in the way that drugs are portrayed; that's television being reactive. However, once the bit is between the teeth - well, as Efron noted, "'networks [pandered] to the leftist young, who are the primary drug consumers in white middle-class society,' by 'loading the moral decks' in the drug takers' favor." Virtually every television series today presents as normal some type of behavior which not that many years ago would have been considered unacceptable, if not immoral. But when the viewer keeps seeing the same behavior drilled into them as normal, night after night, week after week - well, what is one to think?

Menninger's conclusion as to the quality of current television is less positive; what is needed, he writes, is that "the child (and the adult, too, for that matter) should see the world and its people as clearly as possible; and that there should be less vulgarity, less soap opera and less falsification, as well as less enjoyment of other people's crimes. Television is only one of a host of influences in our society that we encourage in such vulgarization."

The role of television is complex. "For so many of the lonely it glorifies existence; for the inhibited it can enrich the imagination." Television needs to show people what goes on in the world, and how bad some parts of it are, and it can guarantee that "we can never be the same after having seen them." Ultimately, Menninger thinks television can live up to that task. The question is: has it?

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Sullivan: Ed's scheduled guests include Joel Grey, star of Broadway's musical biography of George M. Cohan; the 5th Dimension; singer Jane Morgan; comedians Morey Amsterdam, London Lee and Joan Rivers; and the West Point Glee Club.

Palace: "Comedy Tonight," sung by host Milton Berle, sets the theme for guests Nanette Fabray, singer-pianist Buddy Greco, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, and the singing King Family. Also on hand: the Los Angeles Rams' Fearsome Foursome (Roger Brown, Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy and Merlin Olsen) and their teammate Roosevelt Grier.

The Hollywood Palace is a rerun tonight, and I'm fairly sure I covered it the first time it was on. I don't think I was all that impressed by it back then, and I'm not much impressed by it this time, either, although it is free of the lesser-known vaudevillians that so often populate the show. Problem for The Palace is that Ed's lineup doesn't feature vaudevillians, either. Joel Grey would cop a Best Actor Tony nomination for George M!, the Broadway musical based on Cohen's life, and would recreate the role two years later for an NBC special. Morey Amsterdam, "The Human Joke Machine," is in my opinion the funniest part of The Dick Van Dyke Show. The 5th Dimension and the Glee Club provide the music, and Joan Rivers is, well, Joan Rivers. It's not decisive, but Sullivan wins the clear-cut decision.

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One of the things I enjoy about these TV Guides are the occasional glimpses, intentional or unintentional, they give us into our future. Such is the case this week, beginning on Monday night when WNEW (New York) and WNHC (New Haven) preempt their entire prime-time lineup for a three-hour documentary on America's racial crisis, called "One Nation, Indivisible." It's a product of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company and airs nationally on many Group W stations, combining national segments with local panel discussions and phone-in segments. The question, according to host Rod MacLeish, is "Whether it's possible to bridge the dreadful chasm between the American races or whether ... our days as one nation indivisible are numbered." Nearly 50 years later, we're stil asking the same question.

Also on Monday night at 10:00 ET, ABC's latest installment in its Saga of Western Man casts an ominous and, frankly, depressing look at what we now recognize as the future of the church. "In the Name of God" investigates modern missionaries, "whose goals are secular as well as spiritual. They are not out to win converts, but to help people create a better standard of living - 'and let the people determine their own lives.'" What could possibly go wrong with that? Judging by the plummeting numbers of Christians throughout the world*, if these "forward-looking" missionaries were looking forward to a future bereft of faith, I'd say they did a damn good job of it.

*Not to mention the pronouncements of a Pope who bears a striking resemblance to a character from a certain book.

On Thursday night at 8:30, WNDT (New York's NET station) portrays the plight of teenagers in the ghetto in "School's Not Enough." Efforts to increase hope for these ghetto youth include job-training programs and educational opportunities. It sounds a lot like the kinds of programs my place of employment works with. Again - what's changed? The problems are still the same, the demographics are still the same, the arguments are still the same. Meanwhile, Friday at 9:00 p.m., independent station WNYC looks at another social issue, asking the question: "Can a Mother and a Housewife Also Be a Career Woman?" The guests - a marriage counselor, a psychiatrist, and a housewife and career woman - look for answers to a question we're still debating today.

Frank McGee hosts Tomorrow's World, on Friday as well (10:00 p.m.) looking at "A New Era in Medicine." Included are studies in genetics to overcome nerve problems and mental retardation; fetal treatment that would enable surgeons to operate on unborn children; mapping individual brain cells to look at various disorders; and exploration of techniques and tools that might enable doctors to treat tumors before they form. It's part Brave New World, part Watch Mr. Wizard - and, today, mostly true.

In political news, the networks look back to the aftermath of the Indiana presidential primary, and wonder if Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy might debate prior to the May 14 Nebraska primary, which would not yet have taken place as this issue went to press. In the end, there is no debate in Nebraska - but there will be one in California prior to the pivotal June 4 primary, a little over two weeks from now. And then?

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And now a brief look at the rest of the week.

On Saturday night, NBC's Tonight Show rerun looks to have been a fascinating one, as Johnny's guests are Florence Henderson, the Temptations, and Ayn Rand. What a combination. The Emmys are Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. on NBC, hosted by Frank Sinatra in New York and Dick Van Dyke in Hollywood; among the big winners are Mission: Impossible for Best Drama, Get Smart for Best Comedy, Laugh-In for Best Variety or Musical Show, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame's "Elizabeth the Queen" for Best Dramatic Special. Wednesday's NET Festival presents highlights from the Monterey Jazz Festival, with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl "Fatha" Hines, B.B. King, Richie Havens, and the Modern Jazz Quartet among the headliners. Oh, and a note at the beginning of the program section warns us that due to the Vietnam peace talks, all shows are subject to preemption.

The sports highlight is the Preakness Stakes, live from Baltimore on Saturday afternoon. (CBS, 5:00 p.m.) Forward Pass, who was handed the Kentucky Derby when Dancer's Image was disqualified for illegal drug use, defeats Out of the Way to take the second jewel of the Triple Crown; in three weeks he'll be defeated at the Belmont by Stage Door Johnny, saving everyone from a slightly tainted Triple Crown champion.

And finally, an explanation of Mike Connors' presence on the cover. The inside story isn't really about him at all - it's just an article by the owner of a large detective agency saying how real-life detective work isn't nearly as exciting as what we see every week on Mannix, how he doesn't meet all the beautiful women and doesn't get beaten up or shot at every week like Mannix does, how when a client fires him he doesn't go on investigating the case anyway, and so on. It reminds me of a story told by the novelist D. Keith Mano, who was teaching a creative writing class and slogging through some dreadful efforts by earnest would-be writers. When one, complaining about his low grade, protested, "But this is how it was," Mano replied, "Yes, and make sure it doesn't happen again." And that's why Joe Mannix's life is more interesting than yours, Mister Private Detective. TV