What I've been watching: February, 2026

Shows I've Watched:

The Rebel

Blue Light

Nixon in China

Aou may recall my occasional series "If I Ran the Network," in which I propose ideas for various series that might run on a fictional television network. (Then again, you might have a better chance of remembering it if I did a better job of running it more than just occasionally.) Anyway, one idea that has come true, more or less, is that of the Saturday Night Opera, which we've taken to watching the past couple of months. Most of these have been 20th-century operas, including one I reviewed last month, Doctor Atomic by John Adams.

This month features another Adams work, Nixon in China, based on President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 trip to Communist China. Now, if that seems like an unlikely subject for an opera, you're right; even Adams was somewhat skeptical when he received the commission. However, the result was one of the greatest operas of the late 20th century, a work that manages to be both historic and creative, and unlike anything that anyone might have expected. In this Metropolitan Opera performance from 2011, James Maddalena reprises his role as Nixon (which he created in 1987 for the opera's world premiere in Houston), with Janis Kelly as Pat Nixon, Robert Brubaker as Chairman Mao, and Russell Braun as Chou En-lai, and Adams himself conducting.

Adams's music could best be described as a pleasing minimalism, with elements of atonality that nevertheless avoid many of the less pleasant aspects of dissonance. The story is built around four major events: the arrival of the Nixons and the president's meeting with Mao; a tour by Mrs. Nixon of various sites in China; a visit to the Peking Opera where a Chinese political ballet is performed; and the final night of the trip, in which the principals reflect on the events that brought them to this time and place.

In interviews, director Peter Sellars has talked about how the production of the opera has evolved over the years, particularly since more and more of the atrocities committed by Mao have come to light, while Maddalena has mentioned the depth and complexity of Nixon's character, which he describes as peeling away various layers of an onion. This, along with the historical nature of the opera's events, should enable it to remain in the repertoire without undergoing some of the more bizarre reinterpretations that have become commonplace in modern opera productions; it would be difficult, for instance, to stage it as science fiction or to place it in the American antebellum South, as I've seen in some operas I won't mention right now.

Two things that stand out every time I see this opera: first, the second act political ballet, "The Red Detachment of Women," in which the villain of the piece, an unscrupulous landlord taking advantage of the peasants, is played by the same singer who portrays Henry Kissinger, in this case Richard Paul Fink (who played Dr. Edward Teller in Doctor Atomic). Fink's portrayal, which includes a fair amount of interaction with the ballet dancers, is both harrowing and hilarious, given that everyone recognizes that the character so closely resembles Kissinger.

But the real power of the opera comes to light in the final act, in which Dick and Pat reminisce about his time in the Pacific during World War II; Mao and Chiang Ch'ing dance together; and Chou, dying of cancer, looks back with the faint air of disillusionment carried by a man who, with glistening eyes looks into the distance, asks rhetorically "How much of what we did was good?" It is a profoundly moving moment in an act that transcends everything we've seen to this point, a surrealistic look at the ways in which these characters have been scarred in one way or another by how their lives have played out. It is as good a meditation as one will ever see of the immense price that history demands from those who dare to shape it. Whatever one might have been expecting in this opera, this would not have been it; it provides a powerful conclusion to an opera of unique depth and emotion, and well worth the investment in time.

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As we seem to be on the subject of historical events, let's go back now to that post-antebellum time following the American Civil War, and the philosophical Western, The Rebel, co-created by and starring Nick Adams. I wrote about this series at some length a few years ago, so I'm not going to go into great detail about the existential meaning of the war, or of this series. Instead, let's look at it for what it is: a very effective half-hour drama that provides both action and an opportunity for reflection.

Adams plays Johnny Yuma, a former Confederate soldier looking for both adventure and a meaning to his life following the war. In that sense, it's reminiscent of another Western, Rod Serling's The Loner, which sought to break away from the conventions of the genre. The Rebel doesn't quite go that far; its situations are more traditional, and Adams's character is a more conventional Western hero. He does, however, have one trait that stands out: a journal that he keeps as he tries to come to terms with the horrors of war and the things he sees and experiences during his journeys.

Although Adams would be nominated for an Academy Award for Supporting Actor in 1963's Twilight of Honor, I'd never really paid that much attention to him in the roles I'd seen him play. He famously self-funded his Oscar campaign, and I'd frequently seen his name used as a punch line for such campaigns. Well, he's really good in The Rebel, and I mean really good. Perhaps it's just me, but he seems to infuse his character with a certain depth, a dignity and gravitas that one doesn't often see in shows like this. I recall a particular moment where he encounters a man who had deserted his unit during a critical battle; notwithstanding the "fog of war" that can cause men to do strange things under stress, Yuma reacts with a subtle but visible disgust that this man would have actually run from his duty—and, perhaps more important, his brothers-in-arms. 

Yuma does the things you'd expect him to do: fights for the underdog, fights against injustice, sees both sides of the conflict with the Indians, etc. He stops to help those who need help, and helps fight their battles even though they're not his battles. But Adams displays a toughness in the role that I hadn't expected. He's more than willing to beat the crap out of the bad guys or hold their heads under water until they cry uncle, and quite honestly, I'm much more partial to that than I am to seeing a hero who tries to get everyone together to talk it out like reasonable adults. Screw that; I say, if you've got a gun, use it! (Of course, with an attitude like that, you can see how television shows got in so much trouble over excessive violence.)

The Rebel may not be a great show, although it ran for two seasons. It is, however, a good one, and frequently a very good one. As I say, I've come to have a greater respect for Adams as an actor, and I like his character. The Rebel is a rare example of a Goodson-Todman production that isn't a game show, and for the most part it's a successful one. There is one sour note though, and that's the theme song, played at the beginning and end, and sung by Johnny Cash. There's nothing wrong with the song per se, and Cash is, of course, a legend, but the song's line doesn't do Cash's voice any favors, calling for a certain smoothness in the high notes that doesn't really suit his style. It's a small quibble, though, and I suspect that Cash fans are fine with it. I'm not his biggest fan myself, but who am I to complain?

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Our trio of "based on historical events" ends with a World War II drama, Blue Light, that stars Robert Goulet as David March, an American journalist who has supposedly renounced his American citizenship and joined the Nazis in their campaign to conquer the world. It's a ruse, however, as we're shown in the premiere episode; Goulet is actually a deep-cover sleeper agent; having successfully been planted in Germany prior to the war, he ingratiated himself with the Nazi hierarchy, even taking orders from Hitler, while secretly reporting back to the Americans under the code name "Blue Light," and occasionally being called on to sabotage Nazi war efforts. We're frequently reminded of the importance of March's mission: he is the lone survivor of a 18-man infiltration unit, thus he must be protected. He receives his orders from French underground member Suzanne Duchard (played by Christine Carère), who herself poses as a Gestapo officer.

This is another of the half-hour dramas that used to be common on television in the 1950s and 1960s before the networks were forced to give up a half-hour of prime time to local affiliates. The format works both for and against the show; stories are forced to cut extraneous events in favor of spare, lean storytelling that can work under the right circumstances. It can also be a detriment if the stories are forced to wrap up too quickly and too conveniently. Blue Light is not immune to to the latter, but what helps mitigate this tendency is that the series functions much like a serial, with each episode leading into the next, so much so that the first four episodes were edited into a feature-length movie after the show's cancellation.

Now, this is by no means a perfect series. It's been said that Goulet, who was a star on Broadway and in television for such hits as Camelot, Brigadoon, and Carousel, to branch out into truly dramatic acting, and in Blue Light there's nary a hint of Goulet the recording star; it's very much to the series' credit that they made David March a journalist rather than an entertainer, which would have given the excuse to have Goulet sing a couple of songs in each episode. On the other hand, perhaps the series would have lasted more than 17 episodes if they had done that; one of the drawbacks, one would suppose, of the half-hour format.

Goulet does, however, acquit himself very well as a dramatic actor. He's credible as a tough, smarmy turncoat who secretly carries the burden of playing the heel (his girlfriend was so distressed at his apparent act of treason that she committed suicide; he had been unable to tell even her of his true mission), and at times he shows a true ambivalance about his work, such as an early episode in which March is ordered to kill a fellow double-agent to assuage the Nazis of their suspicions about him; the fellow agent is not only an American but a friend with whom he's worked in the past. The fact that this agent was suffering from an incurable disease and had volunteered for the mission to give his death some meaning was no real solace to March, who worked to find a way in which he could throw the ever-suspicious Nazis off his trail while not having to kill his friend. ("There might yet be a cure!") All right, that was perhaps a little too neat of an ending, but the premise was really good, and posed an interesting moral dilemma.

Something difficult to accept, however, is the many scenes in which March and Duchard discuss his secret plans in settings where they're literally surrounded by German officers and Gestapo agents. Yes, I know they're supposed to be talking sotto voce, and the only reason they seem to be talking so openly is so they're audible to the viewers. Still, it works against the show's credibility, which is important when you're dealing with a premise such as this. Blue Light is not particularly a good show (in fact, the most recent episode we watched was average at best, managing to pack more than a half-hour's worth of cliches into its story), but it's not a bad show either, which is something, and it's an enjoyable show to watch, which is something more. The Rebel may be the better show of our hour-long bloc, but Blue Light mostly holds up its end of the bargain. TV

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The Rebel: a portrait of America's existential crisis

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE NICK ADAMS AS JOHNNY YUMA IN THE REBEL

The Civil War remains, to this day, America's great existential crisis. Beyond the obvious issues surrounding how one defines the humanity of a man, about whether or not I am my brother's keeper, the war continues to asks questions that strike at the very existence of the American nation. Can a country continue to exist half-slave and half-free? Is participation as a member state under the umbrella and protection of a central government voluntary, can a state freely choose to no longer be part of that grouping, or does the federal government have an obligation to hold all the disparate parts of the nation together, as if they are limbs of a single body?

These are all heavy questions, and in case you haven't already figured it out, this is going to be one of those kinds of pieces. If you'd rather take a pass on it, I'll understand - just come back on Friday to check out some more neat stuff. If you hang on, though, I think you'll find this at least a stimulating discussion that goes far deeper than simply a television show.

As I said, there are many questions involved in our premise. The Rebel does not answer these questions; indeed, it only obliquely raises them. But raise them it does, in such a way that it compels serious consideration of those questions, and causes one to look at how a television show, as a product of its own time, engages with such topics.

The Rebel*, which ran on ABC for two seasons from 1959 to 1961, starred Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma, a veteran of the war who'd fought on the Confederate side, and his adventures roaming the West while looking for meaning in his own life. That in itself carries an air of existentialism, not all that different from programs as varied as Route 66 and Then Came Bronson. As much as the series itself, though, it is the show's premise, and Adams' personal involvement in its creation, that pique my interest. Indeed, I freely admit at the outset that I've never even seen an episode of The Rebel. I suppose that makes this essay even more existential, the equivalent of Schrodinger's Cat - if I actually watch the show, does the question still exist? Enough of that, though - let's get down to business.

*Produced by Goodson-Todman, The Rebel was one of their few non-game show programs.

The impetus for this piece is a very fine article written at Television's New Frontier: the 1960s, a though-provoking piece which I can admire even as I disagree with its premise. In the process of reviewing the series, the author Beestguy makes a number of associations between the Civil War and the underlying premise of the program - assertions about the nature of the war, the reasons it was fought, and the principles for which the Confederacy stood - that instantly got me thinking. Depending on how one feels about the whole thing, the answers can tell a lot about what The Rebel means, and how it reflects America's DNA.

Beestguy's theory, and his subsequent commentary, rests upon the premise that the South was a culture of collective thought, that the only reason for the Civil War was slavery, and that the rebels (as we will call them) had a single specific goal, that to preserve what they referred to as the Peculiar Institution – an institution with which by necessity they must be in whole-hearted agreement.

The problem with this theory – and I promise this will eventually connect up to The Rebel – is that it isn’t consistent with the bulk of American history. Any number of revisionist historians will argue, from a number of perspectives, that the true nature of the Civil War, for both North and South, was over economics – the manufacturing of the North vs. the agrarian of the South. At this point in the discussion, that’s neither here nor there; it’s important merely to note that it exists.

Of far more historical precedence is the definition and nature of nationhood, of what it means to belong to both a state and a country. Overlooking this element of the conflict is to ignore how many Southerners, including a fair number of the Founding Fathers, thought of themselves first as residents of their state, i.e. Virginians, and only second as Americans. While we’ve been taught that the necessary elements of the Civil War go all the way back to the founding of the United States, the element that is most often focused on, to the exclusion of the rest, is slavery, when in fact the rights of the state vs. the rights of the nation were at least as important, particularly when it came to the ratification of the Constitution.

Understanding this is why we can understand how Robert E. Lee, perhaps the most brilliant military mind in United States history (at least up to that point), a man wooed by both North and South to govern their armies, came to the agonizing decision to fight for the South. Lee had hoped Virginia would not secede, thought that it would bring bloodshed more than anything else, but stayed loyal to Virginia and resigned his U.S. Army commission to lead the Southern armies. "I could not raise my hand against my home and my family," he says by way of explanation, and his private letters emphasize the agony surrounding his decision, despite his conventional (for the South, for the time) opinion that slaves were, indeed, property.

During the ratification debate, Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me death”) voiced his apprehension over the Constitution, writing that “our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished” should it pass as presented. “Is this a confederacy,” he asked, “like Holland - an association of a number of independent states, each of which retains its individual sovereignty?” One thing was for sure: “It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely.”

Yes, I know this is a TV website, which is what it will remain, so we’re not going to go too deeply into the history lesson here. My point, and I do have one, is that divided loyalties were a given from the founding of the country, and those divisions could be most clearly seen in the South. Again, it is important to accept this as the backdrop whenever discussing the Civil War as being strictly, or even primarily, about slavery.

Now, this brings us back to The Rebel. For Nick Adams personally, there must have been a great deal of symbolic appeal to casting himself as a veteran of the Confederacy. In real life, Adams was a frustrated Hollywood actor who sought his own series because he was tired of his many supporting roles in movies and "desperately wanted to be a star." This reading extends as we look at the premise of The Rebel. Adams’ Johnny Yuma is a man who has spurned his home town and people of the North and chosen instead to fight for the Confederacy. The reasons are never entirely clear, although there is “a vague reference to his wanting to get away from home during a troublesome time, a suggestion that perhaps he did not get along with his father.”

The Confederacy, in this sense, becomes a true metaphor for the man who finds that he doesn't belong, whether it be Adams the actor or Yuma the character. It positions him as the ultimate outsider; not only has he betrayed his native North to fight for the South (ostensibly for a cause that was not his), it also means he continues as an outsider to this day, a member of the vanquished rebellion living as part of a conquered people.  And for a show in which the main character lacks a permanent home, wandering from place to place and encountering new characters and situations in each episode (much like, say, The Fugitive), this is a perfect setup – the man who wanders, knowing all the while that no matter how long he remains in one place he will never truly "belong," he will never have a real home.

Beestguy refers to the “sense of misplaced southern martyrdom” present in The Rebel. One might be able to make this case more strongly had it been clearly established that slavery was an integral part of Yuma’s decision, but by his own admission the author can’t demonstrate that. We’re left, therefore, with the hypothesis that it was Yuma’s existential struggle, reflecting Adams’ own struggle in Hollywood, that becomes his motivation, with slavery either an afterthought or something that doesn’t even enter the equation. Preposterous? Perhaps, unless you don’t take the time to put everything in context, to realize the many dynamics in play at the start of the Civil War – dynamics that, as we’ve seen, extend to the very beginning of American history.

One of the problems we have today, a problem I’ve pointed out many times in this forum, is our determination to apply the morals and values of today to events from yesterday, without consideration of situational context - the hermeneutics of television, if you will. A case in point is Beestguy’s comment that “besides portraying the defeated South as somehow deserving of pity, the series whitewashes their role in fighting for slavery.” Here we see another example of painting with a broad brush. Not only is there no reason to attribute the same motives to all Southerners, to all who fought for the Confederacy, we can see that it’s historically inaccurate. Certainly there were cases where politicians and other public leaders used the issue of states’ rights as a cover for their support of slavery.* But remember who we’re talking about – politicians! Obfuscation is a prerequisite for the position. I think we can find just as many instances where the issue of states’ rights spoke honestly to the fears of Southerners – people like Patrick Henry, who knew that the usurpation by the federal government of the individual rights of a state was a slippery slope. Indeed, it’s an issue that we see constantly in today’s politics.

*I think you also have to create a distinction between slavery and racism. It depends on your definition of racism: whether you attribute it to a belief in a fundamental difference between the two races, whether you extend that to belief in a native superiority of whites over blacks, or if you have an innate fear – a phobia, we would call it today – of other races. The existence of humane slaveowners may or may not be a myth, but to the extent that we associate ownership of slaves with brutality, exploitation, and abuse, and then link this to the all-encompassing issue of “racism,” we cannot say that all slaveowners were racists, any more than we could assert that all racists are slaveowners. The existence of racists in the North, people who supported the Union against the Confederacy but opposed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, should alone be proof of that.  

As his discussion of the series winds down, Beestguy concludes with what I truly consider a questionable statement. Referring to the episode “The Hope Chest,” he cites the “inexplicable” line Yuma utters in response to an old man’s offer of $200 if Yuma will marry his daughter. Declining the offer, Yuma remarks, "I just don't think anybody has the right to sell a human life." This line, says Beestguy, is “Spoken like a page from the Confederate apologist's playbook: the Civil War was not fought over the issue of slavery. Denial couldn't be painted in any starker terms.”

Perhaps I’m guilty of denial then, in full or in part. Once again, there is no evidence that slavery was the only cause of the Civil War. There is no evidence that Yuma was a slavery sympathizer. If anything, there is more evidence to suggest that Yuma had other, more personal, reasons for joining the Confederacy. If that’s the case, then why would he see any irony in what he says? Is there ever a moment in the series when Yuma asserts the justness of slavery, or supports the South’s right to own slaves? I don’t think so. We have to get away from the idea that when it comes to the Civil War, racism and slavery are all-consuming. Not only is that not the case, it becomes a somewhat self-centered way of thinking, the historical equivalent of the “it’s all about me” school of thought. History is a subtle mistress, and woe be to those who fail, willingly or unwillingly, to see her intricacies.

The fact that The Rebel doesn't deal with some of these questions - or, in fact, with any of them - doesn't mean the questions don't exist. It means that they are superfluous to the motivations of the characters, at least as they're projected on screen. It also means, in all likelihood, the network, the producers, or both, could have been well aware that the nation's viewers weren't ready to confront them within the framework of a half-hour drama. This isn't The Defenders, after all.* As a matter of fact, I think this is a point that probably deserves far more attention than I'm giving it, but in the end it comes back to context, whether that means when the series occurred, or when it was aired.

*In fact, even The Defenders wasn't The Defenders yet; it didn't come on the air until 1961, the year The Rebel went off.

Maybe I have come to understand this more clearly since I’ve moved to Texas. I’ve seen many of the values which I once associated with America either disappear or become a point of contentiousness. I’ve seen the federal government become more omnipresent in the lives of Americans, and at the same time more distant in terms of the average citizen’s ability to interact with it. Over the years, I’ve come to think as many Texans do, that I’m a Texan first, an American second. That doesn’t mean I’m not an American, but my state has pride of place. Does this mean I’d take up arms against the United States? In the abstract, I don’t think that’s a question that needs to be answered. But it does mean that your birthright, your family, your people – they all remain powerful motivators of human behavior, both now and then. To make such an association between slavery and the Civil War, to use it as a motivation of the character and the actor, to pick away at the contradictions with modern sensibilities rather than those of the time – well, it’s all a misreading at best, facile at worst.

I hope that you, dear readers, understand me well enough by now to appreciate that I am neither a racist nor a sympathizer of slavery. I trust that I don’t have to prove this to you, but I will mention again that, logically speaking, A does not yield B, except in arrogance.  All living people are human beings, born of the same dignity, the same worth, with the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Period, end of statement. If slavery is America’s original sin, then the Civil War is her existential struggle for understanding, for what it means to be a collection of quasi-sovereign states existing within a central government.  We should not be surprised that this struggle can come to light through a television series, for even though the examples can seem few and far between, there is enough evidence of it that we do television a disservice to think it capable of nothing other than a simplistic worldview. If we write about classic TV, we should give it more credit than that.