What was on TV? Mon, April 11, 2005

20 years ago, Ricky Shroder reinvented himself as a country music video director. Let's see what was on TV.

8:00 The Staircase on Sundance

1x03-4 "A Striking Coincidence" & "A Prosecution Trickery" (record 24 on Fox)

Michael Peterson is just so guilty you guys. Any time you hear people talk about the actual physical evidence in his case, that becomes obvious. Watching the defense team talk around the damning physical evidence is fascinating an horrifying. But for the defense and the prosecution, that's not the most important part. What's going to decide the case is the juicy details, the story. This woman who died in Germany under eerily similar circumstances, the details of Peterson's sex life. It's all very sordid and distasteful. It's hard to see anything like justice in this process.

And this is how I end up sympathizing with a guy who totally pushed his wife down the stairs! Peterson's distaste for this process mirrors our own, and he is such a compelling character, so peculiar and righteous in his distaste. He becomes a weird sort of audience surrogate. To watch The Staircase is to realize that Peterson is guilty and that nevertheless, you agree with everything he says and even like him a little bit.

10:00 24 (recorded)

4x17 "Day 4: 11:00 PM - 12:00 midnight" (record The Staircase on Sudance

Now this was a fun episode. One of the actors from Bones goes camping with his wife and stumbles on the wreckage of Air Force One and somehow the nuclear codes. Jack Bauer and Habib Marwan race to find the lovebirds and the codes in some dark warehouse. Jack Bauer is up against the wall, and Marwan is a terrifying force, full of charisma, menace, and resolve. It's like a Terminator movie, except way more Islamophobic.

Meanwhile, a bunch of wishy-washy politicians are tip-toeing through the aftermath of the assassination. It's like The West Wing, except everyone is craven and lacking in personality or charisma. So a lot more true to life. Very excited to see where this story goes.

Later Desperate Housewives (recorded)

1x18 "Children Will Listen"

I hate this episode. I might hate this show.

This episode is famous for its tacit approval of spanking. But abuse and violence is all over this episode. And in this particular case, I think that depiction is endorsement. Carlos picks up Gabrielle as she screams for him to stop and he forces her to sign a post-nup. He puts the pen in her hand and moves her hand like she's a puppet. And meanwhile, he's been tampering with her birth control and she's pregnant! And Gabrielle sleeps with the teen gardener again. So we're back to that cursed storyline. And if that weren't enough, Susan encourages poor Bob Newhart to go back to a mutually abusive relationship with her mother because it's more convenient for her. It would be one thing if this was Mad Men, but these characters are supposed to be sympathetic heroes.

And this episode is called "Children Will Listen." For shame. I think Marc Cherry missed Sondheim's message, and he doesn't deserve to use Into the Woods lyrics in his show.

CMT Awards

If you want to take the pulse of Bush's America, you should watch the 2005 CMT Awards. Network television events like the CMA Fest or the CMA awards felt the need to pander to a wider audience. Those shows were somehow both tentative and defensive, not a fun combination. But this show is on a country music channel; it was conceived as counter-programming to the VMAs. They're playing to their base, and the show is better for it.

Jeff Foxworthy hosts, and he is...great? The jokes are specific, tailored to this audience, and actually quite funny! I especially enjoyed his brutal skewering of country music video cliches. The artists are performing for an audience already familiar with their big hits, so their music choices are more adventurous and interesting. Gretchen Wilson and Loretta Lynn cover "Crazy on You," there are lots of classical ballads. Everyone sounds great. And sure, it's very Republican. This is the country music establishment that banished the Chicks just two years earlier. One of Jeff Foxworthy's first jokes is that he listens to rap music, he hears it coming from other cars at stop signs! At one point we cut to soldiers in Iraq who tell you to vote for video of the year. So that's the vibe. But the frankness of its politics makes it more valuable as a historical document, which I appreciate.

What Else Was On

• CMT launched the reality show "Popularity Contest" in the post-awards slot. "City slickers" competed for the affections of a small Texas town. This promo is a must-watch.
• NBC, at this point the official network of Donald Trump, aired Trump's Miss USA pageant preceded by a special Miss USA-themed Fear Factor. The judges included Michael Phelps, Raj from The Apprentice, a Days of Our Lives star, and Sugar Ray Leonard. Miss North Carolina Chelsea Cooley won the pageant. Other notable contestants included Miss Washington DC and future first lady of Atlanta Sarah Elizabeth Langford and Miss New York Meaghan Jarensky, who helped draft a New York State Senate bill criminalizing online impersonation after someone impersonated her on Match.com.

Late Night

David Letterman is completely disinterested in 90% of his interviews. So when he spends most of an interview laughing, it really stands out. So it is with Robin Williams. The interview is of course filled with jokes. But Robin also talks about how proud he is of his kids, and he reminisces about his days at Juilliard with the recently deceased Christopher Reeve. It's very sweet, and it will make you sad.

TiVo Status

TV movies Sucker Free City and Their Eyes Were Watching God, the miniseries Fingersmith, and one episode each of American Dreams and The Starlet. 11 hours total.

TV criticism, 20 years ago

From Virginia Heffernan's 2005 review of The Staircase in the New York Times:

It may seem ludicrous to say that a movie running more than six hours is well edited, but ''The Staircase,'' by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, is. And not only is the editing prize-worthy, but the whole film is also so brilliantly conceived, reported, filmed and paced that you may come to wish it were twice as long. That would be a perverse wish, but it's a perverse film, thick with shocks and subtle revelations, and it's hard to quit watching.

Virginia Heffernan reviewed The Staircase again in 2022 for Wired, putting it in context with the true crime boom that followed in its wake.