What was on TV? Sun, April 10, 2005

20 years ago, spring break culture had taken over America. Let's see what was on TV.

7:00 King of the Hill on Fox

9x11 "Redcorn Gambles on his Future"

Redcorn is trying to get his terrible band off the ground (hilariously, said terrible band includes Lucky, voiced by Tom Petty). Hank refuses to let him play his picnic, so Redcorn decides to build his own stage and start a casino. It's 22 minutes of King of the Hill skewering what's ripe for parody: bad dad rock, earnest children's music, silly casino regulations, and American Indian kitsch for white people. A fun time.

7:30 Malcolm in the Middle on Fox

6x17 "Butterflies"

Malcolm in the Middle is a working-class family sitcom, a genre that has felt perpetually endangered in the 20 years since Malcolm ended. But the subgenre is rife with dramatic and comedic potential. Just look at this episode, in which Malcolm and Reese both have to get jobs over Spring Break. Reese works for an exterminator. When his boss tells him to plant some caterpillars in his neighbors' houses to generate business, Reese becomes overly attached to the creatures. Meanwhile, Malcolm starts working the night shift at the supermarket and meets Bulldog from Frasier, who's been living in the store like Channing Tatum in Roofman. Bulldog trades Malcolm's silence for intel on his crush. It's just so much harder to come up with these bugnuts scenarios when all your problems are solved by an endless fire hose of money.

8:30 Arrested Development on Fox

2x17 "Spring Breakout"

Was 2005 the peak of spring break culture? SNL had a very funny sketch about a spring break musical ("Woooo!") and now Malcolm in the Middle and Arrested Development are both doing spring break episodes. Arrested Development went all in, guest star Zach Braff hosts a video series called "girls with low self-esteem."

Anyway, this is not a good episode. But the final moments see George Michael embrace his crush on Maeby once more, and I, a sicko, was thrilled.

9:00 Deadwood on HBO

2x06 "Something Very Expensive" (record Desperate Housewives on ABC)

Man, do I miss 13 episode seasons. Not too long, not too short, Goldilocks would approve. You have just enough time to settle into a rhythm. So when shit hits the fan around episode 6 or 7, you're surprised. We already had a surprise pregnancy in the last episode, but now the dad knows about it, and there might be a wedding on the horizon, but the dad won't be the groom. Juicy, juicy, juicy! There's the gut-wrenching murder of sex workers (because this is a 2000s prestige drama), and a bestiality sup-plot (because this is Deadwood). I'm going to need Garrett Dillahunt to die (again) in epic and horrible fashion. Can Joanie do it? I love her even more at the end of this episode, and I already loved her a whole lot. She deserves righteous vengeance!

10:00 Grey's Anatomy on ABC

1x03 "Winning a Battle, Losing the War"

We get one of our first really good Cristina scenes in this episode. So far, Cristina has just been the snarky and ambitious one, and not a whole lot more. But the scene where she has to walk a mother and daughter through a father's organ donation shows us more. She seems uncomfortable and bails at one point. She tells Dr. Bailey that she's bad with patients, bad with emotions. But Dr. Bailey of course sets her straight, proving she's an excellent teacher, and Cristina goes back in and gets it done.

Grey's Anatomy is of course a zany soap, but a huge part of its legacy is how seriously it took the professional lives of its female characters, Cristina most of all. This is merely the first step in a long and glorious journey.

On an unrelated note, Keith David is in this episode, the show's first great guest star. He plays a man waiting for a liver. He's hilarious and charming when flirting with George, but then you see the way he plays the moment when they tell him they found a liver, and you're reminded this man is one of the greatest actors alive.

What Else Was On

Tiger Woods won the Masters tournament, much to my Great Aunt Pat's delight.

TiVo Status

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

Books, 20 years ago

Kazuo Ishiguro published his masterpiece Never Let Me Go. That has to be the best book of 2005, right? A gorgeous treatise on the terrible and seductive yet beautiful and inevitable pull of memory and nostalgia. I, for one, will never let go of Cathy, Tommy, and Ruth.