What was on TV? Wed, April 20, 2005

20 years ago, Michael Bay got hired to make a Transformers movie. Let's see what was on TV.

8:00 America's Next Top Model on UPN

4x08 "The Girl Who Gets Bad News"

My god did this show put these girls through the ringer. One week after the Tyra meltdown and the Tiffany affair, contestant Kahlen learns one of her childhood friends has died. She is clearly shaken, but the prodcers just push her to use her pain in her "seven deadly sins" themed photoshoot and then congratulate her on her professionalism, giving her best photo of the week. The edit turns her into the "good" example to Tiffany's bad one, and it's not subtle at all.

Through it all, it's apparent that this very young woman was offered no agency or support as she grieved. Tiffany didn't receive support either, and she cried and screamed and quit, making herself impossible to ignore. Kahlen pushed everything down, but she was probably just as hurt by the toxic culture of the show.

It didn't have to be like this. Survivor wasn't perfect, but when contestant Jenna Morasca's mother was dying, production offered her support and allowed her to leave on her own terms. And that happened about a year before this episode was shot, on a show from the same production company as Top Model. So no excuses.

9:00 Alias on ABC

4x16 "Another Mister Sloane"

The best episode in ages!

We get a big suspense setpiece set in a building with those fancy exposed elevators. Sydney is wearing an amazing old school flight attendant outfit, and it evokes mid-century spy movies so beautifully. Catnip to me. It's stylish and tense and perfect. And the moment when she clocks Joel Grey as Sloane's doppelganger!

I don't know how Alias keeps landing these high-end guest stars, but I'm not complaining. Joel Grey rules on this show. He's a dead ringer for Sloane, but he has a menace all his own. I was so scared for the professor he takes hostage (Michelle Forbes, also great). He does the banality of evil thing so, so, well. And his presence allows Ron Rifkin to finally be a true villain again, when he's been kinda bland all season. I love that they stopped teasing us about whether he's going to be a double or triple agent or whatever. Who cares? We've seen it all before. Seeing him lose his shit and break bad is sooooo much better. That final scene where he bludgeons Spiros from The Wire to death and also there's a giant blood-red egg in the background and he gives a big fat villain monologue!!! Yes! Yes! Yes! This is what I wanted. I enjoy the fun spy capers (hell, I enjoyed the one in this episode), but thank goodness this show is weird again.

All that, plus Dixon is back and Jack Bristow has some kind of damage from nuclear radiation so Victor Garber gets to be be freaky. Everything I wanted.

10:00 The Staircase (recorded)

1x05 "A Weak Case" and 1x06 "A Prosecution's Revenge"

These episodes show us the true meat of the trial. The highlight is testimony from a very charming escort hired by Michael Peterson. This guy is funny, his testimony is detailed, he is clearly well-prepped but still feels authentic. Prosecutor Freda Black feigns shock while asking him the lurid details of his encounters with Peterson. The man remains unflappable. You expect him to be the undoing of Michael Peterson. Instead, he's a dream witness.

We also got some quality footage of Peterson smoking his pipe. I am obsessed with that pipe, such a great detail.

What Else Was On

• Jesse L. Martin was busy playing the role he originated on Broadway in the misbegotten Rent movie, so Michael Imperioli filled in for him on Law and Order starting tonight.
• Anwar Robinson was sent home on Idol tonight. He was handsome, charming, and a pretty good singer. I would have been sad about his elimination in 2005. He was also one of two contestants outed this season (someone discovered a personal ad he posted online). The other was Mario Vasquez.
• I read Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall's work in the New Jersey Star-Ledger for this project, and they wrote many pieces about Robinson, a beloved New Jersey music teacher (outing him to the world was truly nasty work!). Local media are a forgotten piece of the reality TV boom. Contestants on Idol, Survivor, and their various descendants came from all around the country. And every contestant got a profile and extra coverage in the local paper or on a local TV station.

Late Night

The Daily Show was such an important part of American culture in this era. So many critics put it on their top 10 lists, even at number one. This decision has aged poorly; these people were ranking it ahead of Deadwood, Lost, The Wire, and more! But it speaks to the level of respect and cultural relevance the show attained in this era. It was the height of cool. People saw Jon Stewart as some kind of moral abiter, Les Moonves implied he could be the anchor of the CBS evening news broadcast and it became a whole news story. If you want to understand American culture and American television in the 2000s, The Daily Show has to be part of the story.

And I can't find any of it! I would really like to watch it, for historical purposes alone, and I'm sure there are some good jokes in between all the smugness. But it is nowhere to be found! Someone do something about this, please.

In the meantime, here is a tire commercial starring Stephen Colbert.

TiVo Status

The TV movies Sucker Free City and Everything You Want, and one episode of Mystery! 4 hours.

TV news, 20 years ago

The broadcast networks had lots to celebrate as the 2004-5 TV season came to a close. Fox started the season in fourth place after a risky year-round scheduling gambit failed. But they turned things around in the spring: Idol was as powerful as ever, House turned into a bona fide hit, and holding 24 till the spring had completely reinvigorated the show.

CBS had gone from strength to strength. They'd added two new hit shows to their powerful roster (Americans love their copaganda): spinoff CSI:NY on Wednesdays and mideason replacement Numb3rs on Fridays. Once the geezer network, it they were now in a dead heat with Fox for first place in the valued 18-49 demo.

ABC had emerged from the depths of ratings hell to launch three new blockbuster dramas (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey's Anatomy) and some solid hits on top of that (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Wife Swap, Boston Legal). They were the talk of the town.

Then there was NBC. First to fourth. Mocked in the press, mocked by Conan O'Brien on their own airwaves. Their hits had either ended (Friends, Frasier) or were on the verge of ending (Will and Grace, The West Wing). Even the reliable Law and Order franchise was failing them, with the latest spinoff Trial By Jury crumbled, the flagship was losing viewers to CSI: NY, and Criminal Intent was cratering opposite Desperate Housewives on Sundays. Even ER was losing to Without a Trace on CBS. And the hits just kept on coming: Today, the most lucrative show on television and long the champion of the morning, had started losing to Good Morning America.

So NBC changed the conversation. They shelled out $600 million for the rights to Sunday Night Football (even as ABC let Monday Night Football go to sister network ESPN). Networks often paid top dollar for Football when they were struggling. CBS, Fox, and ABC had all done it. But NBC was supposed to be above all that. Not anymore.

In fact, in the coming years, no one would be above it. As ratings cratered, networks became ever more reliant on sports, and especially football. So you could say that NBC was ahead of the curve here. But only because this season was a disaster of historic proportions for the network.