Review: "Must Kill TV"
David Hines
DIAGNOSIS MURDER: "Must Kill TV,"
by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
review by David Hines
Before I get into the review proper, I should perhaps explain the idea
behind DIAGNOSIS MURDER, for those who have not caught it (Thursday
nights, 9 PM, CBS). DIAGNOSIS MURDER is CBS's successor to MURDER,
SHE WROTE, kinda sorta: a murder-mystery series geared to a creaky
demographic with a recognizable aged star in the lead role. The star
in question here is Dick Van Dyke, who plays Dr. Mark Sloan. Unlike
MURDER, SHE WROTE, which saw mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher
encountering corpses everywhere she travelled (and, one presumes,
causing insurance premiums to rise drastically whenever she hit a new
town), DIAGNOSIS MURDER tries to present some kind of rationale for
the proliferation of corpses which Van Dyke trips over more frequently
than he stumbles on a visit to an ottoman factory. Dr. Sloan, you
see, is a consultant for the police. What's more, his *son,* with
whom Dr. Sloan also lives, is a cop on homicide detail, so father and
son wind up solving mysteries together.
(Actually, the *father* does all the solving; his lantern-jawed son
does the legwork and occasionally draws a gun on the bad guy. The
viewer is free to draw his own conclusions about the late Mrs.
Sloan's contributions to the family gene pool.)
Dr. Sloan and his son Steve (played by Barry Van Dyke, whose talents
are not quite up to the admittedly formidable task of playing Dick Van
Dyke's son) are helped out by the long-suffering supporting cast:
Charlie Schlatter, who plays eager beaver young resident Jesse Travis,
and Amanda Bently, the token woman and token Negro played by Victoria
Rowell with as much dignity and restraint as any of the other members
of the Nichelle Nichols club. (She's two, two, two tokens in one!)
Together, this motley crew confronts conundrums, eradicates enigmas,
and generally catches bad guys. (Well, okay, Dr. Sloan catches bad
guys. Everybody else just kind of walks around and says something
once in a while, which is the whole idea behind a vehicle series like
this.)
As you may have doped out from the above description, DIAGNOSIS MURDER
is a prime example of what's called "traditional television." In
other words, it is not exactly a high-fiber diet. There is not what
one would call a surfeit of emotion of the show; nor are there many
real problems for its characters -- it is, in the tradition of much of
television, what writer Melinda M. Snodgrass has called a plastic
hour. Its principals never have to act much; its directing is
uniformly leaden (even compared with such unremarkable CBS shows as
NASH BRIDGES); in all, DM is in good company on the network that is
intent on providing such fare as TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL and PROMISED
LAND. It is boring on the conceptual level.
Which means that it's probably boring as hell to *write* for, too, so
its muckety-mucks have to liven it up occasionally to keep themselves
from going stir crazy. Most of the time, Lee Goldberg and Bill Rabkin
do this with stunt nostalgia: throwing in stars from bygone days and
letting them carry the show -- one of the best episodes, for example,
saw Tim Conway trying to murder Harvey Korman and bumbling it as only
Tim Conway can. And occasionally, they do something wacky like "Must
Kill TV," in which Rachel Woodrell, a young, female network executive
is murdered. Was it her rival, Paige Jennings, who climbed out of the
mailroom just behind Rachel, leaving a trail of mysterious firings and
retirements in her wake? Her mentor, Harry Fellows, who's been stuck
in the mail room for thirty years? Her boss, who tells *everyone*
he's behind them 1000%? Her lawyer and former sorority sister Karen
Dinino, who knows Rachel's dark secret of devil worship? Producer
Jackson Burley, whom Rachel kept from writing a big-budget movie and
then cancelled his show? Or one of the devoted fans of SPACE COPS,
which she cancelled? Can Dr. Sloan catch the killer? Will the angry
young fan who panned Goldberg's novel BEYOND THE BEYOND (review at
http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/dzhines/archives/beyond.html )
care?
Well, no. Not really.
It's sort of cute to see DIAGNOSIS MURDER doing wacky stuff, but while
"Must Kill TV" is one of the best the show has done, it's got the same
problems that DIAGNOSIS MURDER always has: it's "traditional
television," only with racing stripes. This means, for instance, that
the writers feel their scripts don't have to be written tightly; the
cops will ignore screamingly obvious conclusions if it'll mean the
writers can do something they think is cute. Not that that's a
problem in "Must Kill TV," as such -- but there are several problems
with the episode.
First, it's been done. Goldberg's a nice guy -- at least, he's always
been nice to me -- and his writing partner Bill Rabkin has been
surprisingly tolerant, considering all the shit I've given him in the
past and will probably continue to deliver in the future... but the
two aren't the most imaginative guys around. The fandom schtick has
been done in a SHE-WOLF OF LONDON episode the two wrote, and in
Goldberg's BEYOND THE BEYOND; several lines and jokes are straight out
of that novel.
Second... many of the scenes just plain don't work out, either on
their own or in the light of information that comes out later in the
episode. Some examples:
==> The whole fandom schtick. While the scene in which Steve Sloan
questions the fans of SPACE COPS did offer one of the two laughs I got
from the episode ("What do you think we are, BABYLON 5 fans?"), it had
a major problem that was *so* overbearing in BEYOND THE BEYOND that I
think this scene was pure Goldberg. Briefly, Goldberg simply doesn't
know squat about fannish dynamics, and his ignorance and clumsiness do
a lot to damage the scene. He's so intent on painting the fans as
half-crazed freaks that he goes all out in that respect -- and, being
so eager to create something silly, creates the unbelievable.
Obviously, the guy's never been to a letter-writing party. Hints:
fans don't rent offices for their campaigns. If they've got the money
to do that, they figure it'd be better spent buying books, or, if it
must be spent on the campaign, taking out an ad in Variety or
Broadcasting and Cable. Letter-writing parties are held in a home,
with chips and soda. (Very important.) Costumes are almost never
worn; the usual uniform is jeans and T-shirts; costumes are strictly
for *fun* fannish gatherings, like conventions. (Although reusing the
uniforms from _V_ was a cute touch.)
Getting a fan's mundane name out of him wouldn't be a problem, either;
when asked in such a context, both names would be out of the fan's
mouth before you can say "Wild badgers." And if you ask fans "You do
know it's just a TV show, right?" -- they'll say yes, but go on to
explain why they care so much. Media fans operate within their own
very, very peculiar context, but they *are* understandable creatures.
Exaggeration in the pursuit of comedy is appropriate and necessary; as
George Carlin said, "A joke has to have one thing WAY out of
proportion." But there is a difference between exaggeration and
inaccurate stereotype. If Goldberg and Rabkin *really* wanted to show
people in silly costumes, they could've just set the scene at a
convention; they wouldn't have needed the computers or the posters,
just a table, a sign on the wall, and a bunch of screwballs in
costumes. But no, they wanted to keep working out those issues...
==> Kicking suspension of disbelief square in the balls for a joke
The scene in the fannish campaign is one example; there are others.
One that really comes to mind: when Rachel has her fatal heart attack,
and Dr. Sloan and Burley kick in the door, Sloan asks Burley if he
knows CPR. Burley's response ("Are you kidding? I've done five
medical shows!") is a mild funny, but the question is stupid. Why is
Sloan asking if someone else knows CPR? Sloan, lest we forget, is a
*doctor,* and the gag about Burley kicking in the door made the same
comment about that character.
==> Everyone pitching cop shows
It's not a bad idea for Goldberg and Rabkin to try to do for "... with
a badge and a gun" what Paddy Chayefsky did for "crusty but benign" in
NETWORK. Innately. And for Stephen J. Cannell's very, very good
self-spoofing performance as stuck-in-the-eighties producer Jackson
Burley, it makes sense and feels very, very right. But why is
everyone else doing it? The eighties, as Rachel Woodard correctly
notes, are *over;* cop shows, while a mainstay, simply aren't the Hot
Commodity any more. We're not in exaggeration territory any more,
here.
Perhaps this is an effort to milk Goldberg's novel MY GUN HAS BULLETS
(which was mentioned among Jackson Burley's past credits), but it
doesn't feel appropriate in the nineties as would, say, " . . . while
struggling to unearth the secret conspiracy that is polluting our
precious bodily fluids." (You laugh. *Count* the series.)
==> Internal problems
Jackson Burley and Paige Jennings, we learn, have been lovers -- or,
it may be more accurate to say, screwing like minks. But when
Jennings takes over Rachel Woodard's job and fails to grant Burley a
slot on the fall line-up, the scene between them contains no hint that
the two of them ever had any relationship that wasn't strictly
business. Imagine you've been dicked over by someone you worked with
occasionally. Now compare that with the way you'd feel if you'd been
dicked over by someone you'd been sleeping with.
Different feelings, aren't they? People react differently to someone
with whom they've been intimate than to someone they just know in
passing. I realize Burley and Jennings stayed on a strictly business
level in that scene to avoid spoiling the later grand revelation that
the two were involved, but it would have done both characters a lot of
good to give us a hint that there was something there. One hallmark
of "traditional television" is fairly cardboard characters, and for
all their eccentricity, Burley and Jennings were both cardboard.
Would it really have hurt to give them a moment of actual emotion,
instead of more mere bombast? I don't think so; I'd have liked it.
==> News travels at odd speeds.
People take time to find out Rachel was murdered, even when Steve
Sloan is going around telling suspects; the news of her being a
Satanist gets to the reporters (and through them, to everyone Rachel
knew) in fifteen minutes. Quite a discrepancy, considering that both
stories would be quite hot.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, there *were* some good points about the show, mostly
performance-related:
==> Charlie Schlatter
How often *does* anyone get a chance to program a network? Schlatter
looked like he was enjoying the chance to do something different, and
he brought off a lot of his scenes quite well. I only laughed twice
during the show, but Schlatter's enthusiastic performance did make me
smile a few times, and that's no mean feat, considering how cliche the
schtick of "guy researching something gets way, *way* too interested
in it" has become.
==> Stephen J. Cannell
Cannell's spoofing of himself was fun to watch (if disturbing, at
times), and one moment in his performance provided the second laugh I
got out of "Must Kill TV." It was from an exchange when Sloan the
younger questioned Burley on the set of FRANKENCOP:
BURLEY
...in twenty years, they'll be saying
FRANKENCOP in the same breath with POLICE
STORY, HILL STREET BLUES...
SLOAN
AIRWOLF...
BURLEY
[glares]
Somewhere, Donald Bellisario is squirming. (But guys, really, you
*should've* had Sloan mention THE A-TEAM, instead...)
==> TV producer Phil Zarkin
Well, okay, this wasn't a really good thing. But the actor playing
Zarkin bears a *scary* resemblance to Lee Goldberg.
==> My epiphany
I realized that the short-lived FOX series PROFIT would have been even
*more* fun if it had been set at a network. Oh, well.
Rating: ** (out of four). That's better than DIAGNOSIS MURDER
usually gets from me, but it would be nice to see something vaguely
*good* come out of there. While I'm glad to see Goldberg, Rabkin, and
the rest of the folks at the show like to mix things up occasionally,
it really needs to reach beyond the borders of "traditional
television." Otherwise, "Must Kill TV" begins to sound less like an
episode title and more like good advice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| David Hines d-h...@uchicago.edu |
| http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/dzhines |
====================================================================
| God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable |
| game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the |
| perspective of any of the other players (i.e., everbody), to |
| being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a |
| pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a |
| Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who *smiles all the |
| time.* -- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, _Good Omens_. |
====================================================================
Alan Sepinwall
Most of David Hines' extremely thorough and insightful review of the
"Must Kill TV" episode of Diagnosis Murder deleted, except for the
following item which he felt strained credibility:
>==> Everyone pitching cop shows
>It's not a bad idea for Goldberg and Rabkin to try to do for "... with
>a badge and a gun" what Paddy Chayefsky did for "crusty but benign" in
>NETWORK. Innately. And for Stephen J. Cannell's very, very good
>self-spoofing performance as stuck-in-the-eighties producer Jackson
>Burley, it makes sense and feels very, very right. But why is
>everyone else doing it? The eighties, as Rachel Woodard correctly
>notes, are *over;* cop shows, while a mainstay, simply aren't the Hot
>Commodity any more. We're not in exaggeration territory any more,
>here.
Actually, cop shows are a *very* hot commodity at the moment. Look at the
four networks' primetime schedules right now, and you'll find nearly 20
shows dealing either with cops themselves, criminal attorneys, private
investigators, or some combination thereof, including (off the top of my
head): NYPD Blue, Homicide, Law & Order, Brooklyn South, X-Files, C-16,
Cracker, Total Security, Dellaventura, Michael Hayes, Profiler, Players,
and, of course, Diagnosis Murder.
That's more than any other dramatic genre by far, and includes the more
in vogue subset of paranoid thrillers (nearly all of which are framed in
some kind of law-enforcement setting to keep anxious network execs
feeling safe).
Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepi...@force.stwing.upenn.edu
NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html
RANDOM QUOTE:
"You look real nice today, Alice. Did you like those shoes I sent you?"
"Oh yeah."
"Why did you send them back?"
"They were the wrong size. And they were used."
-Joseph Bologna & Anne DeSalvo, "My Favorite Year"
Ed Dravecky III
David Hines (dzh...@midway.uchicago.edu) wrote:
<SNIP!>
> SLOAN
> AIRWOLF...
>
> BURLEY
> [glares]
>
> Somewhere, Donald Bellisario is squirming. (But guys, really,
> you *should've* had Sloan mention THE A-TEAM, instead...)
Would *now* be a good time to remind you that Barry Van Dyke
played St. John Hawke in the final, USA Network season of
"Airwolf"? Although I'd be curious to know which Sloan named
the series in that august company...
--
Ed Dravecky III <*> Dallas
dsheldon(at)netcom(dot)com
nancy mathews
Ed Dravecky III (dshe...@netcom.com) wrote:: > SLOAN
: > AIRWOLF...
: >
: > BURLEY
: > [glares]
: >
: > Somewhere, Donald Bellisario is squirming. (But guys, really,
: > you *should've* had Sloan mention THE A-TEAM, instead...)
: Would *now* be a good time to remind you that Barry Van Dyke
: played St. John Hawke in the final, USA Network season of
: "Airwolf"? Although I'd be curious to know which Sloan named
: the series in that august company...
Oh didn't see Air Wolf that much. Thought it was originally on ABC
A-Team I think was originally on NBC. But Magnum-PI, was on CBS
and JAG is currently on CBS, so a tip to Bellisario was in order I think.
As for Cop shows, Walker Texas Ranger, (CBS) and of course Due South
has cops in it.
As for the Space cop sequence. I guess I mis-understood, I thought
He had gone to the Space Cops office, and there were fans volunteering
in the office and of course they were in uniform, and I thought the
person Steve was interviewing/interrogating was the Lead in Space-cops
sort of a reverse William Shatner Get a Life attitude, To this guy
he did believe and live his role.
Believe me I've seen Fans in real life, who Can't tell reality from
their fandom. One guy got put in jail because he put making Trek
costumes and buying supplies and Trek stuff before he even paid
the bills. He also lost his girlfriend (who was also a fan, but
did know the difference between reality and tv show) who couldn't
take him spending their bill money for Fan- stuff all the time, So
I found the scene very believable!
As for the sucessor to Murder She Wrote. I believe Diagnosis Murder
began while Jessica was still doing her thing, infact she's still
doing it, only in movies now rather than weekly.
Anybody remember the few tv movies before this became a series,
and the fact that there was a young doctor called Jack Stewart
(Scott Baio)? As for Amanada being token Black, I see her as a
person. During the first season there was a nurse named Deloris
and she was black too. What are we going to call Norman the
token administrator with red tape beureucaratic worries?
As for this series being formulaic, well to a certain extent all
tv series are. There is heart and issues in the show.
For instance ever see the one where Jesse contracted a deadly
virus, and Amanda was tirelessly working on the vacine, Jesse
and Mark were in danger of dying in that one? There was plenty
of emotion in that one. As for the older episodes, There was
plenty of drama, and heart in those too. I'm particularly thinking
of a recent episode shown on the Family Channel where Steve was
framed for Murder by these four cops that were no-good, and Jack had
to delve back into his past... (I think CBS showed this one recently
in August before DM went to the Family channel in re-runs).
Oh about the Tim Conway, Harvey Korman one. I didn't like that one
even though I like DM in particular, and I've always liked Tim Conway
and Harvey Korman, just because they're in something doesn't mean
I'll automatically like it. I just think that most Diagnosis Murders,
and Murder She Wrotes were extremely well written, and immensely
enjoyable, especiallly if you're tired of seeing mindless sit-coms,
and real soap-opera dramas.
The above naturally is just my opinon, but I do feel Strongly about it.
Nancy
nmat...@indiana.edu