>> perhaps there is hope for you after all. >> tv is changing dramatically now with 150 channels that might be available in the near future. there. >> there's a lot of things that we do that you couldn't have on network television. >> people are really trying to do something adventurous. >> shame on you! >> who was that? >> excellence is hard. it is very rare which is why there are very few good shows and those that are good stand out. >> hold on. >> that was cool. ♪

>> listen to it. oh, they know when it hits the bottom, it will be 1990, good-bye to the 80s. >> ten, nine, eight -- eight, eight, eight! >> oh, will this horrible year never end? >> when the '90s began, we started to see a lot of experimentation.

and "the simpsons" i think in some senses was inspired by not necessarily hatred of television, but a distrust of a lot of the ways in which television was talking to us. >> tv respects me. it laughs with me. not at me. >> you're stupid. >> doh! >> i think the sitcoms of the '80s were such a warm, safe, humor. >> i love you guys. >> the kids, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. >> and i think there was a real yearning for another type of humor. ♪ >> we were able to spoof fatherhood -- >> what a bad father. >> -- which at the time, and i stress at the time, was bill

cosby as the shining example. ♪ did you ever know that you're my hero ♪ >> the stuff they got away with because it's a cartoon. the father strangling the child. >> why you little -- >> we are going to keep on trying to strengthen the american family to make american families a lot more like the waltons and a lot less like the simpsons. >> we go to a completely bizarre period of time in 1992 when a sitting president is raging against a sitcom. >> they have dealt with politics. they have dealt with popular culture. they've dealt with all kinds of issues of racism, of sexism. >> don't ask me, i'm just a girl. >> right on, say it, sister. >> it's not funny, bart. millions of girls will grow up thinking this is the right way to act. >> they have found a way to talk about everything that's going on

in our lives through the filter of "the simpsons." >> them immigrants. they want all the benefits to living in springfield, but they ain't even bothered to learn themselves the language. >> yeah, those are exactly my sentimonies. >> i think one of the governing things that's happening with "the simpsons" is a distrust of anyone who tells us we should trust them and doesn't earn that trust. >> i'll take that statue of justice too. >> sold. >> when they make fun of how fox works -- >> you are watching fox. >> we are watching fox. >> they are telling you don't trust us either. >> eat my shorts. >> all right. i'll eat -- eat your shorts? >> "the simpsons" is like shakespeare in the sense that we quote the simpsons all the time, very often without knowing it. >> excellent! >> i wish i could create something that culturally indelible. it's unlike anything else tv has ever run.

>> "twin peaks" showed up out of nowhere at the beginning of the decade. the pilot episode of that was one of the strangest and most exciting things i have ever seen. >> i'm at the twin peaks county morgue. with the body of the victim. what's her name? >> it was incredible. just how slowly in the beginning the news spread around this little town that this young, beautiful girl had died and that haunting music was so dark and so beautiful. ♪ >> i've got good news. the gum you like is going to come back in style. >> what on earth is essentially

a art film doing in prime time television? >> american network television has long been considered the home of the blands, the cautious and the predictable. so it was with some trepidation that it the abc network launched a new series that was none of those things. "twin peaks" is already described by one critic as the series that will change tv. it's directed by david lynch. >> david lynch was a filmmaker known for his taste in the eccentric and memorable. the idea that he would do television in the '90s was crazy. >> do you watch much of it? >> i like the idea of television, but i'm too busy to see very much of it. >> what do you think of that which you do see? >> some of it i really enjoy. >> are you being diplomatic? >> sort of. [ screaming ]

>> the beautiful thing about television is you have the chance to do a continuing story. and that's the main reason for doing it. >> i think that "twin peaks" with the initial attention it got allowed all the other networks to say, let's do something different. >> the day is coming. it ain't going to be long when you ain't going to have to leave your living room. no more schools, no more tabernacles. no more cineplexes, all right? you're going to snuggle up to your fiberoptics and bliss out. >> you can check the successful creators trying to figure out how they can do things different than five or ten years ago. sometimes it led to challenging network television cool and fun to watch and sometimes it seemed to fall off the edge a little bit. ♪ let's be careful >> at the time he was a very

successful producer of our dramas and wanted to try something brand new. >> we're the police! we have a warrant for your arrest. >> so his idea was to combine a gritty cop show with a broadway musical. >> i saw one in which a bunch of gang bangers were in jail. they began to sing. life in the hood ain't no pizza pie, everybody die when the bullets fly. ♪ life in the hood ain't no pizza pie, people die when bullets fly ♪ >> and i said wait a minute. i thought this is it. this is great. this is going to be as innovative as anything i have ever done. ♪ he is guilty, he is guilty, judge, you can see it in his eyes ♪ ♪ he did the crime and now he's got to pay ♪ >> it circled the drain.

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is the first electric toothbrush brand accepted by the ada for its effectiveness and safety. what an amazing clean! i'll only use an oral-b! oral-b. brush like a pro. >> the following movie is rated "r." >> in 1990-91 there was not a lot of original programming for cable but they were airing movies so we needed to compete. i felt that if we didn't we were going to kind of get swept out.

and so i came up with the notion of doing a cop show that was "r" rated. when abc's broadcast standards read our script, they went berserk. >> i was sitting with a pad and a pencil drawing pictures of breasts to try to show them what we would show and what we wouldn't show. grown-ups sitting in a room doodling. >> then we started on the language. >> we heard it with the brains of a flea and the balls of a moth. >> the program premiered with an advertising boycott. >> channel 7, shame on you! >> but it was such an immediate hit, that boycott lasted, oh, four weeks. >> they could use the nudity and the curse words to go deeper into the actual emotional burden of being a cop. >> i'm an asshole. >> and it had this character, andy sipowicz. he is a raging alcoholic,

racist, sexist, violent. he created the tv anti-hero. >> i know the great african-american george washington carver discovered the peanut. but can you provide names and addresses of these friends? >> you know, you're a racist scumbag. >> despite his flaws, despite his prejudices, i think people identified with his pain. >> i wish there was a way to say this that wouldn't hurt you. >> there's a famous episode where they are investigating the rape and murder of a young boy. and they find a homeless child molester who murdered the kid and sipowicz to get the confession has to be very sensitive and very good cop. >> i know this has to be tearing you up inside. but you're going to feel a lot better if you just tell the truth. >> you can sort of see on dennis franz's face this is killing him to not destroy this guy right now. finally, he gets the confession he gets the signed statement.

he walks out of the room, he goes into another interrogation room and he breaks the door in two with his fist. and i'm choking up talking about it right now, because that's how great a moment of tv that it is. >> 20 years from now, the best tv dramas, what do they look like? >> i don't know. >> will they be bolder than what we see today? >> oh, assuredly, assuredly they will be. >> the '90s gave us several shows that didn't explode in the ratings, but were influential to other people making television. "homicide" is one of them. ♪ shell me with questions all night ♪ ♪ i'm living in a danger zone >> "homicide: life on the street" was really innovative in terms of its style. it used music in ways that advanced the narrative and also used feature film directors that brought a look and style to the show that really stood out on television. >> tears coming out of your eyes.

>> ain't no tears coming from my eyes. >> those eyes are brimming with tears. >> they had so many african-american characters in the cast that on several occasions they were the only people on camera interacting with one another. and that sounds like, so? but as late as the '90s, that wasn't done on television. >> when a cop shoots somebody, he stands by. he picks up the radio mic and calls it in. he stands by the body. if not, cops are no better than anybody else. >> in the '90s, television was getting more complicated, stories were starting to become more episodic and characters were starting to develop and change. none of that happened on "law & order." >> this was a show that completely delivered on its formula every time. you get a crime, you got the investigation into the crime. >> you better be packing more than a dirty mouth. >> you got an arrest. >> what's the charge? hey, i'm asking you a question. what's the charge? >> there's no charge. this one's on us. >> then you had a trial.

>> he's badgering, your honor. >> sit down and shut up. >> overruled. you will address the court from now on, mr. mccoy. >> so every time you watched you got what you came for. >> tell me, doctor. all those women you ran through your examination rooms, do you remember their faces or did you not even bother to look up? >> you had in "law & order" the kind of characters people take to heart. >> i'll let you take me to lunch. one-time offer. >> and if you're an actor and you say well, gee, maybe it's not really such a bad medium after all. >> miranda, the supreme court's mimic decision. the whole thing was illegally obtained. they were both represented by counsel. >> you just get hooked in. it's life and death and stuff. >> we know what you did. >> counsel. >> you hear me? >> do you hear me? >> look at me! >> "law & order" was like crack.

you'd have to sit and watch me for 50 minutes just like, not moving, barely breathing. there's times i have almost passed out watching "law & order." >> i need your help. >> "e.r." had originally been written as a movie for steven spielberg to direct. we had this two-hour piece which was michael's reflection of experiences as a medical student. >> you need a large in case they're bleeding. do you know how to start an i.v.? >> actually, no. >> "e.r." is a hospital show, but it's really an action movie. >> three walking wounded. yellow urgent, red critical, black a gurney. >> got it. >> a gurney comes in, people are shouting instructions, climbing on the body and doing cpr and racing off to the surgical suite. >> get that gurney out of there! >> someone wanders in. they're tossing around medical jargon.

they don't stop to explain what it is. prep for a peritoneal lavage. i think i know what that is now, but only because i watched a lot of "e.r." over the years. >> i can try but i don't think his heart can take it. >> we can bypass it. >> that would be the fastest way. what do you think? >> you're the attending. >> there was so much information coming at you that i think it made the experience feel as if you had to watch it in the same way that you'd watch a film. you had to stay involved in it the whole time. >> come on, ben. hold on, buddy. hold on. >> there was a lot of research that said people didn't want to watch anybody have anything other than a happy outcome. >> it's not flat line, it's defib. another line of epi. >> we argued that wasn't really showing what the world was for physicians.

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>> can you sing the theme song from "cheers?" ♪ making your way in the world today ♪ >> go ahead. just sing it. it's cute. ♪ takes everything you got ♪ taking a break from all your worries sure can help a lot ♪ ♪ sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name ♪ >> we decided to end cheers in the 11th year. over 93 million people watched the finale of cheers. >> these people aren't going to be around. we've been serving fake suds forever. it was time for everybody to sip. i was sipping along with them. >> time goes by. so fast. people move in and out of your

life. we must never miss an opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you. >> we had been through so much together. you spend that much time with the same set of people it does become your family. >> feel pretty lucky to have the friends i do. >> i think the legacy of "cheers" is our need to belong and i think that's what we as americans are longing for. >> thank you, guys. >> the final episode of "cheers" was what was sam's real first love? >> you can never be unfaithful to your one true love. >> i'm the luckiest on earth. >> his real first love was the bar. sorry. we're closed. >> how big a loss is this for nbc, anyway? >> katy, i'm still here and waiting for the cast members to come back so i'd say it is a pretty big loss.

>> out of the sad, sad sorrow and being scared i would very quickly lose my job because what are we going to do? >> tv is changing dramatically with 150 channels that might be available in the near future. >> there are more choices than ever before and it is a tough job. you have to try and get a sense of what is the audience going to really make an attachment to? >> in the '90s cable was coming on strong so we had to examine who are we going to be? well, we wanted to be smart, sophisticated comedy. >> six months ago i was living in boston. my wife had left me, which was very painful, then she came back to me, which was excruciating. >> you know, i thought "frazier" was dead with "cheers." but we thought we got a built in

audience and great potential for the character in another place. ♪ >> "frazier" was kind of like one act plays. >> mother and i moved here when i was a small boy after the tragic death of my father. i kept the pain of that loss buried deep within me like a cave. >> okay. that's it. >> we always assumed the audience was smarter than most other people did and we played to that. >> just unschooled like liza doolittle. she'll be ready for a ball in no time. >> leave it to you to put the pig back in pigmylian. >> thank you. >> kelsey grammer played pomposity like nobody you've ever seen and got huge laughs. >> what is taking so long? >> i am analyzing my options. unlike your approach i like to

plan a strategy like a general leading his troops into battle. >> checkmate, schwarzkopf. >> i think "frazier" probably stands as the single most successful spin-off at least in the history of sitcoms. >> and the emmy goes to -- >> frazier! >> frazier! >> frazier! >> at the height of must see tv, thursday nights on nbc, 75 million americans watched thursday night. that was at the time one-third of the country. >> ooh. what is this stuff? >> the sweater is angora. >> well it's wonderful. >> the machine that was nbc in the '90s for comedy was untouchable. >> you're not from around here, are you? >> it generated so much viewership and money and awards. >> you do not need this. >> that's the top of our wedding cake. >> if it's not a scrapbook it's

a freezer. >> no. >> we certainly associate nbc of the '90s with extremely successful sitcoms but they weren't the only network that found their way to having some success. "tgif" was on abc on friday and it was their block of family oriented comedies. >> i can't take it. i need the cake. it was not sophisticated television. but these were shows that people adored. cbs. >> cbs was in a really bad spot. they had fallen apart over the early part of the '90s and gone through a couple different network executives. but then suddenly they had this hit with an unknown comic. this was the year of "seinfeld" no hugging no learning and this

was a show being made as if it was produced in the era of the dig van dyke show. >> i love you! >> there was hugging. there was learning. >> i love you, son. >> if you work for me, your job was to go home, get in a fight with your wife, and come back in and tell me about it. >> don't sleep on the couch! i just cleaned down there. >> in fact the pilot, i put in this true thing that happened to me when i sent my parents a gift for the holidays of the fruit of the month club. >> did you know you sent me a box of pears from a place called fruit of the month? >> that's right. how are they? >> and my mother reacted as if i had sent her a box of heads from a murderer. >> why did you do this to me? >> oh, mom. >> what is happening? >> what do you think we are, invalids? we can't go out and get our own

fruit? >> tried to tell him. >> all right. i'm canceling the fruit. >> the real story is where the real connection with your audience is. thank god. all your families are crazy, too. >> looks like you got the whole family together. >> yeah. it's dysfunction paluzza. ♪ look at me ♪ there is someone ♪ look at me

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a new era is forcing network news operations to re-examine how they do business. >> new owners spent billions buying the networks recently, ge buying nbc, capital cities abc. and lowe's tish brothers buying cbs and all of them want their money's worth. >> we'll now have the strongest network, a stronger defense piece. this is going to be one dynamite company. >> there is a danger news will be mixed up with the rest of television. >> it was you'll have some of the broadcasting time to public service. 1990s journalism in the country changed a great deal. you couldn't talk about public service. it was what are the ratings going to be? what are the demographics going to be? what is the profit going to be?

sensationalism sells. >> amy fisher got 18 years in prison for shooting the wife of her alleged lovers. >> there are now three tv movies in the works about it. >> you make money off sex, off death, off crime. >> the press calls the case the beverly hills mansion murders and the story reads like one of the unsold scripts that circulate here in hollywood. >> we wenter into the world of the television news soap opera. >> a story of basic instincts, anger, and fear. >> i was scared. and i just wanted him to leave me alone. >> and so broadcast journalism loses its purity and becomes much more shoddy, sensationalistic. then it all comes together with o.j. simpson. >> i'm larry carroll in los angeles. the los angeles county district attorney has just filed murder charges against oranthal james,

o.j., simpson. >> i have to interrupt this call and go to a live picture in los angeles. police believe that o.j. simpson is in that car. >> the o.j. simpson story starts with the chase and goes to his arrest and culminates with the trial which goes on and on and on and is televised day after day after day. >> this is going to be a long trial. there's a lot of evidence to come in. >> the o.j. simpson case was such a national phenomenon that those of us who were covering it just lived this case 24 hours a day because there was so much demand for people talking about it. >> as simpson struggled to slide the gloves on to his hand and turned to the jurors saying they are too small prosecutors were incensed. >> the trial was on television during the hours that had traditionally been the time for soap operas. >> and o.j. was very much a soap

opera. >> he is impeached by his own witness. >> i ask that you put a stop to it. either put cordoba on the stand or -- >> excuse me. stand up and speak when it is your turn. >> no question the best tv show of the '90s was the o.j. simpson trial. everybody on it was riveting. >> nbc news in depth tonight the simpson trial finally winding to a close. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant oranthal james simpson not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code 187-a. >> the verdict of the o.j. simpson trial viewed by 150 million people. it's more people than watch presidential election returns. that's crazy. >> because there was trial footage every day, cnn saw its audience increase like five

times. the success of cnn was not lost on other people. and so there were competing forces coming into play. >> how delighted i am we have now reached this moment when we can firmly announce the starting of a fox news channel. >> unfortunately, with cable news and the ability -- or the need to be on the air 24/7, where you try to get as many eyeballs as possible at one time, to gravitate toward those stories that are sensational, it brought us the ability to go too far. >> is the jonbenet ramsey murder investigation turning into a media circus? >> yes, it's tabloid. but on the other hand it's a tabloid era. here's the point. here's where the fear comes into it, i think, larry. it's the fear that says, gosh, if we don't cover it big time, our competition is. when they cover it big time, they'll get a big jump in the ratings. the first thing is to last, to last and survive, we've got to do it. >> what you also see is a whole army of commentators, people who make their business talking about the news.

>> what i say is what we should do is we should bomb his capability of producing oil. take out his refineries, his stations, his wells. >> they don't have any capability. >> they're certainly selling a lot of oil -- >> no they're not -- >> the networks were doing good journalism but they became much more preoccupied by profits. it's much cheaper to have someone in your studio pontificating than to have reporters out in the field reporting. >> i don't know if any of this is true. but what i heard is that the father went down, opened his basement room, which the fbi had bypassed. >> every single sentence on cnn, perhaps, on cnbc, on fox, on msnbc, begins with the words "i think" but after a while people get confused by what is speculation, by what is innuendo, by what is fact. and as far as the viewer is concerned, be very, very careful of unsubstantiated information presented with great hype.

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a look at the list of the 50 most watched shows on cable the top would be nickleodeon. "rug rats." "lose ces." >> don't you know cartoons will ruin your mind? >> some very surreal, high concept humor to it and this is the beginning of the splintering of the television audience and the splintering of the family audience really. i mean, because with families having three or four tvs in the house you had a kid watching nickleodeon, you had dad watching espn sports. you have mom watching lifetime. you know, they were in their own separate universes watching television. mtv wasn't merely a music channel. they were having great success in terms of creating shows that incorporated music but also shows and programs that stood on their own.

>> yes! >> huh huh huh! huh huh huh! huh huh huh! that was cool! >> "beavis and butthead" established what mtv could be because the shows were about making fun of music videos just like people in the audience were doing. >> whoa, check out his neck. >> yeah. there's like all these bones and stitches moving around. >> yeah. >> my manager would call me, like, hey, you got this big bump because you were on "beavis and butthead" last night. >> i sit there like a doughnut watching these guys. and i find them endlessly entertaining because i know and you know and the world knows, these guys are always, will be, and cannot be anything but idiots. >> that's right. >> mtv has a detrimental, damaging, developmental effect on the sexuality, on the morality, on the spirituality, maybe even the physical development of our young people. ♪

>> now we hit the '90s and once you can go for an audience of 5 million and have a successful show, you can say, i don't care if the parents don't like this. >> can i tell you something, miss ellen? >> of course, wendy. >> don't [ bleep ] with me! >> what? >> youeard me. stay away from my man, bitch, or i'll whoop your sorry little ass back to last year! >> trey parker and matt stone were two of the funniest people i ever met. and their success story is proof that if you just stay true to yourself, you don't have to do anything else. >> people think, oh, you came and did the show and now you're big sellouts. the truth is, we were sellouts to begin with. >> perhaps there is no stopping the corporate machine. >> i mean, we were sleeping at friends' houses, had no money, and then one fox executive had seen a cartoon we had made in college and he said, make me another christmas video i can send out as a christmas card. he gave us like 700 bucks.

we went and made this five-minute short. >> i come seeking retribution. >> he's come to kill you because you're jewish, kyle. >> oh [ bleep ]. >> it went around the tv community like wildfire. >> i mean, it -- it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen in your life. >> go, santa! >> somebody showed me the short. >> go, jesus! >> i thought it was hysterical. i called and said get them in here right away. >> oh, my god! they killed kenny. you bastards! >> "south park" was able to be topical. >> "south park" really, really detests hypocrites. >> christians and republicans and nazis, oh, my! >> well, okay, mrs. cartman, i'll legalize 40th trimester abortions for you. >> could you imagine back then that these people would ever get

on network television or any kind of television? >> howdy ho! >> it's a miracle. "south park" is a miracle. >> the early '90s the hbo shows start to kind of come into their own. >> and then have i always had these breasts? >> a lot of people want freedom. they don't want to go back to the networks, which are saying you can come to us where you'll make more money but you'll also have content restricted. you could go to cable and have no restrictions. not make as much money but have freedom of expression, which almost everybody who works in these mediums wants. >> some of the content truly was, you can't get this anywhere else. >> you're a fantasy maker, the only limit on the kinds of fantasies is people's imagination.

>> hbo turned to people who said, i can't do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. >> white people don't trust black people. that's why they won't vote for no black president. like a black brother will [ bleep ] up the white house. like the grass won't be cut. dishes piled up. cousins running through the white house. cookouts. basketball going in the back. >> in the late '80s hbo was just sort of gaining ground for series. >> by the '90s hbo had started to begin its explosion. to begin its explosion. >> when we started doing "dream on" one of the things hbo said to us was, it's got to be something that couldn't be on network tv. ♪ >> that was shocking for us as

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you've watched letterman. you've watched leno, but what about larry?

larry sanders, that is. he's the alter ego of gary shandling. >> he wanted to do a show that deconstructed the kind of show the "tonight show" was. >> just after 10:00, like you're talking to me so it won't seem weird. >> blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. >> it was sort cathartic. because, in the world of the larry sanders show, there was a network. >> you want me to [ bleep ] with your budget? is that what you want me to do? >> so it became this weird fun house mirror thing where can you use stuff from your career, from your misery as fodder. >> don't take this as a threat, but i killed a man like you in korea, hand to hand. my boy doesn't want to do anymore commercials. >> larry sanders was, aside from being a brilliant television show. >> can you say "hey, now." >> hey, now! >> it was my every day life. >> i'm here for three good reasons. >> last show, big movie coming

out. >> the larry sanders show was unique in that it was really dead pan and ground breaking in its way. >> i think it really made people go, that's level of work you may be able to do on a cable network. >> oz comes on in '97, and it's set in this fictional penitentiary. wow, what a strange show that was. >> in oz, sometimes the things you can't touch are more real than the things you can. for instance, fear, hatred, loneliness. are more real to me than a shank. and a soul. >> it was jaw-droppingly violent. it's a men's prison. it probably should be. but, you know, it kind of announces the idea that hbo's going to get very serious about

doing scripted dramas many. >> it's finished! it's over! >> but hbo really in my mind comes to its own in 1999 with the sew rpra "sopranos". >> spran owes was one of those things that that you out the handbook. >> tony soprano, the lead actor in a drama, he killed a man. we watched him. we took his daughter on a college tour. >> pretty, huh? >> yeah. >> it was just a melding of a guyana world. and a behavior that promoted all the feelings that would you have for a guy that you love in a guy

thaw hate, you know? >> sopranos came on tv, and it really showed us the future, whether we realized that was going to be the future of television or not. >> this husband of yours, carmela, how much we love him, he's the best. >> oh, come on. like a father to me. >> just make sure nothing happens to him. >> that character in that show was a great inspiration to a great many shows that came after it, including one that i worked on. >> you know what i want, tony? i want those kids to have a father. >> they got one, this one. me, tony soprano. and all that comes with it. >> oh, you prick. >> because of the quality of those shows that happened in the '90s, actors no longer felt that it was a come down to come work in television. audiences started to look towards television for what they had only found before in feature film. >> what did i everybody do to you except deliver the south?

>> you shouldn't have made me beg. >> network dramas became very innovative. they were really making a new mark. >> once we started making the kinds of shows that we were making in the '90s, you couldn't shut the towadoor on them. >> get -- me -- out! >> some of my favorite shows of all time aired in that decade, and everyone was watching them. there was still that communal sense from the earlier decades of tv, but it was being applied to shows that were reaching higher and farther, and they were great. >> you know, i think if parents would spend less time worrying about what their kids watch on tv and more time about what was going on in their kids' lives, this world would be a much better place. >> i think it's because they rely on it as the sole babysit

ira babysitter and educator of their kids. >> totally, dude, good point, man. quick, jump through the window! >> ah! don't touch that dial. we're about to flip it for you. >> in five, four, three, two. >> i think the reason it's so popular to young people is we give credit to being intelligent. >> my goal was to get cancelled in four episodes and have people go, you got screwed. >> i made the decision that i wasn't going to live my life as a lie anymore. >> this is more celebration of culture and opening the doors and allowing america to come inside. >> there's always something on television, and some of it may be better than we deserve.