No Grinch jokes. I'm really not cynical. If anything I'm shamefully sentimental. But TV's approach to the holidays is as nakedly commercial as any other big-box store's.
Over the years, broadcasters and cable channels have built up enormous inventories of Christmas-themed programming. And when this time of the year rolls around, they're going to use every last bit of it. Even if it kills us.
The 10,000th airing of Frosty the Snowman may not do big numbers (do you think anyone under the age of 40 knows who Jimmy Durante was?), but there are always a few retailers shopping for last-minute bargain ad-time.
Holiday TV specials are like comedy albums: The more you repeat them, the less enjoyable they are. And at this point, I've seen It's a Wonderful Life so many times that I now run screaming from the room at the mere mention of George Bailey's name.
By the time we get to the big day, I feel like the proverbial yuletide goose, and TV has been stuffing Christmas down my throat for the last month. Fa la la.
Barnyard animals. This week Dexter went to considerable trouble for a visual joke. When our dark avenger stopped at the Shady Lane Motel in Nebraska (its roadside sign bragged "AFFABLE RATES"), the manager tried to blackmail Dexy, after finding some instruments of torture in his trunk.
That lead to a tableau of Dexter and the spirit of his evil brother standing against a painted background with a bloody pitchfork between them.
It was a macabre and exact replica of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" painting. Salt of the earth.
Howdy, stranger. When the premise of your show is that you have a small group that has been sent back 85 million years into the past, your opportunities for guest stars are severely limited. Unless of course you cheat, as Terra Nova did this week.
