Tag: M*A*S*H

Don’t Let Studio 60 Die, Please

Dear NBC,

Hi, my name is Geoff. I’m not sure you know me. I compete against you in Connecticut.

Over this past TV season, I’ve become hooked on “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” It’s the best show on television.

I know it’s expensive and it’s not pulling the numbers you want, but most viewers wrote it off before it hit its stride. It’s so much better… so much more well defined… so much more compelling now. With a little lot of promotion, it could reach its potential.

Like I said, it’s the best show on television.

I was just watching the episode entitled, “What Kind of Day Has It Been?” I assume it was the last one. All the story lines were tidied up. Nothing was left dangling. In an arc drama, that’s a bad sign.

When Tom found out his brother was alive, I cried. I think my crying pretty much guarantees I’d watch every episode of another season… and I wouldn’t be alone.

TV history is replete with shows that needed time to find an audience. “All in the Family” was #34 its first season on-the-air. “The Odd Couple,” “M*A*S*H” and “Star Trek” also had trouble catching on.

You have the chance to save actual quality television. HBO shouldn’t have a corner on that market. The power is in your hands.

Is quality ever more important than money?

All the best,

Geoff Fox

ps – I don’t really expect you to reinstate the show, but I still feel better asking.

In Just 51 More Days

It’s around this time, every year, that I start getting antsy for Winter to end. Someone asked this afternoon, and a friend with the right computer program up and running quickly calculated 52 days (now 51) until Spring begins on March 20, 2004 at 1:49 AM EST (Not that I’m anxious or anything).

As with last year, this has been a gruesome winter. Cold spells have persisted. Snow has been plentiful. Those perennially cheery people who claim to “love the four seasons” have clammed up.

More than anything, for me at least, winter means being housebound. It’s not like I’m a jock or anything, but I like to get out. That’s so difficult to do. It is much easier to wear less when it’s warm than it is to wear more when it’s cold.

I’m not sure what the coldest day of my life has been, but I have a candidate that comes quickly to mind. I was working in Buffalo, hosting PM Magazine/Buffalo. It was the last shoot on the last day before we shut down for Christmas break.

My co-host and I were doing “ins and outs” for a show featuring a story about a “real” M*A*S*H unit. We went to Niagara Falls Airport, stood in front of an Army helicopter, painted in a camouflage khaki green, and did our stuff.

There were a bunch of elements we each had to do, standing outside in the frigid cold. You quickly learn, on the open airport tarmac nothing stops the wind!

After a while, my lips began to malfunction. I know that sounds silly, but it’s the best description of what happened. It got so cold that I could no longer properly shape my lips to form the right sounds.

Recently, one of our reporters at the television station seemed to suffer the same fate while doing a live shot on a brutally cold evening. I felt her pain.

As is often my custom, as the onset of Spring seems reachable, I fantasize about golf. I don’t think about my play – though I’d certainly like that to improve. I think about the first moderately mild days in March, taking my bag from the garage and walking the course. I live 5 minutes from a very pretty public course, where you can play on the cheap and walk if you choose.

How can I not get into shape by walking 18 holes, plus whatever extra distance is added by chasing after my (many) errant shots?

Every year I want to do it. Every year I say I’ll do it… but, I don’t. By the time I get into the swing of things (if I ever do) it’s too late.

So again, this year, I pledge to walk and get fit. I want Spring so bad I can taste it.