Television: Remote Patrol

Mandel Maven's Nest: Television Remote Patrol

HALL OF DAMES Current to Past

HUNK 'O' METER: Televisa Para Planchar Current to Past

QUALITY TELEVISION Current to Past

I, Nora Lee Mandel, came close to achieving a life-time dream of influencing what's on television: we were a Nielsen Family. But only for a week and not via a People Meter, only with a diary which I thought they only used during February Sweeps Weeks but we had it during January 2004 when many of my favorite shows weren't on and The Scion and The Younger were staying at college during intersessions so Nielsen once again lost young men.

I don't know how the Nielsen company uses the diaries vis a vis the People Meters, maybe just as a statistical check, but I now know first-hand how ridiculously out-of-date this measurement system is. It is oriented to a 1950's TV world of the over-the-air networks only and doesn't really take into account the cable cornucopia, VCR playbacks let alone TIVO, or the restless remote hunting and gathering of the male of the species.

In filling out the basic background information I was flummoxed by one of the first questions -- they expected me to write in all the channels I get! I pretty much referred them to Yahoo to identify my 250+ digital channels.

While they did ask if each TV was hooked up to VCR and/or DVD-R, it was very confusing how I was supposed to mark when I was taping what (and I taped far, far less than I usually do) and they didn't even ask when I watched those taped shows -- I guess because they know I'll zap through the ads and they only care about eyeballs on commercials.

They also only wanted marked down TV shows watched in 15 minute increments -- have they ever watched TV with The Grouch or any other male? Plus who can get a guy to fill in a diary? So I settled on checking on his watching a couple of times a night and marking what he seemed to watch the longest, or at least what was on when he fell asleep so stopped banging on the remote. So I could honestly mark his faves Discovery Wings, Tech TV, and the History Channel.

By sheer chance we did truly watch a lot of PBS that week of reruns on commercial TV-- for American Experience, Nova, Masterpiece Theatre, and PBS News Hour. I could honestly put in a vote for some of my favorites, listed below, as well as BBC America and MTV for local-Forest-Hills-boy-made-good Gideon Yago (Congrats on being nommed for an inaugural nontraditional News/Documentary Emmy Award for his coverage of post-earthquake Pakistan.) But it was very atypical that I didn't watch the Sundance or Independent Film Channels that week. I've since gotten hooked on IFC's "Samurai Saturdays" and CUNY Cinemateque for the history of international films.

With the Younger Generation gone, no one watched Fox Sports World, where they've become rabid fans of Australian rules football and rugby -- "the Game They Play in Heaven" (I at least made The Younger pull out an atlas to figure out where the teams were from he should learn some geography). While there is something to be said for watching barely-clad, muscle-rippling hunks working it out, about as much reality programming I can take is Comedy Central's Daily Show, Making-Of or Anatomy of Scenes docs, Sundance Channel's Doc Days. I watched the first Real World decades years ago and got fed up with the house occupants complaining about each other--I can do that myself. So these pages are Three Cheers for Fiction and the Artists Who Create It! (updated 9/1/2009)

"57 channels and nothing on?" -Bruce Springsteen

I went to a lecture by an NYU film professor who bashed TV as crap -- and it turned out he doesn't watch any! So he doesn't even know that there is in fact gold among the dross! If you want to join me as a couch potato, I watch all "the scripted shows" (as they're now called) on TV so you don't have to. (But you don't need me to tell you about popular, bruited shows and I think E.R. and NYPD Blue were way overrated.) I give shows a few try-outs before recommending them, as usually all the talent goes into the pilot and not the subsequent episodes, so it takes me awhile until I test them out to post my opinions, though I do tend to prefer dramas over sitcoms. My comments on the networks' series selection and such late lamented shows as Under Suspicion and EZ Streets (which so atmospherically and eerily used Caroline Lavelle and Loreena McKennit songs) got lost in the ether in an earlier version of this web site. (updated 7/11/2006)

The excellent, though uneven and inconsistent, episode guides at TV provide pretty thorough credits, recaps and trivia, sometimes including music identification. (updated 10/19/2006)

Sardonic, detailed Episode Guides to guilty pleasures are at Television Without Pity.

I've categorized shows by the honest reason to watch them, and set them within the genre context of present to recent past: . Click on titles for my commentary.

Mandel Maven's Nest Lilith Watch: Critical Guide to Jewish Women on TV

Impact of 9/11 on NYC through TV Fiction

QUALITY TELEVISION

Dexter/Epitafios (Epitaphs)

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Mad Men

MI-5 (Spooks)

Mystery Mondays/Thriller Thursdays/DramaVille on BBC America

The Naked Brothers Band

The Office (Brit and U.S. versions)

Shameless/Skins (Brit and American)

Switched at Birth

True Blood

The Walking Dead

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO/STREAMING

100 Center Street

American Family

Arrested Development

At Home with the Braithwaites

Attachments

BallyKissAngel/Haimish MacBeth/Monarch of the Glen

Best of Youth (La Meglio gioventù)

Flight of the Conchords

Project Greenlight: 1st Season - "Stolen Summer"

Project Greenlight: 2nd Season - "Battle of Shaker Heights"

Project Greenlight: 3rd Season - "Feast"

Remember WENN/The Lot

The Wire: The Best Novel on Television

Wonderland

HALL OF DAMES

30 Rock

Awkward

Bones

British Guilty Pleasures: Bad Girls/Holly Oaks

Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice

Hung

In Plain Sight

Lifetime: Is This Television for Women? (including Any Day Now)

The Killing

Lincoln Heights

Nikita/La Femme Nikita

Nurse Jackie

Weeds

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO/STREAMING

Alias

Arli$$

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Earth: Final Conflict

Falcon Beach/Beyond the Break

Farscape

Gilmore Girls

Malcolm in the Middle

Medium

The Middleman

The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman

Sex and the City/BBC's Coupling

Standoff

Star Trek: Voyager

State of Grace

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Ugly Betty

United States of Tara

Veronica Mars

The X Files

BRING 'EM BACK THEY WAY THEY WAS AND NEVER WERE: A PLEA FOR RE-RUNS/FIRST RUNS

Karen Sisco

life as we know it/Manchild

HUNK 'O' METER: Televisa Para Planchar

Costumes-that-Come-Off Dramas: Game of Thrones/The Borgias/Spartacus/The Tudors/Rome/Robin Hood/Sharpe's Adventures

Crime Does Pay - Leverage/White Collar/Hustle/Smith/Thief/Heist/The Kill Point

Crime Doesn't Pay- The Glades/Memphis Blue/Justified/Southland/Dark Blue/The Cleaner/Terriers/Procedurals, including Robbery Homicide Division

Hell on Wheels

Mother Magnet Young Heart Throbs - Dawson's Creek/One Tree Hill/Wildfire/10 Things I Hate About You/Make It or Break It/Secret Life of the American Teenager

Sci Fi Shows: Now and Into Rerun Infinity - Alien Invasions (including Roswell), Apocalypse Coming, Conspiracies (including John Doe and Veritas: The Quest), More Than Pigs in Space (including Firefly), Special People Among Us, Time Traveling, and Vampires/Werewolves (including Angel, The Vampire Diaries, and Wolf Lake)

Sons of Anarchy

Strike Back

Supernatural

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: WATCH FOR REPEATS ON CABLE OR DVD/VIDEO/STREAMING

Dirt

Due South

Entourage

Felicity/Bedford Diaries

The Nine