Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite TV Shows

A 2007 summer reading list mini review. Every summer my family turns our TV off and keeps it off until September. This gives us more opportunities to bond as a family. We go for walks, we go to ballgames. We go fishing, swimming, play tennis and we read lots of books. Usually, I am in the right spirit for this annual event, but I took to it slowly this year. Which is why I was online the 2nd evening ordering TV programs on DVD from our library to arrive at the beginning of September. While surfing for volumes, I came across this book and placed a hold on it. When it arrived, the introductory story of the painter who went on a retreat to paint nature and ended up painting TV sets struck a chord with me. This was because it was exactly what I did. Instead of watching television, I was reading television. I quickly got into this amazing book. I was especially struck on how much I enjoyed the essays praising programs I don't especially care for. Reminiscences about television seem to be steeped in biography rather than criticism. I especially was moved by Lan Samantha Chang's finding solace in Gilligan's Island in light of her parents being real life castaways from mainland China. I wonder if the TV guide will count for summer reading.

Twenty-three writers write about their favorite TV shows or shows that stick in their minds for some reason. Nick Hornby, a British writer, writes about West Wing, a show about a fictional president, but can't imagine Americans enjoying an English show about a fictional prime minister. I guess he'd be surprised at the much-viewed collection of Yes, Prime Minister videos at our house. Alan Lightman remembers three episodes of Twilight Zone that scared him, his brothers, and the housekeeper silly. After forty years he gets details of the shows wrong (the Chinese restaurant was really a diner, and the plastic surgery patient was a woman rather than a man, as he remembers), but it doesn't matter. The time and the memories are important, not the TV show. Mark Leyner writes an unlikely, but funny essay about a South Korean academic he encounters who suspects that everything that has happened in the world since 1968 is a figment of Steve McGarrett's imagination. As a former teen who loved Big Valley, I enjoyed reading Jayne Anne Phillips's memories of the strong character played by Barbara Stanwyck and that hunky Heath and the handsome, but apparently celibate older brother (played by Richard Long) who lived part time in San Francisco. "Hm," Phillips muses. MST3K, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Davey and Goliath, Secret Agent (formerly Danger Man), The Dick Van Dyke Show, Star Trek, even Survivor all get analyzed, remembered, and misremembered. An especially original essay has Lan Samantha Chang watching Gilligan's Island shortly after her family has immigrated to Wisconsin from China. She remembers identifying with the castaways and decades later when she sees the show again, understands the show on a completely different level. Great for browsing and skimming, Prime Times is a lot of fun. Also recommended is Gilligan Unbound, an unexpected analysis of Gilligan's Island, the Simpsons, Star Trek, and The X-Files by a professor who watches TV without shutting down his brain.