In another age the village elder would remind the coming generation of the legacy of the clan or tribe. Around the fire, at least as television has portrayed history, the wise man or woman would stand in the flickering flames and tell of what had been and draw lessons for what would be.
Many weary liberals watch today in horror as the Democrat Party destroys itself. It is not the infighting that is killing the race. It is not the hot You-Tube videos. It is that their candidates are committing the greatest sin of the new media age: they have been cool and are cool no longer.
John McCain was never cool and so immune. He was never a show, a movement, or a trend. He has no real catch phrases or already-dated merchandise. He is John McCain and he is running for president as if he was Ike and the world did not need pollsters and oracular pundits to pronounce on cable television.
What does the future hold for the Democrats?
Let us let the wisdom of television speak from the past.
Early television, from a decade called the Nineties, teaches us why we are so bored with Senator Clinton and Obama already.
Gather around and remember with me, your village elder of old media, a cultural phenomena known as the X-Files and what its sad end tells about the race for president in the Democrat Party.
There was a time, a time before cable, when there were few networks. One came home from school to a tiny screen, often with garish color, and an uneven picture. It was a hard-knock life for us, but soon there arose hope. Free television, not related to Masterpiece Theater and not from a street called Sesame, came to us. It was UHF. Cartoons were often there and reruns of Gilligan’s Island. Think of it as TV-Land without a good picture for a few precious hours a day.
And then came Fox.
Fox brought together all those struggling stations into a “Network.” Somehow through money magic shows began to appear on UHF that were new.
Of course, only the NFL could make it a Real Network and the NFL would come, but only if it was very good young network. It became very good with shows so powerful that some, like the Simpsons achieved immortality. Only one show forced science fiction fans to consider that Star Trek may have found a rival for geekish admiration: the X-Files.
However, like all shows not named Simpson eventually it lost its way and began to stink like the last season of Friends. The best actor on the show, and yes it was David Duchovny before Connie and Carla, more or less left. The show kept going, like this metaphor, and eventually people stopped watching. At the end, and like this analogy it would mercifully end, there was only one question: would the two leads, Scully and Mulder, end up together?
If you are young and care about your television heritage it is a show you should Netflix X-Files. You will enjoy the early years with a plot so convoluted it takes nine seasons to work it out. Later you will be able to mercifully skip any episode without Duchovny and with a man named Doggett. You will be able to skip to the fascinating ending where the show found, for a few brief hours, its life again.
If you are my age, the ability to watch shows as very, very long movies via Netflix is a good thing. I have yet to watch the Office, because soon I will Netflix season one and skip through it merrily and avoid all the clunkers. The next time somebody tells you about the good old days ask them if they ever got to see every episode of Spin and Marty. There was a time, a horrid time without Tivo, when if your parents made you do your homework during your favorite show, then Disney would lock it into a vault and never release it again.
Ever.
Not even now.
What makes me think of this? If you have read this far, it is because you are eagerly searching for something new to say about the unfolding disaster that is the Democrat primary system. What do we know so far? The show began with a large ensemble cast of characters. One, Barack Obama, was the breakout hit, the Fonzi, who began to dominate each episode. The reliable old television star, Senator Clinton, who had been slated to dominate found that the cool guy was blowing her away in the key demographics.
She did not handle this well. She cried. She pouted. She demanded a new extension.
We loved watching. The episode on “Who Will Socialize Your Medicine The Fastest” was the highest rated show of its kind in television history. They were new and fresh . . . and there was the continued tension, so understated at first, about whether the dream would happen and they would end up together.
Did he hold the chair for her at the last debate?
Was that a glimmer in her gimlet eye?
But alas, the show has gone on too long. They keep making the same pitch. The young Prater from Illinois swept all before him, but then we heard him bellow “change,” his memorable catch phrase, once too often. Our Soviet-chic t-shirts with his face are moving to the back of the closet with the “Live Long and Prosper” and “Where Is the Beef?” faded tops. When he says “yes we can,” then we do change: the channel.
As for her, we have tired of her as well. The soap opera of her marriage is so nineties, like the Dana Scully pant suits she wears. Her husband wags his fingers at us, but he is no longer waggish, just old.
And yet the show keeps running since, evidently the DNC network has nothing compelling to replace it with. There is nothing more to say about it and only wondering how it will end keeps us checking in from time to time. Will Mulder and Scully . . .I mean Clinton and Obama . . . end up together? What will happen?
It is hard to care and yet Pennsylvania is still weeks away . . . and the last primary is not until June. If you like a show, the waiting for it as we are waiting for Monk to begin again in July whets the palate for more. If the show has jumped the shark, then it is painful to see an old favorite debase itself like the third season of Star Trek.
The Pennsylvania primary is rapidly degenerating into Spock’s Brain. My generation had to see Nimoy debase himself in an episode whose only line I remember is, “Brain, brain, brain.” Your generation has to watch Senator Obama, intelligent and suave, debase himself by giving the same speech until it makes his brain fall out.
If only we could Netflix the entire primary show and see the end when John McCain takes the oath of office and the DNC executives leak to people that they are not to blame for his victory in the sweeps period.
Did Scully end up with Mulder? Netflix it and see. Will Obama make the horrid mistake of choosing Clinton? Netflix cannot save us from the horror of Carville as Mitch Pileggi and Al Gore coming in as a potential Agent Doggett to attempt to save a franchise past its expiration date.
Sadly for America, this horror show must play out in real time.