The Best
1. Roseanne
''It's been a real sucky year,'' said Roseanne
Conner (Roseanne Arnold) in a recent episode. She was referring to
the fact that the motorcycle shop that husband Dan (John Goodman) had
bought was a no-customers victim of the recession, that her own job
as a coffee-shop waitress was an exhausting drag, and that her
previously chipper middle daughter, Darlene (Sara Gilbert), had
turned into a depressed beatnik. But one person's suckiness means
pleasure for millions: In an increasingly rare validation of mass
taste, Roseanne, the most popular show on television, is also the
best. Tough-minded and devil-may-care risky, Roseanne hasn't lost
its sarcastic funniness (Laurie Metcalf's Jackie: ''How would you
feel if one of your kids was gay?'' Roseanne: ''The only thing I want
for my kids is that they're happy and outta the house''). Write to the
President and tell him that even though he didn't like the way she
sang the national anthem, he really ought to be watching Roseanne
Arnold's show to see how a great many Americans are living these
days.
2. Seinfeld
Going into this season, Seinfeld seemed like
little more than a pleasant diversion. But over the past few months,
Jerry Seinfeld and show cocreator Larry David have pursued their
less-is-more sitcom philosophy with quietly spectacular results.
Building each episode around the tiniest incidents — Jerry forgets
where he parked his car; Kramer (Michael Richards) loses his coat;
George (Jason Alexander) takes an IQ test — Seinfeld has liberated
itself from the straitjacket of standard sitcom plotting. Seinfeld,
Alexander, Richards, and the every-week-more-marvelous Julia
Louis-Dreyfus have come to seem like (1) the best improvisational
comedy team now working and (2) folks you'd like to hang out with. I
can easily imagine an episode in which they come over to my house,
eat popcorn, and watch TV. I'd even let Kramer give the baby her
bottle. Mmmmmaybe.
3. thirtysomething
As the '91 fall season staggers on, this,
the Yuppie Odyssey, is beginning to seem more and more like the
Great Lost Television Series that will soon be enshrouded in myth.
Just as Mel Harris' Hope was showing some backbone; just as Ken
Olin's Michael was having a really interesting nervous breakdown;
just as we were losing Timothy Busfield's Elliot to El Lay; just as
David Clennon's Miles was revealing the true complexity of corporate
evil...ABC canceled the damn thing! And everyone involved in the show
seemed relieved! The nerve of all those people!
4. Law & Order
Every week, after Mike Post's trademark
funkless-funk theme music has faded away, I turn to my wife and say,
''Is this a great show or what?'' (Every week. Drives her crazy.) I
never expect Law & Order to pull off yet another assiduously low-key,
effortlessly suspenseful episode; it's like getting to read a
first-rate Elmore Leonard thriller every Tuesday night. Paul Sorvino
made an easy transition into his costarring role (replacing George
Dzundza), and Chris Noth's Logan has become the show's most
fascinating character — a smart, garrulous brooder whose notions of law
and order are more complicated than that American-flag pin on his
lapel would suggest. Plus, the creator, Dick Wolf, worked in a
strong female character this season; in the year's most artful cast
addition, Carolyn McCormick has made several small but forceful
appearances as tough police psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet.
5. I'll Fly Away
This show gives stateliness a good name.
Each week, Sam Waterston's portrayal of an ambitious attorney in the
late-'50s South becomes more pleasingly complex; his acting is
matched by that of Regina Taylor as Lilly, the attorney's more
discreetly ambitious housekeeper. The series is already peerless in
its portrayal of the relationship between white male employer and
black female employee — there hasn't been a TV show or theatrical film
before this that has captured its awkwardness and time-honored social
expediency. The series could use a lot less of that tedious subplot
about the Greek myth — spouting coach (Brad Sullivan), but other than
that, I'll Fly Away is a more subtle drama than anything else on TV.
6. Late Night With David Letterman
A red-Letter year: His
reconciliation with Cher was deeply touching (''Okay, okay, you've had
your chance to talk about important, serious subjects — now can we talk
about your tattoos?''). He has been sharper, more political, a shade
less cranky — in short, a beloved institution. Best recent decision:
Cutting back on those Top 10 lists, which sounded increasingly like
obligations to fulfill the next book contract. One warning: Dave, if
you move to ABC, you'll be at the mercy of Ted Koppel opting to go
overtime with any old Defense Department analyst who catches his
fancy — and those of us who tape Late Night instead of watching it in
real time (what is that — 80, 90 percent of your audience?) will never
be able to set our VCRs properly.
7. Brooklyn Bridge
This sentimental sitcom about life in '50s
Brooklyn could easily have degenerated into something cutesy and
precious; instead, Bridge has become a plucky little comedy.
Exhibiting a steadiness of tone rare on series TV, Bridge has pursued
the strain of conducting Jewish-Catholic puppy love under the gaze of
disapproving elders, and has suggested that our young hero, Alan
(Danny Gerard), is not just Fred Savage with a Brooklyn Dodgers
addiction — he's his own little man, earnest and devious, noble and
horny. And there's no way on earth Marion Ross, as Alan's
grandmother, will be denied a Best Supporting Actress Emmy next year.
8. Northern Exposure
It figures that just as I surrendered to
this series' wistful whimsy, many of its most devout fans started
saying the show had lost it — ''it'' being some sort of edge I never
thought it had. Sure, Exposure has gotten a little softer and
self-satisfied, but what I really like about this season (aside from
the fact that the excellent Janine Turner is sounding more saucily
Southern with each episode) is the way most of the fine supporting
characters now seem to view the show's ostensible hero, Dr. Joel
Fleischman (Rob Morrow), as I do: as a selfish, petulant whiner best
ignored. The show also inspired the best joke I've read in a TV
review all year, from Tom Carson's decidedly edgy piece in L.A.
Weekly: ''If Woody Allen is butter, then Fleischman is margarine.''
9. The Simpsons
Despite a drop-off in the quality of this
season's writing (key to the problem: Homer has been made too stupid,
even for Homer), The Simpsons remains the best smart-aleck show on
TV, the one whose wisecracks carry the most weight. That's because
this is one of TV's most believable clans; they suggest that a
family consisting of mutually exclusive personalities (stupid Homer,
wise Marge, wiser Lisa, wiseacre Bart, canny Maggie) develops a
healthy sense of confidence and independence. A half hour of The
Simpsons is probably more therapeutic than endless hours of PBS' John
Bradshaw nurturing your inner child.
10. Murphy Brown
Murphy's crankiness over pregnancy has been
enormously gratifying, and the emergence of Eldin as an impending
nanny is the development we'd all been hoping for. The episode that
bade farewell to Murphy's mom (the late Colleen Dewhurst) was a small
marvel: raucously funny and truly sad, with the writing (by creator
Diane English) in its second half as strong as that in its first,
something not often true about Murphy these days. And maybe it's time
for a little shake-up on the FYI team; both Faith Ford's Corky and
Joe Regalbuto's Frank are vague, one-note characters this season.
