Time Warp

My husband thinks I have gone off the deep end. I have recently been watching quite a bit of television online. That isn't what he is going on about. He is teasing me about my new favorite show.

Barney Miller

I can't really explain it myself. His funniest comment was something like, "Isn't today's television good enough for you?" Does he really want me to answer that?

Now, the diffference isn't really anything moral or cultural, Then vs. Now. This isn't Car 54, Where Are You. The mid 1970's marked the beginning of the television powers-that-be trying to push the envelope and see what they could get away with. Barney Miller has plenty of what one might expect to see in a NYC police precinct, minus the bad language (That envelope was only beginning to get pushed.) The cops are clean, good guys, but the show itself isn't "clean." So, what is the appeal?

Maybe it is that the cops are such good guys.

Also, I like to laugh. Sit coms now-a-days (and even in the 1980's and 1990's) are family based. Those that are work based are not police-based. Cops get one hour dramas now and they try to be edgy. Barney Miller isn't edgy. It may have tried at the time it was on the air, but edgy is hard to pull off 30 years after the fact.

What can I say? I like it.