Books, Arts & Manners: Dull-as

To adapt a phrase of Edmund Wilson’s, who cares who shot J.R.? I may be getting old, but I can’t stay awake through Dallas consistently enough to make it worthwhile watching any one episode. I don’t see why you can’t watch TV without making a career of it. The junkies who have to see a show every week have my pity, the pushers who hook them my contempt.

My prejudice is against any serial that runs longer than the Oresteia. As families go, the Ewing tribe is closer to the Carter clan than to the House of Atreus. After more than a few installments one gets a sense of eternal recurrence, as indeed with the Carters. The difference being that the Carters don’t have anyone as able as J. R. Ewing.

JS

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Joseph Sobran

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To adapt a phrase of Edmund Wilson’s, who cares who shot J.R.? I may be getting old, but I can’t stay awake through Dallas consistently enough to make it worthwhile watching any one episode. I don’t see why you can’t watch TV without making a career of it. The junkies who have to see a show every week have my pity, the pushers who hook them my contempt.

My prejudice is against any serial that runs longer than the Oresteia. As families go, the Ewing tribe is closer to the Carter clan than to the House of Atreus. After more than a few installments one gets a sense of eternal recurrence, as indeed with the Carters. The difference being that the Carters don’t have anyone as able as J. R. Ewing.