What's on telly?

The answer was “two stuffed penguins” sitting atop the TV set in a Monty Python skit. They're as interesting as anything on network television today. In a piece entitled “Serving up schlock”, Maureen Dowd decrys the same old regurgitated story lines year in year out. But that's all they've ever been. “Ben Casey” circa 1950's, is now “House”; “Mr. Peepers” is now “Bad Teacher”; “The Defenders” is now “Law and Order (or is it Ordure?” A network exec confesses to watching “Mad Men” on cable so he has some taste. “They're enslaved to tradition”, he says, “they should be bolder but there's a lot of timidity.” Cable is where the creativity is now, but to paraphrase the German I learned in the bars of Zurich, there is a cable service called Drecktv. Personally I watch Mad Men, The Simpsons and a foreign language channel called MhZ. The plots and the social setups are refreshing and the subtitles don't bother me, but I could use some on the Australian shows. Actually you don't need a fancy cable package and certainly not the overpriced HBO. You can get quality TV right on PBS, the service we own but the Republicans wish we didn't. So when you're asked, “what's on telly?” you can say, “Something good, as usual.”