Shales on TV live: Barry Levinson's take on Hollywood and politics

Washington Post Style columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Shales was online Tuesday, Nov. 3, at Noon ET to discuss television, its cultural impact and his columns.

Today's column: Hollywood insider Barry Levinson turns his lens on politicking

Shales, The Washington Post's chief television critic for 30 years, is the author of several books, including "On the Air," "Legends" and "Live From New York." His column, "Shales on TV," appears in the paper every Tuesday.

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Tom Shales: And we're off! Thank you for being wherever you are. And what better way to start the day with an attack upon myself? It cleanses the mind - or something. At any rate, please pelt me with questions in the hour ahead.

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Montgomery Village, Md.: Why does the Post continue to call you a "TV Critic"? It seems as if the column has morphed into a political blog more than anything else. I turned to your column today hoping to see a review of 'V' but instead got more coverage of politics. I've read some of the previous chats, and you seem completely unaware of a lot of the popular series of current TV. I'm just a fan of most of these shows, but I feel like I know more about the TV industry these days than you do. What's the deal?

Tom Shales: Apparently I have fooled many folks with my disguise as a TV critic. Seriously I think of television critic as someone who writes about and analyzes the medium and all its output - not just someone who reviews programs. Most programs are not worth much attention. They will be gone tomorrow replaced by others. But it's interesting to track their histories sometimes, or wonder what they say about the audience or the programmers or both. I don't think I'm "completely unaware of a lot of the popular series of current TV," but there's no point in my watching them every week. I don't do a synopsis or preview of particular episodes. And there's lots else to write/think about. I don't know what you mean by "coverage of politics." Oh I think "V" is a rerun from Syfy Channel which NBC owns

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College Park, Md.: Tom,

Can you rank the following for best drama series: The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men? Do they all rank in the top five dramas?

Also, When was the last time you laughed out loud watching the Jay Leno show?

Thanks.

Tom Shales: The Wire best, pretty much in a league by itself, way ahead of the other two. Breaking Bad has its audacious side which I sort of admire but find it basically unpleasant. Mad Men -- to judge from the previews of the "season finale" -- is going hog wild in the manner of old-time soaps like "Dallas" and "Dynasty" -- only with less splashy production. I must confess - I laughed out loud last night at Jay Leno when he did that "headlines" bit. I am a sucker for funny bloopers.

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Baltimore, Md.: Tom, as you may recall you were attacked by a poster last week for your negative review of the Comedy Central Show by ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. A poster on Hank Stuever's chat yesterday retracted her criticism of you after realizing that Hank wrote that review, for which said poster attacked him. Anyway, just want you to know you have been cleared of being antiventriloquist. But take it from me, a guy about your age, Dunham is no Senor Wences. Don't think he'll be having any blocks named after him in NYC.

One last point: I finally got HD cable yesterday. I am never leaving my house again except by court order.

washingtonpost.com: Hank Stuever Discussion on Bravo: TV's unlikely moral center (washingtonpost.com, Nov. 2)

Tom Shales: I take it Jeff Dunham is the guy whose main dummy so to speak is that bitter old man -- sorry that hits too close to home. I enjoy impressionists more than ventriloquists but enjoyed it when Dave Letterman had a "ventriloquist week" on his show in the last year or two -- he should do it again. I do remember Senor Wences from "The Ed Sullivan Show" (which made Dave's week more resonant as he's in the Sullivan Theater). Also -- if you have never seen the Michael Redgrave episode from the omnibus horror film "Dead of Night" -- about a ventriloquist whose dummy overtakes his master's personality - try to catch it some time. Brilliantly acted, wow. The idea was stolen for a lousy movie with Anthony Hopkins & Ann-Margret - "Magic" may have been the title? (Help me people!!!)

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Last night's interview with Kate Gosselin: That woman's staying power is amazing. If being in the public eye is so painful, here's my suggestion. Simply don't do any more TV shows, magazine cover shoots or print interviews. People will be glad to see you slide off to oblivion.

As to the endless rumors about a possible romance between her and her bodyguard, at any time she could simply have gotten rid of him and gotten a new guard. She never did, which tells you something.

He was just out of sight during the interview. Did Kate expect the interviewer would suddenly put her in a choke hold and she needed protection?

I feel SO sorry for the innocent children. What a tell-all book they will all write eventually -- and with justification.

Tom Shales: I am passing this along without comment. Shame on me, I missed the interview. Thanks for your analysis.....

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Indianapolis, Ind.: When is the wonderful Breaking Bad coming back? This is the best and most entertaining show on TV. Bryan Cranston deserved best Emmy and other characters are so rich and interesting. Far outshadows its fellow AMC show Mad Men which gets all of the attention.

Tom Shales: I thought it WAS back! I thought it aired just the other night. Maybe it was a rerun. Very hard under this new TV scheduling anarchy to know what's a rerun and what's new. HBO shows "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Episodes from all the various seasons and if you see the show's title listed in the program guide and tune in expecting the latest episode, you can get a drubbing of a disappointment. I assume this is the same with other shows. Agree with you both on Bryan Cranston and on superiority to "Mad Men" but be careful, those "Mad Men" fans are very passionate.......

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Toronto: Bonjour, Tom! Did you see any good TV costumes this Halloween? My husband was the "falling silhouette guy" from the Mad Men opening (in a black suit, covered with vintage ads, and a "created by Matthew Weiner" credit on his back). I know you don't like Mad Men, but c'mon that's funny. :)

Tom Shales: That's VERY funny in fact. I saw funny costumes on (hate to mention it again so soon) the Letterman show. I love the bit he does every year in which kids dress up in weird things, topical items from the news usually. My youngest goddaughter decided to go as, I believe, a caffe latte from Starbucks. She had the cup around her torso sort of and whipped cream atop her head. The cutest thing in the universe surely.

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Capitol Hill, DC: Yes, it was "Magic." It was memorable in that it was the first R-rated movie I ever saw, but was otherwise just godawful.

Tom Shales: Thank you. I breathe a deep sigh when I can remember a title especially of a movie that's fairly and deservedly obscure. I thought it was a rip-off plain and simple. Not pure and simple as there was nothing pure about it except that it was purely negligible.

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Ottawa, Ontario: What is your opinion about Cougar Town on ABC? I found it rude, vulgar, in your face and not so funny.

Desperate Wife is sexy, smart, elegant and funny.

Why do you think Cougar Town is doing so well?

Thanks for taking time to answer my questions.

Tom Shales: I found it rude, vulgar, in my face and not so funny. Why is it popular? It's not THAT popular. I think it's a cunning ploy to do a show with that subject and that title right now while it's still a water-cooler topic. Does anybody do a show called "Water Cooler" by the way? I may be spelling it wrong. Also the last time I looked in on "Desperate Housewives" it seemed a little too desperate, like they were running out of ideas. Getting the shark ready for a jumping.

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Olney, Md.: Tom, I realize not everybody watches football. When I used to watch CBS on Sunday evenings, I used to be very fond of The Amazing Race and Cold Case. I would be upset when they ran late due to football overruns. And no one has invented any recording device that can start and stop programs when they're actually shown rather than the scheduled time. So why can't CBS, given that 60 Minutes is a segmented show, show enough of 60 Minutes to allow for Amazing Race to start at 8:00 and the rest at 11? That would make the people who watch AR, Three Rivers, and/or Cold Case happy without doing a "Heidi" on the football game?

Tom Shales: Your solution to the overrun problem seems very sound. But first of all, CBS doesn't consider it a problem. They're delighted to squeeze in more commercials with a long-running football game and a longer-than-usual prime time (and prime time is longer on Sundays already without any football runovers). The bookkeepers would be askance if CBS tried to remove a third or two-thirds of "60 Minutes" from the air show; sponsors would have to be compensated with money or "make goods" -- free spots on other shows. And "other shows" are NOT "60 Minutes," which has a dream demographic. Etc etc. Your idea is great but the network would say impractical. And I thought that some of those DVR's could adjust to staggered, altered program start and stop times. No? Can you set them to record all of prime time or four hours in a row or something? Sorry I am not more technologically aware.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: Your thoughts on "TMZ," the celebrity gossip and entertainment news show. Is it a harmless guilty pleasure, the worst kind of junk, or something in between.

Tom Shales: Hello Gaithersburg - your question fell into the meat grinder and had to be rescued! Just a horrible accident. And on TMZ, it strikes me the same as "Entertainment Tonight" and other pop-information shows -- all glitz and sparkle and no substance. They "tease" stories over and over and over - four or five times within the show and then at the end, they finally get to the story and -- it's no longer than those teases were! They basically just repeat the promos. Really bad behavior, virtual bait-and-switch. Awfully tacky also - not as much fun as the National Enquirer maybe because the shows are such hard-sell bombastic hyper-productions -- bang bang bang aimed right at your head. Maybe these shows are "harmless" but I find them aggravating. Ditto "Extra".

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Central Iowa: Are there any shows you watch every week? That you actually expend mental effort to assure that you view them?

Tom Shales: This will be repetitious for regular visitors -- Letterman every night if I'm up ... "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and, until this season, "Entourage" on HBO (it seems to have gone down hill & become awfully predictable) ... and ... now let me see .... "Law & Order" or a spinoff ... some MTV stuff like "Real World" when it's in first-run; embarrassment television at its tawdriest ... I'll get back to you on the others, if any. Still catch "Seinfeld" reruns fairly often, imagine that.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Magic was 1945. Dead of Night with Anthony Hopkins was 1978.

Tom Shales: No no, sorry but you have it backwards. "Magic" is the newer film and had Hopkins. "Dead of Night" was a mid-40s British horror film (not really horror, more just supernatural stuff) containing 5 or 6 stories. One was a comedy about 2 golfers, one of whom dies and come backs to haunt the other. Sally Ann Howes was in one of them - and so on. Not a great film but richly entertaining, and the Michael Redgrave finale is something truly special. "Magic" was in color, "Dead" in black-and-white. Of this stuff I am certain...

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Kate Gosselin: If that poster wants Kate to fade away into oblivion, then he/she should (1) not watch her on TV and (2) not post about her. As long as her interviews get viewers and there is any kind of buzz about her, she'll continue to be a media presence.

For the record, I can't blame her for not willingly giving up what made her a millionaire. I'm honest enough to admit that I'd fight for the money, too.

Tom Shales: Agreed. It's easy to say what obnoxious boobs on TV should do to make you and me happier -- but they're not thinking about us. And one of the most common maxims in 21st century America is "Grab it while you can get it, honey" -- oh, "honey" is not necessarily a part of it. They all try to maximize their moment in the spotlight, their "15 minutes," because who knows if they'll get another minute or two....

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Delaware: Just an observation apropos of nothing... except your inimitable ability to capture concisely and cogently the situation or character...I have been a fan of yours since the 80s when you once described the character Joan Collins was playing...Alexis: it was...as 'a liver spotted nymphomaniac clothes horse' you have a wonderful economy with words. Thank you.

Tom Shales: No, thank YOU. That's very nice of you -- and remembering that description after all these years. If I have a "wonderful economy with words," I sure have a lousy economy with everything else, chiefly money. But that's a story for another time......

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Silver Spring, Md.: Magic was actually a novel first, by William Goldman (1976); the movie was 1978 and I saw it then too. Whether Goldman ripped off the story idea, I don't know -- it's possible he generated it himself, I suppose.

Tom Shales: It seems awfully likely that Goldman would have seen the British film. But in truth, though the basic gimmick is the same, the two storylines are different, as are the characters. I guess there's no law that says nobody can do another story about a ventriloquist and his evil manipulative dummy. In fact I've always found the concept to have a creepy side -- this person holding a doll on his or her lap and speaking through it. One thing that slays me, and I beg your indulgence: Ventriloquists who are terrible on purpose. I remember Jackie Gleason as Reginald Van Gleason III doing a terrible act in which the dummy's head fell off. In the movie "Rosalie," Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) plays a king who only speaks through his ventriloquist's dummy -- hilarious (the rest of the movie not so hot)

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Tom,

We just discovered Modern Family and caught up with the season thanks to our DVR. It is one of the funniest shows I have seen in a long time due mostly to incredibly clever dialogue. Your thoughts?

Tom Shales: Thank heaven I loved Modern Family from the word go (or did they actually say the word "go" ???) and am glad it is holding up. I still think it tends to get lost in a small sea of inferior sitcoms -- I mean inferior to it, not inferior to the average comedy. I just wish ABC would give "Modern Family" special attention. It's just another sitcom the way "Sopranos" was just another gangster story ..... NOT. (a nod to Borat)

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Alexandria, Va.: Regarding your status as critic: The word has not yet gotten around that Hank Stuever is the regular critic and that you are El Critic Supremo. Longtime readers like me have valued your forays into political television (I vividly remember your comment on Ronald Reagan's appearance at the 1992 GOP convention -- "don't you wish you could vote for him again, for something, anything?"). Keep it up.

Tom Shales: Who is the "regular critic"? Chaos reigns. These are trying, trying times. Punches thrown in newsrooms and such (not by me, the nonviolent cowardly type). I do think longevity and seniority oughta count for something. But some cherished old values get trashed in the stampede to

change.....

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Evil ventriloquist dummy films: There's also the exquisitely bad Devil Doll, a 1964 British film that Mystery Science Theater 3000 ripped to shreds (and rightly so).

Tom Shales: Thanks! I'll have to check it out. Ever see Lionel Barrymore of all people as a kind of transvestite ventriloquist in MGM film -- -- aw-oh. I can't

access IMDb while on line here. Anyway, there've been lots of them, I guess. Sometimes the worse they are, the better. TCM showed an incredibly tacky horror film from the 70s at like 2 a.m. recently --called "Zast," I think. A monster who walked around just as casually as a man in a grey flannel suit. He just loped about town peeking in windows. I guess he bit a few people - but mostly I was laughing myself silly. It almost didn't need the gang from MST3K, but they would certainly have helped - and had plenty to ridicule. You do wonder what they were thinking - the people who made it and maybe more, the people who financed it.

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Albany, N.Y.: Re "the 60 Minutes overrun 'problem'": NBC used to deal with overruns just as the chatter requests. But, in his marvelous memoir OUT OF THIN AIR, Reuven Frank vividly describes what it was like to chop up a news magazine in order to fit a bunch of different demands. (Mountain and West Coast viewers never have this overrun problem.) In the end it was too expensive to produce segments that never aired and to juggle ad sales, which is why CBS does what it does.

Tom Shales: Thank you. Reuven Frank was not only an idol of mine but a friend. He deserved the kind of attention that was heaped all over Don Hewitt when he died - but little attention was paid to Reuven. Then again he never sought publicity or took bows in public. He produced a film called "The Tunnel" about people burrowing under the Berlin Wall (remember that?) to freedom that was and remains a classic....he also did a documentary in his later years warning about the coming economic disaster, especially as it related to pension funds. That didn't get much attention either -- too bad. Reuven was a great man.

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Washington, D.C. : Evil ventriloquist dummies: In addition to the movies, etc., that have been mentioned, a young Cliff Robertson did a Twilight Zone episode in which his dummy turned against him. (A far cry from playing JFK in PT109.)

Tom Shales: Ah yes, I remember. I wish I held a patent on this idea.

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Alexandria, Va.: "Magic" was terrible, but any movie with Ann-Margret is worth watching, at least with the sound off so that you don't have to follow the plot. Anyway, wasn't there a TV episode (maybe "The Twilight Zone"?) with a ventriloquist act where it turns out that the "dummy" is actually a midget and the "ventriloquist" is actually a manikin? I'm sure there must have been, because it's a sort of obvious idea, and we're talking about television, after all.

Tom Shales: I think your question was just answered... I love it when things work out like that..

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Olney, Md.: Remember Jay and his dummy Bob on Soap? They carried on conversations. Bob seemed to be the smarter of the two. . .

Tom Shales: Excellent memory! One of the things on "Soap" I found genuinely funny. I must admit, I wasn't a big big fan;

in the wake of "All in the Family," "Soap" seemed to be

trying too hard to be controversial first, funny second.

But I know it had gazillions of fans.

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Arlington, Va.: I've recently caught the back episodes of "Smith" and "Eyes" on DirecTV's 101 network, and it baffles me how shows that are so well written and acted could have met such an early demise. Smith I could understand maybe because production costs must have been sky high, but even so, why cut off a 7 episode series after 3 shows? Kudos to DirecTV for picking these up and showing the episodes that never aired.

Tom Shales: Between DirecTV, niche networks and the DVD market, I get the feeling that everything will be available to be seen or seen again - eventually. I thumbed through a brochure from a small DVD label the other day and found TV shows I didn't even remember had existed. You can spend a lot of money trying to satisfying your curiosity or refresh your memory. A lot of the older shows, I've found, are better remembered than revisited.

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I gave up on The Amazing Race during football season...: I'm not usually home Sunday nights and I always tape a different program at 9 p.m. Got tired of taping the Amazing Race from 8 to 9 p.m., only to find it only picked up maybe the first half and then I have my other program which starts at 9 p.m.

It used to be one of my favorite shows. I read last year that they actually pick up MORE viewers when football runs overtime...but they lost me.

Tom Shales: I think it is bad manners to treat your viewers that way - to dismiss them really. Not everyone who watches football will want to watch Amazing Race - but CBS would like to trick as many people as possible into watching both.

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Expat with Washington Roots: I read that Ricky Gervais stopped doing the U.K. "Office" because he couldn't keep up the high standards he set for himself. Same with John Cleese and "Faulty Towers". We watched "House" and "Medium" until Autumn 2007 when both got too far away from reality and too far into scary. But then, our single TV stays turned off many evenings...

Tom Shales: That's right. And slowly, or not so slowly, American TV is falling into that pattern, led by the cable networks which just can't AFFORD to do 22 new episodes of a series every year for 7 years. So they do 10 a year for maybe 4 or 5 years. Or less if the creators and producers run out of steam. By the way it's "Fawlty" not "Faulty" but it's a very natural and meaningless mistake....

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McLean, Va.: Regarding punches thrown in newsrooms: the punch followed a WaPo writer's insult which followed an editor's denunciation of another writer's story as "the second-worst story in Style in 43 years." That has led to much speculation on the Post's blogs as to which Style story was #1. Your interview of Dana Delany has been mentioned as a definite possibility.

Tom Shales: The number one WORST? No I don't think so- or did you feel I got a little carried away and lost my journalistic objectivity. An interview I did with Francois Truffaut was definitely worse --I was so thrilled at meeting him but it was hard to ask meaningful questions plus the language barrier was considerable. I'm still glad I got to meet him.

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Columbus, Ohio: Tom,

I feel like the nature of TV comedy has changed over the last several years. It seems to me that the acclaim of shows like Ali G, Daily Show, Colbert, The Office, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, and others indicate a trend where awkward is sort of the new source material for funny...where pregnant pauses and awkward moments supplant outrageousness as a source of laughs.

Do you think this is true, or has awkwardness been there all along as a source of comedy and I've just failed to see it? Also, what do you believe will be the next trend in driving comedy?

Brett in Columbus

Tom Shales: Awkwardness, clumsiness, malaprops, all long-time comedy staples. I think comedy has gotten meaner. It's grown teeth. Even the comedy in commercials can have a pretty mean "edge." Characters in commercials might now even be killed off - tossed over a wall or something. I don't like it but it will probably pass -- or will the trend accelerate and everything get edgier and edgier i.e., meaner and meaner?

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A lot of the older shows...: And a lot of other older shows are better than any current sitcom, 30 Rock included.

Rewatch the first two seasons of Get Smart for a prime example.

Tom Shales: COULD NOT AGREE MORE. Attempts to redo "Get Smart" as a movie etc. failed miserably, by the way.

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Potomac, Md.: I'm a SciFi fan and look to forward to the latest iteration of "V." In the end, thought, isn't "V" (this version and the previous) just another, longer, version of the wonderful Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man?"

Tom Shales: It could easily be regarded that way - though fleshed out considerably with other ideas. I still think even the new "V" has been seen before. Maybe I am having deja view.

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Arlington, Va: As you like television and politics, which of the cable talk show hosts are the most entertaining, e,g, Beck, Maddow, Hannity, etc.?

Tom Shales: Maddow seems very clever. Chris Matthews seems very unpredictable. But I like the more "respectable" "This Week" show on ABC with George Stephanopoulos. And having spelled that correctly, I hope, I will say adieu, farewell, au revoir and thank you.......

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