Best of 1991
1 THE CLARENCE THOMAS/ANITA HILL HEARINGS
In a year when real-life courtroom drama became the stuff of TV entertainment, a Supreme Court nominee's droning confirmation process was suddenly transformed into a riveting version of Rashomon. On one side was the composed college professor charging sexual harassment; on the other the outraged judge crying racism; in the jury box, a gaggle of Senators fumbling. After this and the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, how can anybody watch L.A. Law again?
2. HOUSE OF CARDS (PBS).
Masterpiece Theatre has had precious few masterpieces in the past few years, but this intricate, lacerating political thriller atoned for a lot of boring nights with Alistair Cooke. Ian Richardson played a conniving Tory leader who took us into his confidence as he schemed and blackmailed his way to the top. If only real political skulduggery were this much fun.
3. THE SIMPSONS (Fox).
O.K., we were wrong. Everybody's favorite cartoon show seemed, for its first year or so, longer on sass than satire. But this season Homer has supplanted Bart at the program's center, and the series has soared to inventive new heights, skewering everything from multinational corporate takeovers to America's Funniest Home Videos. No doubt anymore: it's TV's most dangerous sitcom.
4. THE SCHWARZKOPF BRIEFING.
Maybe the best army recruiting ad since John Wayne's farewell to his troops in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. In explaining before a rapt press corps how the gulf war was won, the general embodied a nation's ideal of the perfect warrior: tough, professional, charismatic, compassionate. And gave a great lesson in military tactics in the process. Now if we could just figure out what it was all for.
5. PUBLIC ENEMY 2 (Showtime).
SCTV alum Dave Thomas times two: as a luckless actor who plays a serial killer on a TV true-crime show, and as the real serial killer who gets revenge for the indignity. This cable special could have settled for simply lampooning America's Most Wanted, which it does to perfection. But it grew swiftly into a hilarious satire of America's celebrity obsession.
6. CONEY ISLAND (PBS).
The Burns boys are TV's hottest brother act. PBS's blockbuster The Civil War, which Ken directed and Ric helped write, was the TV event of 1990. Ric was responsible for this smaller slice of Americana, a wistful look at the glory days of America's greatest amusement park. The turn-of-the-century film clips were nostalgic yet startling, the documentary enthralling.
7. THIRTYSOMETHING (ABC).
The quintessential yuppie drama for the '80s had begun to grow a bit thin and self-indulgent as the new decade dawned. But with its end drawing near and character crises mounting -- a cancer scare, a sudden death -- the show revealed that it was made of sterner stuff. No network series has captured a milieu with such uncompromising fidelity. And Homefront is no substitute.
8. NAKED HOLLYWOOD (A&E).
Egotistical producers, pampered actors, ill-used writers, oily agents: the familiar cast was on hand as the BBC poked its nose into the film capital. But producer Nicolas Kent enlivened the old story with an outsider's perspective and a filmmaker's brashness.
9. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT (NBC).
Brian Dennehy, hair dyed a sinister black, starred in this horror story about a bully who terrorizes a Missouri town while the wheels of justice grind slow. Directed by James Sadwith, it was the scariest TV movie of the year, partly because it came so close to justifying vigilante violence.
10. I'LL FLY AWAY (NBC).
Sam Waterston's plodding earnestness can be a bit much, and the political- correctness level is inordinately high. But there is much truth and tenderness in this family drama set against a backdrop of racial tensions in a 1950s Southern community. Easily the best of a dismal crop of new network shows.
THE BIGGEST LETDOWNS
Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal made their grand return to television in CBS's Good Sports. Their strained repartee made Nick & Nora look like a match made in heaven. Producer Norman Lear was born again in CBS's Sunday Dinner, a family comedy with a religious twist. Jimmy Swaggart's sermons got more laughs. James Garner, starring as a con artist turned city councilman in NBC's Man of the People, proved likability goes only so far in TV. You also need a script.