What was on TV? Mon, March 14, 2005

20 years ago, people were wondering if Victoria Gotti was dating Vin Diesel. Let's see what was on TV.

8:00 North and South (downloaded)

Episode 2

There's romance, and there's politics, and then there's romantic politics. My favorite genre. North and South gives it to me.

The big romantic moment in this episode occurs during a riot! The starving strikers march their boss Mr. Thornton's door, and Margaret Hale is visiting. She demands he face them like a man, and he's so in love with her that he listens. She tries to reason with them because she is naive and idealistic, these aren't just animals. But they're starving people at the end of their rope! It's no surprise when they throw something and it hits her in the head. He heroically carries her out, they look like the perfect couple. But they also look like a pair of idiots who tried to reason with starving people from behind walls in their fancy clothes.

But that isn't even the most romantic scene in the episode. The most romantic scene comes earlier, at a dinner party. Everyone is talking about the strikes, when suddenly it emerges that Margaret has been giving the strikers food, and is even acquainted with one of the leaders. Suddenly this conversation is much realer than anyone would like. It captures that moment, a moment we've all lived through, so perfectly. The society ladies and factory owners are content to keep everything at a distance. But Margaret and Thornton won't let them. They plunge fearlessly into their argument and into the painful moral contradictions of their monied existence. Because of course, that's what everyone is really avoiding at dinner parties like this one. It's a moment of true and electric intimacy right in the middle of a stuffy dinner party.

9:00 24 on Fox

4x13 "Day 4: 7:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M."

On tonight's installment of 24, the writers are really sorry about the Islamophobia, guys. Jack takes refuge in a sporting goods store owned by a pair of Muslim brothers. And the brothers tell him they want to help him. They aren't terrorists, in fact, they hate the terrorists more than anyone!

This storyline, in which a noble small-business owner teams up with the hero to fight the bad guys, feels like it came from a focus group. And I think it kind of did. Arab Americans were pissed at 24, obviously with good reason. A storyline from earlier this season, in which an ordinary suburban family of immigrants were revealed to be secret terrorists, was the final straw. It stoked every paranoid fantasy that ever gave people an excuse to make brown peoples' lives hell. And Muslim groups, specifically the Council of American Islamic Relations, managed to get the writers' attention. They aired an anti-Muslim hate PSA starring Kiefer Sutherland during several episodes, and writers' still recall conversations with CAIR in later interviews and in Alan Sepinwall's book The Revolution was Televised. And I think this storyline happened because of CAIR. It's good representation in its purest form, which is to say that it's a little boring. It also feels like a concession to pressure, since these Muslim brothers never appear again.

Actor Omer Abtahi, who played the brother who speaks with Jack, did return to 24 in season 7, just as a different character. He was set up to take the fall for a terrorist attack by evil Washington insiders. I've never seen that season, but he appears in multiple episodes; we meet his family and visit his mosque. It seems like a more expansive version of the storyline we see in this episode. But it was way too little, way too late.

10:00 Medium on NBC

1x10 "The Other Side of the Tracks"

The pitch for this show is so goofy. Pattty Arquette talks to ghosts and solves crimes! But that goofy premise offers something really unique in the endless stream of 2000s procedurals. Those shows are all about blame and retribution; this show's connection to the afterlife allows it to explore ideas like reconciliation and forgiveness. In this episode, she helps her theapist Zach Grenier process his own trauma and solves the case of his missing brother. It gets really goofy, but an movie trailer proves the key to the entire case, and I was so into that. And even if it is goofy, the emotional realism and performances carry it. At times it feels more like a therapy drama than a police procedural.

What Else Was On

• Mad Money with Jim Cramer premiered on CNBC.
• Oxygen began airing the first and only season of Mr. Romance. Men competed to be a romance cover model. It all culminated in a "man pageant," the winner received $50,000 in cash and appeared on the cover of a Harlequin romance novel. In a shocking and delightful turn of events, the pageant was won by a dark-skinned Black truck driver! If you know anything about the racist history of romance, this is amazing. Ritchwood appeared on the cover of a novel by wildly successful Black romance novelist Brenda Jackson, and he was still appearing at fan events and working with Jackson as recently as 2021. This show was hosted by Fabio (makes sense) and created by Gene Simmons (what?).

TiVo Status

The Masterpiece Theater miniseries The Lost Prince, a Frontline documentary, the TV movies Sucker Free City, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Ladies Night, and one episode of Miracle's Boys. 13.5 hours total.

Music, 20 years ago

24 loved its evil defense contractors, and the evil defense contractor this season is McClennan Forster, which combines the last names of the two core members of Australian band The Go-Betweens. A strange sort of tribute, but I'm into it! Here's the exquisite "Finding You."