The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
This is the creation of Rod Serling, each week it challenged us to a new way of thinking. The show was ground breaking, in that it allowed us to look at things in a way not clearly presented, it twisted reality as we knew it and took us away to open our minds to other realities or possibilities. I believe that many of the paradigm shifts in the later 1960s and Early 1970s would not have happened had The Twilight Zone not aired. Along with a few other shows, this played a pivotal role in the changes in consciousness. Television shows like The Twilight Zone were able to make their way out of the counter culture and bring these changes into America's Heartland.
The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits ran for a mere 1 and a half seasons. A show similar to The Twilight Zone with slightly different sensibilities. The show became a favorite of Saturday afternoon programing in syndication. The show I believe was also responsible for changes in people's attitudes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Another show that brought counter culture ideas into the living rooms of America.
Lost
In the midst of the current dumbing down of American Television, I am surprised that Lost was created, or that it has lasted as long as it has. A show that combines the esoteric with many areas of theoretical science being aired on ABC, the network that brought us Dancing With The Stars, is as miraculous as finding a polar bear on a tropical island just south of Fiji. The writers of Lost came up with a brilliant way to trick the American public into getting hooked on this show. They combined several arcane mysteries, and cutting edge ideas, with very good drama that drew the audience in. While the audience waits to find out if Sawyer, or Jack, get the girl Kate, they go through a very intense journey of enlightenment. Lost has taken its' audience out of the darkness by keeping them in the dark. While Lost Pop-up episodes give the viewers enough hints to make a few side trips off their own "island". Lost brings the spirit of a Walkabout into the living rooms of America and thus is helping to raise the consciousness and intelligence of all those who continue get lost in the plot.
Seinfeld
This show truly represents the chaos theory in a half hour comedy. What else could a "show about nothing" become? No other television show or work of fiction for that matter has demonstrated the principles synchronicity, absurdism, and chaos theory like Seinfeld. Frank Costanza takes back the marble rye from Susan's parents, and thus begins the Morty Seinfeld getting impeached as president of the condo association. Some argue that Seinfeld is a nihilistic work, however, I feel it demonstrates that everything is connected and has some sort of meaning even if that meaning is an absurd one.
All in the Family
All in the Family is a television show with such brutal honesty, combined with comedy, that it could simply not be made today in the wake of the Politically Correct movement. All in the Family tackled very difficult cultural issues while playing on the typical stereotypes, thus exposing them publicly. This was all done with brilliant comic relief thrown in. The shows creative talent from the writers to the actors, never allowed the show to succumb an indictment of one cultural stereotype over another. If current televisions' creative community would have the nerve to create such a show again, and if the public would have the heart and the courage of watch such a show, dealing with the cultural issues of the 2000s like All in the Family did with the 1970's cultural issues then maybe we could experience a positive social change.
The Beverly Hillbillies
Perhaps the most subversive television show of all time. Some people are still unaware of just how many complex social issues this show tackled and twisted around. The idea of backwoods "crawdad eat'n" hillbillies striking it rich with oil and moving to a mansion in Beverly Hills is in itself subversive. This show weekly ran cultural and social stereotypes through a coil wound tighter than that on Granny's Still. The show played around with the notions of what is hip, cool, and proper. Some episodes dealt with environmental issues, women's rights, aboriginal treaty issues, beatnik and hippie culture. Viewers were not hit over the head with a stern message, as the social messages in The Beverly Hillbillies were always underlaying and subversive. The overt message of The Beverly Hillbillies was one that everyone can relate to that of home being where the heart is and the money does not buy happiness that it is something the comes from the inside.
