Television

Jane Austen Forever!

Pick up a Jane Austen novel, and you will discover that behind the long gowns and country dances, people in her era struggled with the same weaknesses we struggle with today. Well-written stories like Austen's bring to life the human drama that is played out in every...

“Seinfeld”: The Politically Incorrect Comedy

Seinfeld may be the first situation comedy truly to achieve the status of art. It’s a comic study of life after several decades of a counterculture that supposedly upended all the rules of life, definitely obscured the path to maturity, and persistently encouraged doing as one likes...

“Black Mirror” and the Soul

Black Mirror succeeds at making viewers consider the ways humanity is being changed by technology. In its last season, the show considered the idea of uploading consciousness into a computer-generated world. But can the soul be reduced to a collection of data in this way?......

When “Civilization” Became a Bad Word

The very word “civilization” is now politically charged, implying as it does hierarchies of achievement and value judgments. That someone would say that our culture is better than any other, or that some other culture is deficient in some way, is the kind of thing that causes fainting...

The Mister Rogers-ification of Christianity

I would not dream of condemning Mister Rogers for keeping overt religious references out of his broadcasts in order to reach the widest possible audience and provide a valuable public service with his message of love. What I do condemn is the idea that Christian faith...

A Morning with Big Brother

TV screens are everywhere, seemingly omnipresent; difficult to avoid; gatecrashing our minds and demanding our attention, whether we want it or not; techno-rapists which force themselves upon us... I have long since broken the habit of watching...

Sherlock Homeless

I watched Sherlock with a growing sense of sorrow for the homelessness of Holmes, and for the homelessness of those who wrote it, and for the homelessness of so many of those who watch it. I share their sense that we live in a vale of tears...

Where Have All Our Working Men Gone?

One-sixth of all men of prime working age in America are not just unemployed, but have stopped looking for jobs altogether. Why?... The US stock market continues to set new records. Unemployment continues to go...

Hunting Good Will (Shakespeare)

Hunting Will Shakespeare will be a continuing pursuit. It is almost as if the hunt for him is a hunt for humanity and a search to understand ourselves... My oldest son, Benedict has rightly observed...

War Teaches Wonder Woman a Lesson

The perennial moral that Wonder Woman learns is that evil, and the war which is one of its manifestations, can never be finally destroyed in human history... It’s been many years since...

Star Trek: Five Decades Later

Star Trek is a modern allegory and mythology for late Western Civilization. The series worked best when Captain Kirk stood for willful impulse; Mr. Spock for aristocratic reason; and Dr. McCoy for democratic passions... The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star...

“Foyle’s War”: Against the Modern World

Ostensibly about the Second World War, Foyle’s War actually concerns the war against the encroaching doom of the modern world... From time to time I am asked, “Father, how do you get so much done? You write books and...

The Inspector Morse Mysteries and a Lost Eden

In the murder mystery, the portrayal of an apparent Eden is broken by the intrusion of crime, and the specific crime of murder, so that by the intervention of clever and wise persons the social world can be healed and order restored...

The Balkanization of a Boutique World

As we retreat into our respective corners to enjoy the things we enjoy, we enjoy less and less in common with one another. The bonds that hold us together are loosening... Few things have changed...