Posted on 06/07/2010 10:29:46 AM PDT by inkling
Television has been dismissed as a cultural wasteland, and for conservatives, it's a barren wasteland indeed, especially over the last quarter-century. Joe Friday doesn't save the world from hippies every week: Today, the hippies are the heroes and conservatives (especially conservative Christians) are the villains.
But there is still hope. There are still good conservative television shows out there, you just have to look for them.
The Rules
No miniseries.
Basic cable or broadcast TV only.
No documentaries.
No news or opinion shows.
No sports.
Ideally, it should have DVD sets available for purchase. Good TV. No "Highway to Heaven" or the like, they must be shows that you can talk about with some measure of pride.
25. Chuck
Adam Baldwin's Casey is one of the greatest scene-stealers in recent TV history. Any show with a character who keeps a picture of Ronald Reagan on his desk had to make the list.
24. Pitchmen
Hard-working, everyday Americans coming up with great ideas, and then working even hard to make them real. Capitalism at its very best, and a great testament to the American dream.
23. Hunter
Dirty Harry with an NFL star as the lead actor. Moral relativism? Rights of the accused? Talk to the .44, baby. Works for me.
22. The Goode Family
Ooooh so close. With Mike Judge at the trigger and the silliness of political correctness as its target, The Goode Family had the potential to be a cornerstone of conservative comedy. The director was willing, but alas, the scripts were weak.
21. Magnum P.I.
A show with a lead character who's a well-adjusted, happy Vietnam veteran...
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Have Gun Will Travel-—a great tv show, one of my all time favorites.
The humans decided to give up the quest for Earth and just settle down, so they colonized a small planet. The Cylons showed up and took over, bringing the superior Cylon way to the people of New Caprica. The humans—referred to as “insurgents”—began sabotaging operations and doing suicide bombings. If someone took over the US a la Red Dawn, everyone on Free Republic would be engaging in these techniques, but the effect in a time of war was to have the audience cheering for al-Qaeda. Like I said, they used the language of the real-world debate by having a Cylon talk about, “I thought they’d welcome us with hearts and flowers!”
By the way, Moore chickened out by expressing surprise. “A parable about Iraq? Hey, it could be about Vichy France!”
I wasn’t a huge BG fan before this storyline, and I continued watching afterward, but the bad taste from that never left my mouth. I honestly don’t think it was very good anyway, with more and more people revealed as Cylons and weird crap like a bunch of people hearing “All Along the Watchtower” in their heads. I don’t know why I stuck with it, but I see it as a bitter, dark, joyless show that I’ll never revisit.
Yeah i had trouble getting into it
i was disappointed since as a kid i loved the original
i have that one on DVD
its campy and the effects goofy but it was fun and truly had conservative values in it
Definitely Supernatural. Its the best show no one knows about. Just two brothers fighting demons and the Apocalypse in the 67 Impala.
Its kind of like a horror tv show.
Btw, Im suprised Degrassi didnt make this list. It is the perfect show to scare kids into acting right.
bttt
They didn’t have TV shows during my formative years, I was born in 1930. I liked radio shows like; I Love A Mystery, The Shadow Knows, Terry And the Pirates, The Lone Ranger, Red Ryder, Major Bowes Amateur Hour. Dr IQ...there were more. ;)
I have many, many black and white movies on DVD’s and many new and newer ones.
As for TV shows, I liked Maverick, Have Gun Will Travel, Magnum PI, NYPD, Firefly, Babylon 5, JAG, 24, The Unit.
Today I like Burn Notice, Human Shield, V, Bones, In Plain Sight, Chuck, Justified, White Collar, all motor sports racing on SpeedTV, news on FNC and FBN, also MLB Channel and the NFL Channel.
I don’t like Pro Basketball, Ice Hockey or Soccer, do like Rugby. Don’t like any TV show with a laugh track.
Well, that’s about it for this old curmudgeon, I’ve forgotten much of the past, did some real hard living over the first half of my life... >:-}
Bruce Campbell is an incredible actor, who can play any role.
His funnies role was where he played the role of Bruce Campbell and minor actor in the tongue in cheek movie, “My Name is Bruce”!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_is_Bruce
So, it's sort of Jesse James in Outer Space?
It does convey a sort of William Goldman vibe a la Butch Cassidy. Part of the charm for me, actually. And don't get me wrong, I bought the series and the film. I watch 'em repeatedly. Except for the poor quality of the disc (which really irritates me: Shindig is just messed up and that really burns me), it's marvelously revisionist about the value of conformity and even has an interesting take on loss of faith. Who knows where Mal's spiritual development would have gone had the series been allowed to develop fully? We know where the film took it, which was not a development, IMHO.
So, it's a great short series, can be read conservative but I think it's a long shot that it was designed to be read that way.
Dude. House? Law and Order? Conservative? No way. Liberal speaking point shows.
I like him that movie that had him working in a store and he wound up in this strange world with medieval people, he was armed with a double barreled shotgun and a chainsaw. It was wild.
I thought B5 was very well done and should have been mentioned now that you mention it.
PS Bruce lives in Southern Oregon.
I like your analogy. Do you read ‘Castle’ as having a similar vibe or has Nathan grown in the part, as we sometimes say about people in the public eye?
On Chuck, Chuck has that “never shoot a gun, never kill anyone” philosophy. Fortunately, Sarah and Casey do not.
I have some black & white Marx Brothers movies, on VHS, including “A Day at the Races,” “Animal Crackers,” and “Duck Soup.” The Marx Brothers didn’t use profanity. Why do many movies, of the last 20 years, have profanity? I don’t watch a movie, at a theater, if I know that it’s rated “R,” because of profanity. If I want to watch one of those movies, I ensure that I wait until it’s on network TV.
As much as I like the show, I don’t think you can include ‘Quincy.’ As the series dragged on, it became more of a platform for exasperated sermons by Quincy, usually along the theme of ‘so, it’s profits over people, I can’t believe this!’
Basically, whatever whim caught the attention of Klugman became a story idea. The most notable (and laughable) is the notorious episode about ‘that punk music,’ that was driving kids to self mutilation and suicide.
The presence of an allegedly conservative character (e.g. Alex P. Keaton, Family Ties) in no way makes a show conservative. Quite the opposite, usually.
If a conservative, moral or patriotic character isn't portrayed as downright evil, he is invariably portrayed as an ignorant, idiotic buffoon.
Examples abound, but since I have not watched network TV regularly since the 1970s or early 1980s I'll stick with the era I know: Archie Bunker, Frank Burns (MASH), Les Nessman/Arthur Carlson (WKRP in Cincinnati), Cliff Klaven (Cheers), Inspector Frank Lugar (Barney Miller), Mr. Roper (Three's Company)....
Any figure of authority, particularly military, is obviously a dimwit and a violent jarhead (according to Hollywood). Any religious person - as long as their religion is Christianity - is either evil or stupid and worthy of ridicule. Adherents of any other religious are sacrosanct, irrespective of their inclination towards terrorism or other anti-American behavior.
Somehow I don't suppose these "rules" that the tribe who controls Hollywood plays by have changed for the better since the 70s and 80s. And if you want to see even starker examples, forget the TV shows - just watch the *commericals*.
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