When is Classic TV Important?

When is a good TV show also an important one?

I began to ponder that question after reading Mitchell Hadley’s book Darkness in Primetime (reviewed here recently). The book described classic TV episodes like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" that warned us about future calamities, warnings that were mostly ignored. All these episodes would qualify as they communicated something profound within their stories. But there should be other criteria as well.

What makes a show “important”? I’m sure there won’t be an answer that we would all agree upon. Jean Renoir said, “The only things that are important in life are the things you remember.” But I can’t buy that because I fondly remember when Scooby-Doo met Dick Van Dyke and helped him save his financially strapped carnival. Saying that was an important moment in television would be silly. It didn’t even seem that important to Dick Van Dyke.

Another quote I found in some basic internet research – “The most important thing in life is knowing the most important things in life.” Which not only doesn’t help at all, but it also proves that anyone can say something inane and have it be considered worthy of an online meme.

As with any of these discussions, there will be some choices that are obvious, and some that should incite a lively discussion. It would be hard to find anyone who would say that Roots was not an important show. But so was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and to the uninitiated that might seem like a ludicrous claim.

I think it’s safe to say that every important television series or episode would also have to be good, otherwise it wouldn’t leave an impression on the audience that would endure beyond its initial broadcast. But every good show can’t be considered important, given the definition of that term: “of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.”

I also think that “important” usually denotes “serious,” but we cannot rule out comedies and variety shows from consideration. I Love Lucy was certainly important; so were Your Show of Shows, The Ernie Kovacs Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand, The Carol Burnett Show, and many others.

Another thought – important doesn’t always mean preferable when one is in the mood for a pleasant evening of television. All in the Family is undoubtedly an important series, but I haven’t watched a full episode in 20 years. Rick Nelson and Patty Duke hooking up on The Love Boat could not be more inconsequential; but I watched it again last week and enjoyed it immensely.

I took a long look at all the television series I own on DVD, most of which I consider to be good - the rest are guilty pleasures. Which ones do I think are also “important”? Here’s the list:

I Love Lucy
The Twilight Zone
The Fugitive
Star Trek
The Monkees
Dragnet
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Room 222
Doctor Who
Sesame Street

It’s a short list – shorter than I expected it would be. I would add a few more shows that I don’t own but that would also qualify: The Texaco Star Theater, Howdy Doody, Perry Mason, Julia, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Hill Street Blues.

But if you consider the sheer volume of television series and episodes from the late 1940s to the present, the percentage that anyone would call important is going to be minimal. And given the fleeting and disposable nature of contemporary television, I wonder if any shows from the last 15 years or so would qualify. Something really can’t be considered important if it is unfamiliar to 99% of the population.

There is one last category to cover, and that is the TV shows that are important to you, but may not have the same prestige with others. Most would agree that Lou Grant was a terrific show but might not consider it important. To me it was one of the most important series ever broadcast, because as a teenager it directly influenced the direction of my life.

If a show helped you to become a better parent, or you were inspired as a kid by Fonzie to get a library card and check out a book, if you became a doctor because of Marcus Welby or a lawyer because of Ben Matlock, if you saved for a trip to Paris after watching the Facts of Life girls travel there, or convinced your parents to pay for tapdancing lessons after watching Sharon Baird on The Mickey Mouse Club, then those were important shows. Television can have that effect on people – or at least it once did, once upon a time.