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Unlike the first generation of TV critics, a good many of whom tended to judge television by the ill-fitting standard of theater, Shales has spent a lifetime observing and absorbing the medium. He waxes nostalgic about the days when "they called specials 'spectaculars' and everyone talked about the wonderful future ahead." Thus some of his sharpest barbs are reserved for network executives who do not even try to fulfill that glowing forecast. Says he: "You can't expect Hamlet every night, but you can expect a Roots every year or so, something that really knocks your socks off."
Shales first lost his socks watching '50s favorites such as I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Playhouse 90 and Kukla, Fran and Ollie in front of a 14-in. RCA in Elgin, Ill. (pop. then: 45,000). After graduating from American University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in journalism, he freelanced for several small publications. On his second try, he landed a general assignment slot at the Post. Shales now lives alone in a suburban ranch-style house in Virginia. He is a mildly neurotic M & M addict who, when he is not worrying about his weight (200 Ibs.), frets he will be unable to write and that no one will think he is funny. He is happiest when he is sitting in front of a screen, large or small. Says Novelist Ann Beattie (Falling in Place), a close friend from college days: "He considers a day of work going to two screenings. Then he goes out to a movie, and when he comes home he turns on a late movie."
Like the average American family, Shales watches more than 40 hours of television each week. "Some people knit and do their homework while they watch TV," he says. "I open my mail." But then he adds mildly: "After all, only about 2% of what's on is worth really watching." One can almost see a dyspeptic network executive, somewhere in Manhattan, reaching for his Maalox.
—By Janice Castro.
Reported by Elizabeth Rudulph/New York, Susan Schindehette/Washington