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But in their zeal to do the right thing, the architects of prime time are largely masking the strains in race relations and the social isolation of the black underclass. On most shows, blacks are portrayed either as work buddies or in comfortable middle-class roles like an art-gallery owner on Father Dowling Mysteries. As a result, prejudice becomes an abstraction to be preached against and overt bigotry all but limited to a bizarrely menacing alliance between American Nazis and skinheads on 21 Jump Street. So too does TV breezily dismiss the crisis of the black family. On Bagdad Cafe, Whoopi Goldberg plays a recently jettisoned wife whose son's only adjustment problem is that working in the restaurant kitchen interferes with his ambition to be a classical pianist. This atypical dilemma is resolved in 1950s-sitcom style: Henry Mancini decrees that the kid has real talent.
Crime is the one arena where prime time drops its Panglossian pose to pander to public hysteria. This is not to argue that the narcotics squad on Nasty Boys should instead pursue jaywalkers or that the cops on Hunter should stop shouting, "Freeze. Police. Drop the gun!" O.K., so you cannot have detective shows without serious crime. But why are sitcoms also menaced by a crime wave that resembles New York City during a blackout? In this single week, there was an interracial team of angry drug dealers on A Different World, a psychotic killer rudely intruding on an office camping trip on Perfect Strangers, and that laugh riot -- a berserk gun-wielding busboy -- on Sugar and Spice. Even when Suzanne and Julia of Designing Women jetted off on vacation to Japan, probably the world's safest nation, their luggage was promptly stolen in Tokyo's Narita Airport. The thieves, of course, belonged to a criminal class that now exists only on shows determined not to offend anyone's sensibilities: American hippies.
After seven days of total immersion in such prime-time platitudes, other smaller, less socially significant mysteries remain. Why was Grace, the tall, blond judge on L.A. Law, the only person allowed to voice the all-American sentiment that she hates her job? What happened to all the neighbors who used to drop by for coffee on all the sitcoms, and why have they been replaced by work groups? Why are there so few good meals and so many bad restaurants on television? Why are there no nostalgia shows reprising the '50s or '70s? And how about the biggest puzzle: What ever happened to all those car chases?