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None of this possibly outre boosterism is meant to imply that the current schedule is free from the dreary or the formulaic. Seen from above, prime time's present landscape might not even look all that different from its past: acres and acres of precocious kids, man-hungry neighbors and office curmudgeons with hearts of gold; police shows and lawyer shows and doctor shows proliferating like strip malls; even Mary Tyler Moore and Betty White are still hanging in there (on New York News and Maybe This Time respectively).
But within familiar genres there has been welcome evolution. Sitcoms have license to deal with more realistic and mature subject matter--not a new trend, it's true, but done with more tact and wit than ever before. Think of the famously sly Seinfeld episode about masturbation or Roseanne's matter-of-fact treatment of its comparatively many gay and lesbian characters. Shows like Roseanne, The Simpsons and Grace Under Fire also deal frankly with the economic dislocation of the middle class, a sad, mundane fact of modern life largely ignored by the movies as well as most contemporary literature. And anyone who still doesn't believe television has become more deft and less shrill in its handling of "controversial" topics need only recall an episode--any episode--of Maude.
Dramas too have more complex canvases than did their predecessors. One example: compare ER--the most popular show on television today--with precursors like Medical Center or Marcus Welby, M.D. First of all, George Clooney is both hunkier and a better actor than Chad Everett. More to the point, ER is less concerned with diagnosing the ailment of the week (when the old shows got to beriberi, you knew they were in trouble) than observing what happens to men and women who are forced to work under almost impossible conditions, how fear and exhaustion both draw them together and repel them from each other.
The current renaissance in programming comes after years of increasing anxiety within the broadcasting industry about the loss of viewers to cable and home video. Not so long ago, the very medium of network television was alleged to be in its death throes. But even with the combined viewership of ABC, CBS and NBC down to an average 57% of the nation's households (at their peak, from the mid-1950s though the mid-'70s, the Big Three were pulling in more than 90%), networks remain lucrative businesses, shabby but sturdy prewar apartment buildings in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Which would explain why Disney and Westinghouse were so eager to buy ABC and CBS this year, and why Time Warner and Viacom are attempting to jerry-build webs of their own with schedules that hark back to the desperate early days of the Fox network.