Baseball, Las Vegas, and Area 51

Glitz, glamour, and gambling—escalated, somewhat, by gaudiness, garishness, and greed—fuel Las Vegas.  It is, after all, a desert metropolis built on a foundation of fantasy.  It is also where Elvis Presley made his live performance comeback after eight years of...

Beyond Gil Grissom

CSI, after 15 years, has been canceled.  William Petersen starred in the show about Crime Scene Investigators in Las Vegas from its debut in 2000 until 2008 as Gil Grissom, the lead investigator of the night shift.  Grissom was fascinated by the different aspects of...

Desperation in the Vast Wasteland

In 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow decried television as a vast wasteland.  Nearly a half-century later, Bill Carter analyzed the landscape, coalescing his findings into the 2006 book Desperate Networks. A television show reaching the prime time airwaves is a...

Everything’s Archie (Part 2 of 2)

Archie comics inspired two live-action music-comedy television specials in the 1970s.  ABC haired a one-hour special simply titled Archie on December 19, 1976. Variety reviewed the special for its December 22, 1976 issue, offering encouraging comments....