Newspapers / Mars Hill University Student … / April 29, 1977, edition 1 / Page 8
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Television 1976-1977: A Backward by REX BEST The 1976-77 season held some interesting surprises for scrutineers of the tube. It saw the rise of the traditionally third-place net work, ABC, to the top spot, overtaking the tra ditional leader, CBS, by as many as five per centage points in the Neilsen tallies. Happy Days and Laverine and Shirley, not to men tion the bionic group and Charlies' Angels helped secure for ABC that position. CBS and NBC meanwhile jostled for the number two position, but neither could really find the need ed television fare to attract new viewers to their respective networks. The past television season also brought to viewers new programming: the mammoth multiepisodic Roots boasted a television first and gained the largest audience share ever in television history. NBC tried its mini-series, too; packaged as the Big Event, the series re ceived varying degrees of success. CBS seemed to look to Norman Lear for salvation from its rating diasters, but even Lear couldn’t help out: AU in the Family dropped from the top position in the ratings to eleven and twelve, and occassionally out of the top twenty shows. Only Lear’s One Day at a Time managed any type of ratings consistency. Maude. Good 'Times. All's Fair, and The Jeffersons all had erratic ratings, certainly causing CBS to often dip into the third spot in the ratings game. Too, in this season, viewers witnessed the end of one of the most phenomenonally successful situa tion comedies on the screen. The Mary Tylor Moore Show, while it looked as if her former castmates, Rhoda and Phyllis, might not make another season witn sagging ratings. In the news department, 1976-77 saw CBS’s Cronkite still dominating the evening news fare. ABC’s countermove to halt Cronkite’s success — the team of Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner — did not seem to produce the results for which ABC had hoped. In late night entertainment, Johnny Carson’s formally impregnable late- night talk show began to slip vastly in the rat ings, being challenged quite admirably by Lear’s syndicated soap, Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman. In daytime programming, audiences saw the continued success of the one hour and forty-five minute soaps, as well as the demise of one soap, Somerset, and the creation of a new one. Lovers and Friends. Although the ratings race for daytime and nighttime was interesting to watch, the new fare offered by all three networks was not. Only the specials, such as Eleanor and Franklin. Roots. Sybil, etc. gave any creative programming to audiences. New shows, such as Charlies' An gels. Eight is Enough. CPO Sharkey and the like ranked at the bottom of creativity and production. Yet, no matter how bad some new offerings were, television produced some ex cellent drama from a few new shows and sev eral old entries. As Emmy time nears, we take this chance to reflect upon the past television season by selecting our choices for Emmys, in both daytime and nighttime programming. Best New Show (comedy): ALICE Best New Show (drama): FAMILY Best Comedy: MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW Be.st Drama: RICH MAN, POOR MAN (PART II) Best Supporting Actress (comedy): BETTY WHITE (MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW)j JUDITH LOWRY (PHYLLIS) (tie) Best Supporting Actress (drama): SUSAN SULLIVAN(R/C// MAN. POOR MAN) Best Supporting Actor (comedy): GARY BURGHOFF (M*A*S*H) Best Supporting Actor (drama): GARY FRANK (FAMILY) Best Special (drama): ELEANOR AND FRANK LIN/ ROOTS (tie) Best Variety Series: CAROL BURNETT SHOW Best Actress in a Single Performance (comedy): POLLY HOLLIDAY f/lL/CFJ/DODY GOODMAN (MARY HARTMAN. MARY HARTMAN)(iie) Best Actor in a Single Performance (comedy): TED KNIGHT (MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW) Best Actress in a Single Performance (drama): JANE ALEXANDER (ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN) Best Actor in a Single Performance (drama): WILL GEER (THE WALTONS) Best Actress (comedy): MARY TYLER MOORE (MARY TYLEFt MOORE SHOW) Best Actor (comedy): ALAN ALDA (M*A*S Best Actress (drama): SADA THOMPSON] (FAMILY) Best Actor (drama): RICHARD THOMAS] (THE WALTONS) DA YTIME: Best Actress in a Single Performance: JACQUIE I COGKT^EN(ONELIFETOLIVE)! LOUISE] SHAFFER (THE EDGE OF NIGHT) (tie) p Best Actor in a Single Performance: JUE GAL' j LISON (DA YS OF OUR LIVES) Best Actress: BEVERLEE MCKINSEY (AN-. OTHER WORLD) Best Actor: DONALD MAY (THE EDGE OF^ NIGHT) Best Supporting Actress: KATE MULGREW] (RYAN'S //OPF;/IRENE DAILY (AN0TH-\ ER WORLD) (He) Best Supporting Actor: LARRY HAINES j (SEARCH FOR TOMORROW) Best Daytime Drama (one-hour): ANOTHER i WORLD Best Daytime Drama (half-hour): THE EDGE OF NIGHT iuH Best Producer: PHIL SOGARD (GENERM-)Sa^ HOSPITA L) Best Director: ALAN FRISTOE (AS WORLD TURNS! THE EDGE OF NIGHT) Best Writer (one-hour soap): WILLIAM BELL/PAT FALKIN SMITH (DAYS OF^ OUR LIVES) Best Writer (half-hour): HENRY SLESAR] (THE EDGE OF NIGHT) ‘Leaves’ Explores Cannibalism by JOY BRIDGES A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White Patrick White is a fourth-generation Austral ian writer who was not widely known in this country until about three years ago. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Royal Swedish Academy described his writing as “an epic and psychological nar rative art which has introduced a new conti nent into literature.” Mr. White donated his Nobel Prize money to establish a fund for Australian writers. He was educated in England, attending pub lic schools and then studying modem languages at King’s College, Cambridge. His first pub lished novel was Happy Valley in 1939 and since then he has had published nine novels, two collections of short stories, and a collection of plays — most recently. The Cockatoos and The Eye of the Storm. He was an intelligence of ficer in the Royal Air Force during World War II, stationed in the Middle East and Greece. He traveled in Europe and the United States for several years before returning to live on a sheep farm in New South Wales. A Fringe of Leaves is the story of the life and adventures of Mrs. Ellen Rnxburah, a Victorian lady who had the misfortune to oe snip-wreck ed on an island off the Australian coast in 1836. Patrick White may have drawn the idea for his fictional character from the real-life accounts of certain Australian women who were kidnap ped by the aborigines and then lived among them for a time before being rescued. There are several such accounts available, all of them remarkable for the way in which these women adjusted to a savage way of life in order to sur vive. This would be a major accomplishment for any woman, even today, but these ladies had been formed by the most artificial and woman- restricting society history has ever known. To go from a society where women were not of ficially recognized as having legs (they had only “limbs”) to one in which they were mostly naked except for “a fringe of leaves” must have called for major powers of adaption. Ellen Roxburgh had been a simple Cornish girl, impoverished but living a wild and free existence in an isolated part of Cornwall. She met her husband when he came to stay at her family’s farm in order to improve her health. He was English, well-to-do, a gentleman, a life-long invalid, proper, well-read — and im poverished emotionally. He was of the opinion that strong emotions of any sort might wreak his health. He was attracted to Ellen, and since he had little occupation of any other sort, he decided to marry her and make a lady of her. Seeing her as his work of art he improved her speech, her dress and her deportment, a la “Eliza Doolittle.” Since Ellen had few other options available to her she agreed to the mar riage to a man twenty years her senior and tried to “earn her keep” by devotedly looking after his health. He was killed by the aborgines after the shipwreck off Australia where she was tak en captive. At one point in her captivity she follows the tribe deep into the bush, thinking that she is going to the funeral service of a tribe member who had been killed. When she finally catches up with the group she realizes that the dusty thing on the ground that reminds her of a bear skin rug is the hide and head of the dead tribes man and that the group has been participat ing in cannibalism. Oddly enough she feels a strange sense of communion among the group and accepts this as a part of life. Later, on the march, a thigh bone left over from the feast falls from the bundle of the native in front of her and she finds herself eating human flesh. She had the excuse that she had eaten nothing but scraps that the tribe had dropped for weeks but still, when a civilized person resorts to can nibalism, a Certain barrier is broken, in the mind if no where else, and she wondered what other horror she was capable of committing in order to stay alive. While living with the aborigines she met an escaped felon who was also living in the bush. Jack Chance was a murderer who had been\ transported to the penal colony at Hobart Town! and had escaped into the interior. She fell i** 4 love for the first time in her life as he helped .J her to escape from the tribe and took her back to the settlement. However, he preferred a free life, no matter how brutish, to re-imprison ment, and went back to the bush after bringing her to civilization. As the story ends, Ellen is trying once more to adjust to corset-stays and civilization after finding love and a sort of freedom in the bush. )| In many ways the author points out that a print- f itive, simple way of life has its compensations, fi among which the sense of being fully alive front -ijl a direct struggle for survival gives a person. ‘-■vL- Yield and overcome; Bend and be straight; Empty and be full; Wear out and be new; Have little and gain; Have much and be confused. Therefore wise men embrace the one And set an example to all. No putting on a display. They shine forth. Not justifying themselves. They are distinguished. Not boasting. They receive recognition. Not bragging. They never falter. They do not quarrel. So no one quarrels with them. Therefore the ancients say, “Yield and overcome.” Is that an empty saying? Be really whole. And all things will come to you. - Lao Tsu
Mars Hill University Student Newspaper
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April 29, 1977, edition 1
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