Weeding Out The Amateur TV Critics

Former drug czar Bill Bennett is right about the drug crisis -- a horrifying 40,000 U.S. dead each year from overdoses, according to a recent federal report -- but wrong about one of the best shows on television:

Back when our country was making a serious assault on drug abuse, a show like "Weeds" would never be aired. Today it is promoted in full page ads in our nation's most popular magazines. This, for a comedy about the life and times of a marijuana-growing and -dealing family. As the head of the network that produces and airs "Weeds" put it, "Our ratings were va-va-va-voom! Who said hedonism is passé?" This, for a show where one is lured to root for a family responsible for the death of a DEA agent, children dropping out of school, gang violence and rape.

I'm glad no one appointed Bennett culture czar, because he evidently doesn't understand that fictional characters don't have to be admirable in order to entertain and enlighten. Neither he nor the Showtime executive he quotes grasps what's really going on in series creator Jenji Kohan's laboratory for studying the consequences of twice-widowed drug dealer Nancy Botwin's (Mary-Louise Parker) poor decisions, especially as a mother. "Weeds" isn't promoting drug abuse or hedonism. It's exploiting the irresistible allure of watching an HD train wreck.

Five And A Half Feet Over

"The Big C," in which Laura Linney shined brilliantly tonight, is Showtime's madcap take on soberer insights, such those in Atul Gawande's arresting "New Yorker" article, about the choices terminally ill people have between savoring the time they have left or submitting to debilitating, ultimately hopeless treatment regimes. "I'm here all year, appearing at stage four," Linney's character, Cathy Jamison, says defiantly at the end of tonight's first episode. Then the camera rises straight up, showing her on a couch she's dragged into the backyard and dropped into the hole she's just ordered dug for the swimming pool she always wanted. It's one ominously shaped rectangle. But this great new show is all about this side of six feet under.