TVSquad

The success of Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon recently inspired me to assess the ten best movies about television. TV has been a fertile source of entertainment for filmmakers. The TV turf is also a popular setting for TV shows, and there have been some all-time great shows about the tube. Here are nine that I think warrant special recognition -- in no special order.

1. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
It all started at WJM-TV in Minneapolis. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the perfect sitcom blend of home and work, and work happened to be the local TV news team. As Mary Richards, the associate producer, Mary Tyler Moore was the single girl America loved because she was real, funny, gorgeous and lovable. At work, the news was mangled nightly by Ted Baxter, the quintessential news reader anchorman who loved every dulcet tone of his voice and had no idea what he was reporting. In perfect irony, when the show came to an end, most everyone at WJM -- Lou Grant, Murray Slaughter, Sue Anne Nivens, Mary -- were fired. Only Ted was spared!

In sports parlance, every now and then a rookie sensation comes along and is an instant success. Like Robert Redford in The Natural, only it's fact and not fiction. In TV parlance, Simon Baker -- who kind of looks like younger Redford (think The Sting and The Way We Were) -- has pulled off a rookie success that makes him look like pure gold.

The latest weekly Nielsen ratings are in and The Mentalist is number one, just slightly ahead of NCIS, with 18.8 million viewers. Simon Baker has a certifiable, solid and probably long-term hit series on his hands, and you know the powers that be at CBS have to be dancing in the corridors at the Black Rock.

(S01E04) This week we finally got the big clash between Nathaniel and Jonas that has been coming since Jonas left Stanford to return to St. Jude. Unfortunately, it is still such a one-sided relationship that there wasn't a lot to the clash. It came down to Nathaniel jerking Jonas around while Jonas had no recourse other than to beg and plead.

The decision that Nathaniel was struggling with regarding the fetal uterine transplant was interesting. Certainly the dangers and risks of experimental surgery are nothing new to him, as evidenced by the Neubacher heart for baby Maya. It's a tricky bit of business though when the guy who blew up his marriage by cheating on his wife, and then cheats on his new girlfriend with the ex-wife, starts pulling out the morality card.

(S01E01) I was curious to get a look at this show as soon as I heard about it. If you were even the most casual fan of Everwood, the premise had to sound some bells. Treat Williams as a brilliant surgeon who struggles to juggle all of the balls in his personal life. That's a thumbnail sketch, but it's one that fits both Nathaniel Grant and Andy Brown very well.