Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture

1. “Deadwood”: How about the extraordinary episode last night (Mar. 20)? Creator David Milch and his staff of highfalutin’ wordslingers (I intend the phrase as a compliment) outdid themselves, from William Sanderson’s marvelously obsequious E.B. Farnum telling the new sadist in town, “In a camp like this, one draws one’s menials from a small and brakish pool,” to a plot turn so appalling even Milch instructed the cameras to pull away discreetly—I refer, of course, to the removal of gallstones from the agonized body of our cherished anti-hero, Al Swearengen (Ian McShane). This season is moving along with ferocious creativity. Sly Milch has brought back the actor whose low-down mangy character killed Keith Carradine’s Wild Bill Hickockin Season 1, Farret Dillahunt, in a different role, now as the aforementioned man who likes to inflict pain while posing as the dandified henchman for a powerful East Coast business mogul.  To, as so many characters in “Deadwood” have said in the past, what fuckin’ end? Why, for the motives of greed, the relishment of fear, and the disturbance of this town’s small and brakish pool. Bravo. No, I mean: It’s HBO.

2. While channelling this channel, let’s also hear it for the renewal of “The Wire” for a fourth season, announced earlier this week. Each outing has had an overriding theme, and creator David Simon has promised that this time around, he’ll explore, as the HBO press release put it, “the educational system in an urban environment.” I can only hope that this means my favorite “Wire”-tapper, Clarke Peters’ scholarly Det. Lester Freamon, will go undercover as a teacher; I could listen to Lester lecture all night.

3. “Fat Actress”: I’m steeling myself for another episode this week of Kirstie Alley’s misbegotten attempt at cross between Larry David and “Extreme Makeover”; she could have called it “Curb Your Appetite.” The theory is, by making jokes about herself, Alley is satirizing Hollywood’s obsession with thinness. In practice, she is offering a mirthless half-hour that only further insults not just the pleasures of the flesh but its deeply hidden funnybone.

4. “Malcom in the Middle”: I admit I’d stopped watching this along around the time Frankie Muniz’s voice started to change, but happened to catch last night’s episode and it was terrific. Or more precisely, Cloris Leachman, back in her periodic role as Jane Kaczmarek’s  mother. You can almost hear the cackles emanating from the “Malcolm” writers’ room when they have to come up with lines for Leachman’s black-hearted character. (Punching the buttons on a TV remote, she snaps, “Let me watch the whore who does the weather,” in an accent left over from her great performance in “Young Frankenstein.”) In this episode, Francis (Christopher Masterson) had to care for his grandmother; specifically tending to her needs regarding her amputated leg. When her grandson was down on his knees, trying to change the dressing around her amputation-at-the-knee, Grandma Ida snapped, “Keep your eyes on the  stump, Romeo.” Ewww. And guffaw.

5. “Battlestar Gallactica”: I’m a Johnny-come-way-lately to this sci-fi series. As the “Star Trek” entry in my book attests, I’m not a fan of this genre as it’s been presented on TV. But bless the SciFi network for sending me DVDs of the first and last three episodes of this season. Gulping down all six in a marathon this weekend, I got totally hooked on the show’s go-for-broke ruthlessness; its merciless political, social, and sexual politics; and reignited TV-crush on Mary McDonnell playing this little universe’s president. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get on “Battlestar’s wavelength. Now that I’ve been transported by it, it’ll be beaming into my house next season on a regular basis.

I read every word of today’s New York Post’s front-page coverage of some evil idiot’s mercifully-intercepted plan to kidnap David Letterman’s son and nanny. I realized I’d been planning to write something about how superb Letterman’s shows have been this week; his showcase for a transcendent Al Green performance on Tuesday; his delightful interview with an utterly charming Amanda Peet on Wednesday and then it occurred to me: The rat-bastard who was plotting against Letterman was apprehended on Monday, and as anyone who watched the Peet interview knows from her inadvertant on-camera slip, Letterman was taping multiple shows that day. Which means while he was grappling with a situation that would have paralyzed most other parents, Letterman managed to be superhumanly professional, coming out and doing razor-sharp shows as though nothing else was going on.

I don’t think it’s tacky to connect this potential family catastrophe to the broadcast of “The Late Show.”  They remind us or confirm–Letterman’s mettle. He proves, once again, the greatest talk-show host the medium has seen: spontaneously funny; eager to drop the question-list and swerve in an interesting direction if a guest wants to go there; alternately delighted and steamed when some bit of the show goes awry.

One thing I’ll bet, though: You won’t be seeing any more of those lovely moments when proud-papa Dave would show pictures or home-movie footage of little son Harry. This most reserved of TV hosts has opened up a bit over the past year; the joy he’s found in fatherhood is palpable every time he brings up the lad’s name. Now that a creep has threatened the security Letterman must have been feeling, who can blame him if he never mentions Harry again? This is too bad; it was great to catch a glimpse of Dave Unguarded–but understandable. May the Higher Power of his and your choice look over Letterman and his household. And for heaven’s sake, start watching the man more often he’s been on a roll, so wax up your TV surfboard and ride his wavelength.

As I detail in my book, the Federal Communications Comission has long been overseen by bluenosed bullies who want to decide what you should be able to watch. Now, the appointment of Kevin J. Martin as the new chairman of the FCC may make Michael Powell’s sorry reign look like a benign interregnum.

As Variety reports today, Martin once suggested that broadcasters be fined not per incident but for every “indecent word” uttered, and he wants to curl the long, greedy fingers of repression around the throat of cable TV as well as broadcast television, choking creativity in the name of “decency.” The public has, for the most part, stood by while Powell was allowed to waste tax-payer time and money pondering the dangers to society posed by Janet Jackson’s showcased nipple, and millions of people were startled when Howard Stern explained to us just how much money the FCC could demand of stations that carry his spectacularly vulgar jocularities. Some sensible folks even feel that there’s a place for the FCC to “control” what we see on network TV, believing that the nets don’t have very high standards of decency (I agree with the latter but abhor the notion of the former).

But there’s a sense in which I almost hope Martin does indeed go after cable TV, because then, finally, show-biz and the citizenry might finally rise up and slap the FCC upside the head until its ears ring.

Think about it: If Martin wants to fine every “indecent” word, it will soon become too expensive for HBO to produce “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “The Wire,” “Six Feet Under” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”; for FX to produce “The Shield” and “Nip/Tuck”; for Showtime to produce “Huff” and “Fat Actress.” (Well, “Fat Actress” would be no great loss, but I have to keep reminding myself: it’s the principle of the thing.)

Think about it: The FCC levied $7.7 million in indecency fines in 2004, and Michael Powell always just seemed to be reacting to the outcries of this or that protest-group whose squawks reached his ears. Now we have an FCC chairman who wants to act, not merely RE-act, to putative offences. The best thing that could happen is that the Hollywood community and ordinary folks like us who pay for premium cable every month will join forces and finally let not just the FCC but also these squawky oppressors of free speech that this is intolerable, that we’re not gonna take it, that well, even “Fat Actress” has a right to exist without having to censor itself.

What I want to see is “The Sopranos”‘ David Chase and “Curb”’s Larry David and “Deadwood”’s David Milch tell Martin to mind his own goddamn business, or, better yet, call for its complete dissolution. Of course, we also need politicians to say the same thing, but fat chance of that.