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Series · CBS · 1954

Lassie

Name: Lassie scores 63 — Live Historic
Item: Lassie
Rating: 63
Author: Live Historic

63Watch it awake.

It began before this decade and was still Sunday. The dog is the courage. The farm is the point.

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The review

It began in 1954 and was still, in this decade, a Sunday a child could count on. A boy and a dog live on a farm. Someone is trapped or lost or foolish, and the dog does the thing the adults cannot do from where they are standing: she goes and gets them. The farm work matters. A mother matters. The peril is sized to a child's courage and then finished, rather than lingered over.

I put it on without a speech. The limit is simplicity. The dog always arrives, and a child should hear, from you, that real help can fail and you still go. The show will not say that. You can. What the show does say is that a loyal creature and a watching adult are how a small person survives a large field. That is a better Sunday than most of the things that replaced it.

Journal

Keep Lassie in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Piety is the thin one.

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Waltons

78 instead of 63

The Waltons is still a family show, and it scores 78 instead of 63. What you gain is industry: The father runs a lumber mill, and the mill is how the mountain family eats.

The eight

6
Industry
A farm is work, and the trouble usually starts because somebody was doing a job.
8
Household
A boy, a mother, and the people of the farm are the household the dog is running back to.
4
Piety
The show treats a child's peril as serious, which is a reverence for the small.
7
Courage
The dog crosses whatever is in the way. The courage is physical and it has a reason.
5
Republic
A rural community is the public. Neighbors come when the barking starts.
6
Temperance
Peril is real and then over. The show does not dwell on a hurt animal for the thrill.
6
Truth
The danger is what it looks like: a well, a river, a fire. No ironic secret.
8
Stewardship
A child inherits a picture of loyalty that costs something, on a farm that needs the child.

Where to watch

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Live Historic · Lassie · 63IMDb

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Series · ABC · 1975

Barney Miller

63Watch it awake.

Give me the tired squad room over any cop show that needs a chase to matter.

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The review

The whole show sits in a squad room that needs paint. Barney is a patient captain. The crimes are small and human, and nobody is waiting on a chase to make the hour count. People bring in ordinary trouble. The detectives stay put and do the job. That is the joke, and it is also the point.

I put this on when we are tired of heroes. You will not get a marriage at the center, and you will not get a speech about the city. You get men who owe a neighborhood the unglamorous shift. The work matters because it is work. Skip it if a story feels unfinished without a siren. Stay if you want a picture of attention, which is what this precinct actually sells.

Journal

Keep Barney Miller in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Courage are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Andy Griffith Show

73 instead of 63

The Andy Griffith Show is still a comedy show, and it scores 73 instead of 63. What you gain is household: A widower and a boy.