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Lucky

Series · Prime Video · 1989

Saved by the Bell

Harmless and empty. The principal is the only adult with a job.

Mr. Belding shows up. That is the compliment. Around him, school is a place you scheme your way through toward a laugh track. Fine as nostalgia for people who already survived it. A poor picture to hand a child as what school is.

The eight

  1. Industry

    3/10

    Bayside is not a school so much as a standing set. Zack rarely works at anything but a scheme.

  2. Household

    4/10

    Friends as a substitute family. Parents appear when the plot needs a wall.

  3. Piety

    2/10

    A lesson at the end, lightly worn.

  4. Courage

    2/10

    The schemes are not brave.

  5. Republic

    3/10

    A school with a principal who cares. That is the hidden good.

  6. Temperance

    6/10

    Light. The problems resolve before dinner.

  7. Truth

    4/10

    The moral is announced. It is also thin.

  8. Stewardship

    3/10

    It taught a picture of school as a hangout. The picture stuck.

Live historicallyIf a child watches it, pair it with a real school day and do not let Zack be the model.

Series · Prime Video · 1992

Dateline

It takes a real death seriously. It also makes a season out of real deaths.

A single long account of a case can teach a house how a lie fails: the time, the receipt, the person who noticed. A diet of them teaches that ordinary marriage is a murder waiting for a narrator. Watch one when you have a reason. Do not let it become the way you fall asleep.

The eight

  1. Industry

    4/10

    Investigators and reporters do a job. The job is other people's ruin.

  2. Household

    3/10

    The household is the crime scene, over and over.

  3. Piety

    2/10

    Judgment is legal, not moral, and sometimes not even that.

  4. Courage

    3/10

    The courage belongs to the detective and the friend who would not let it go.

  5. Republic

    4/10

    Courts, police, a local record. Institutions appear as themselves.

  6. Temperance

    3/10

    One case could be gravity. A queue of them is an appetite.

  7. Truth

    6/10

    Facts, timelines, a lie that does not match the clock.

  8. Stewardship

    2/10

    The dead do not get their evening back. The viewer gets another episode.

Live historicallyIf you want a true story tonight, choose one that is not a corpse.