A newsman spent the hour on a senator, and the country had to argue.
Pass it on
The review
This is not a number-one rating, and it does not need one. Edward R. Murrow's documentary hour, in 1954, examined Senator McCarthy's methods with the senator's own recordings. I am not going to invent the words Murrow said. A newsman spent the air on a powerful man. The country argued about the broadcast. That argument is the fact I trust.
I would sit an older child down for it and not call it entertainment. The courage is using your job on someone who can hurt the job. Conscience, here, is refusing to look away from a senator's methods. What you have afterward is a record, not a cozy ending. If the house only likes news that agrees with dinner, leave it on anyway.
Worth an evening. Two lawyers, a family, and a case that does not insult the question.
Pass it on
The review
A father and his son are partners in a New York law firm. The week is a case: not a puzzle with a surprise witness, a question a city is actually having. They prepare. They disagree. They go home and the disagreement comes with them, which is how you can tell the household is real. It was never the number-one show. It was one of the few shows of the decade a serious person did not have to apologize for watching.
I would choose it over the more famous courtroom hour when the house can stand a conversation that does not snap shut. Older teenagers are ready for it. Ask, at the end, whether the law and the right thing were the same in this episode, and do not rush the answer if the show did not. That patience is the inheritance. A culture that prefers the confession on the stand will find this slow. Slow is the compliment.
When Calls the Heart is still a drama show, and it scores 83 instead of 73. What you gain is piety: Grace is said, and a conscience is allowed to interrupt a plan.
The eight
8
Industry
Preparation is the show. They read, they argue, they do not win by a stunt.
7
Household
Father and son are a household of work, and the work is how they love each other.
5
Piety
Conscience is the argument in the room, including when the law and the mercy diverge.
7
Courage
They take clients who will cost them, and they stay through the unpopular hour.
9
Republic
The debt is the definition of the show: a city, a court, a person the court might crush.
7
Temperance
No glamour. The restraint is the willingness to stay inside a hard question.
8
Truth
The case is allowed to be ambiguous. The show does not always rescue you with a villain.
7
Stewardship
A house inherits a father and a son who take the public question home.
