Series · Netflix · 1969

Sesame Street

A street, not a brand. Manners, numbers, and people who stay.

Sesame Street, at its best, is a city block where a child is expected to learn something and to be polite to a monster. That is a high aim and it often met it. Some later seasons trade the block for a message of the month. Prefer the old shape: a letter, a neighbor, a problem that is solved by a person rather than a speech. It belongs on this row more than almost anything filmed after it.

The eight

Industry
6/10
People have jobs on the block: a store, a stoop, a lesson.
Household
6/10
It is not one family. It is the nearest thing television made to a neighborhood that includes children.
Piety
4/10
Kindness is practiced. Later seasons sometimes preach a slogan instead.
Courage
4/10
The brave thing is apologizing, or trying the letter again.
Republic
8/10
The unit is the block. You owe the neighbor a hello.
Temperance
7/10
Gentle, and built to end a segment.
Truth
7/10
It was made to teach, and for a long time it taught the thing it named.
Stewardship
7/10
A child can copy the block, which is a large thing to copy.

Live historicallyWatch one segment, then have the child greet a real neighbor.

Series · Netflix · 2000

Gilmore Girls

The fastest talk on television, and a real town. The lesson about men is weaker than the lesson about showing up.

Lorelai and Rory are a household of two that built a culture of showing up: Friday dinners, a town that will notice if you skip the festival, a school that is hard on purpose. That is a lot of good. The series is less sure that a man is for anything but banter, and Rory's later choices spend the capital the early years saved. Watch the early seasons for the town and the table.

Good for a mother and a teenage daughter together. Talk about the Friday dinner: why the grandparents, who are snobs, are still owed the evening.

The eight

Industry
6/10
An innkeeper who works, a daughter who studies. Both are allowed to be ambitious without being vacant.
Household
8/10
A mother and a daughter who eat together every night. The grandparents are difficult and not discarded.
Piety
4/10
Town festivals, not prayer. Conscience shows up as disappointment more than as worship.
Courage
5/10
They face rooms that frighten them: a dinner, a school, a pregnancy.
Republic
7/10
Stars Hollow is absurd and specific. A town meeting can swing an episode, which is right.
Temperance
6/10
Coffee and talk instead of worse vices. Romance is still a revolving door.
Truth
6/10
They hide boyfriends and school news. The show usually makes them say it by the diner scene.
Stewardship
7/10
A girl is being aimed at a life larger than the mistake that started hers, without being taught to despise the start.

Live historicallyKeep one meal a week that cannot be cancelled for a better invitation.