By A Twist Of Fate Rather Than

The Once Inviolate Frame Within Which Programs Or Commercials Were Displayed On Television - Always Separately - Has Been Violated To A Pulp. Program Content Is Seen Increasingly As A Mere Backdrop On Which Ads Are Posted Like Billboards On A Fence.

You Don't Hear Tv Cops Griping Because They Have To Enforce Some Draconian Law That Shouldn't Be On The Books In The First Place, Or Lamenting Vindictive Excesses In Sentencing. Hollywood, Supposedly A Frothing Cauldron Of Liberalism, Has Always Been Conservative On Crime.

People Of A Certain Age Look Back On The Mayberry Of 'the Andy Griffith Show' And Become Almost As Homesick For That Simple Fictional Hamlet As They Do For Their Own Home Towns.

Technically, 'kukla, Fran And Ollie' Was A Kids' Show, But Adults Watched Almost Religiously - And We're Talking Adult Adults, Celebrated Adults - Including James Thurber, Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Adlai E. Stevenson And Lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

Crime Dramas Will Never Go Away As Long As People Turn To Television For, Among Other Things, Reassurance And Comfort.