Word: lear
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more cleverly or profitably turned social issues into prime-time TV entertainment than Norman Lear and Alex Haley. Without Lear's All in the Family and Haley's Roots, network television in the 1970s might nearly have been bankrupt of innovation. To kick off the new decade, Lear and Haley have joined forces to undertake what could be their most exciting project yet: Palmerstown, U.S.A. is a new series that aspires to combine the historical sweep of Roots II with the activist humor of Lear's best sitcoms. Still, a lot of hard work lies ahead. Though...
...period detail and acting, Palmerstown is well produced, but it is full of stereotypes and padding. The many repetitive confrontations unfold in the prosaic manner of a high school civics class. The black characters are all saints, as they are not in other Lear and Haley shows, and the whites are generally either fire-breathing racists or pure-hearted liberals. There are also too many sentimental scenes that show the two young heroes frolicking in brotherly love on sunny fields. The results are so tame that not even a last-minute medical crisis can arouse any excitement...
...Lear and Haley would only remember their roots, they should soon bring on a new Edith Bunker or Chicken George to stir Palmerstown...
...corner of the airport, just off the main runway, stood a trailer converted into the dispatch office of Executive Aviation. EA, its twin-engined carriers and a snaky Lear jet, flew quick-order runs of car parts to GM plants around the country. Everything, from the reined jet to a sharp-boned and muscular Doberman, jutted sleek, Steinberg angles. Everything, that is, but an unshaven guy snoring in a wood chair propped against a wall with his boots on a table. He wore a Beech-nut "chaw" cap and kept a spit tin on the floor next to the chair...
...right up your ass with the rest of the rig," he said with the deep blue lights of the runway shining in his eyes. He drew the throttle back. The lights turned a thinner blue, and the g's shot my head into its rest, as the Lear tore out of Michigan and ripped to 40,000 feet...