A bit of telly communication

TWO TV critics hash over the year in, and the state of, television.

Robert Lloyd: It seems obvious that Hurricane Katrina was “The Television Event of the Year,” in that it was the moment you felt you had to turn on the television.

Paul Brownfield: As compelling and as immediate as the coverage was, there was also a certain “You don’t understand what this is unless you’re here” emphasis -- which is a strange way to own the story, because then it becomes about you. At a time like that, the evening news anchors can come off as more dignified and relevant and important -- you did need someone who would just stay in the studio and filter it for you, instead of running down there, going, “I’m in the 9th Ward, look at me.”

Lloyd: Filters are good -- there are only so many things within the picture that are meaningful. When coverage is constant, every moment has to become a drama, and I don’t think that serves information well; a lot of wrong news gets reported. During Katrina, the anchors only had so much to say, but they had to keep talking; often it seemed just a rarefied version of the coverage of a high-speed chase.

Brownfield: I think Katrina was kind of the opposite of what you’re getting out of Iraq, which is a 10-second video bite an hour after a bombing somewhere. You have no sense of what’s going on in the country as a whole. It’s the same story as Katrina, which is “This place is chaos,” but without enough pictures or information.

What do you think of shows that must be watched from the beginning, like “Lost” or “24”?

Lloyd: If I’m not there from the start, or if I miss a week, it’s over for me -- but they’ve remedied that now by putting everything out on DVD as soon as the season’s over. I’m in favor of that extended continuity, however; it allows you to use the novelistic capabilities of television. You can certainly see that at work in a show like “Rome.” The real roots of TV aren’t in the movies but the serial novel: Dickens was water-cooler stuff for the 19th century.

Brownfield: I liked “Lost,” but I went away for Thanksgiving and after a week of not watching television thought, “God, this looks like a TV show.” It’s not that it jumped the shark, it’s that you can sort of see it now; you notice the lighting is way too good and who’s a good actor and who isn’t. And I’m impatient with the story because there’s an element of “We must keep this engine running.”

Lloyd: So what do you like?

Brownfield: Every time I see “Extras” I like it; I just like Ricky Gervais’ rhythms as a comedian. I drop in and out of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” which seems like the right way to watch them. I’ve been trying to watch “Commander in Chief” as a guilty pleasure, it’s just so silly and odd. “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” was a show that felt like a little mini-revelation of what’s possible, and it was also unusual in that it was a show with no familiar faces. I like shows that make you wonder, “How did they sneak this through the development process?”

What do you say when people say there aren’t any good comedies on television?

Lloyd: It’s just a cycle. Comedy’s not going to die; it’s been around at least since the ancient Greeks, and it might not look like “Leave It to Beaver” or “Seinfeld” the next time you see it, but it’s not going to be in such a different form you won’t recognize it. But when there are fewer comedies being made, there will be fewer good ones.

One new show I liked this year is “How I Met Your Mother.” It felt professional and yet not completely predictable. One of the few lines I remember from the year was Neil Patrick Harris saying, “This is totally going in my blog” -- it felt like a generational torch being passed, sitcom-wise. And “Everybody Hates Chris” is smart and solid as well.

Brownfield: A show that I think is getting better the longer it stays on the air -- either that, or I’m more and more removed from the BBC original -- is “The Office.” There are things about it that can’t match the original, but there are some really funny jokes, and the actors are really good. I do think there’s a sadness to the BBC series that they don’t get. There’s something very sad about Ricky Gervais, and Steve Carell is more of a cartoon.

Lloyd: You don’t worry for him. Maybe that’s because in a full network season there are 22 weeks where nothing final’s going to happen, whereas in a limited series, like the original “Office,” you know the reckoning’s around the corner.

Occasionally, they kill somebody off on American TV, but it’s not usually a surprise -- if a character’s leaving a show, they advertise it for weeks. I interviewed [“Sopranos” creator] David Chase once, and he said the thing he didn’t like about writing for television was that it took death out of the equation. Despite the odd rule-proving exception, it’s still true that you don’t kill off your stars.

Brownfield: The last 10 minutes of the “Six Feet Under” finale, when Alan Ball envisioned all of his characters’ death moments, had a strangely powerful effect on me -- I remember I had to take a walk after seeing it. And it was a show I had mixed feelings about to begin with, but I thought it was really stunning.

Lloyd: To return to your point about “The Office,” I think sadness is something American television is not interested in at all.

Brownfield: They don’t just avoid it, they pay lip service to it

in the most cliched, corny ways. On “Lost,” every now and then

to heighten the melancholy, they cue the piano music and every-

one is seen walking in slow motion -- they stylize it and airbrush

it away. Even on cable, where you think, “OK, they can take chances,” you don’t see it much.

Lloyd: Even “The Sopranos” is basically a comedy, on some creepy level.

Brownfield: I think in American TV, sadness often translates as anger. Take “House” -- if you break down Hugh Laurie’s character, there’s a lot of sadness but it comes out in cynicism. Mostly, Americans seem to work through that by expressing rage, telling somebody off or being really sarcastic.

Lloyd: We need to win. People want the payback, the victory. They don’t want to leave characters in dire straits. We can’t take that lack of resolution. We want happiness.

Brownfield: My psychobabble theory about why we’re so locked into cop shows and procedurals is that it has something to do with the fact that we haven’t caught Osama bin Laden. It’s reflected in the way that a lot of those shows are about technology that allows you to trace a person to the scene of the crime.

Lloyd: It’s comfort food. It makes people feel safe. And isn’t comfort what people mostly want from television?

Brownfield: When I turn on the TV now, recreationally -- I have 500 channels -- I just want to see what’s on more than watch it. Maybe that’s why I feel that the sheer tonnage of content is the medium now, as opposed to the content itself. So I’ll watch two scenes from “Sea of Love” on Showtime 3, then I’ll go to ESPN, and then Comedy Central.

Lloyd: It’s surprising to me, given all those channels, that network television still so dominates the conversation. There’s so much good that comes on Comedy Central or Cartoon Network -- CN’s “Camp Lazlo” was one of the best things on TV this year -- it does seem that there is an alternative breeding ground where different things can grow.

Brownfield: But the networks are the only place that can bring in 30 million viewers.

Lloyd: Partly it is that scale. But “Monk” is as good as any network detective show.

“Battlestar Galactica” is pretty interesting -- there may be many people for whom that’s the best drama on television -- and it’s on the Sci-Fi Channel. And it drives change: The fact that you have “The Office” or “My Name Is Earl” on NBC is, in some way, descended from the fact that “Larry Sanders” was a success on cable.