We probably don’t need to tell you that these are tense times in America.
After a decade of simmering tensions that some have described as a “cold civil war,” we now face what promises to be an ultra-dramatic conclusion to a historically bonkers election season.
How did we get to this point? Can we ever rebuild what we’ve lost? And if so, how do we keep it from falling apart again?
These are profound and important questions — and we’re not even gonna attempt to answer them here.
What we will do, however, is explore a familiar patch of common ground in an effort to remind our fellow Americans of what still unites us.
We’re talking, of course, about the wonderful world of television.
Yes, TV — the most American of all mediums.
Obviously, it exists in every country on the planet, and most nations have their own shows and networks and television personalities, many of which are (ostensibly, at least) entirely devoid of any influence from the US.
And the invention of television was such a gradual, collaborative process that no country can claim sole credit.
But it’s worth noting that numerous Americans were instrumental to the process and received patents for innovations without which the final product never could have come to pass.
It was an American who first used a vacuum tube to transmit images and the world’s very first TV station broadcast out of Schenectady, New York in 1928.
But the technical side is only tangentially related to what we want to talk about today.
The idea of television — the electronic hearth around which the family gathers in the hours between dinner and bedtime to enjoy highly polished entertainment designed to satisfy both parents and kids — that’s an invention of the post-war American empire.
From Howdy Doody and Ed Sullivan in the late ’40s to Lucy, The Twilight Zone, and Wally and the Beev in the ’50s, the world’s newest superpower was quick to plant its flag in the exciting new landscape of TV.
As the trailblazers of TV’s first golden age passed the torch to Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith in the ’60s, Americans gathered around the tube for more than just laughs and scripted thrills.
In 1960, the very first US presidential debate was broadcast to tens of millions of Americans.
Three years later, that same audience turned to their sets in horror when the young senator from Massachusetts who charmed so many in his television debut was gunned down in Dallas.
Again, our goal here is not to diminish the contributions of other nations.
Instead, we’re trying to make the point that TV is as much a part of the so-called American century as fast food, baseball, jazz, or any other cultural contribution that makes the whole world think of Uncle Sam.
And if, as Americans, we can use these as reminders of our shared heritage, then maybe we can start to take baby steps along the road to healing.
If the rest of the world can recognize (however begrudgingly) the many ways in which America is still great, then why can’t we?
After all, The Simpsons wasn’t just a ratings juggernaut in the States. In fact, if you join any of the many Bart-centric discussion groups on Facebook, you’ll likely find it overrun with Brits and Aussies.
And if you take a trip to Paris and turn on la télévision in your downtime, you might make the amusing discovery that the French are big fans of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air — so much so that dubbed reruns still air around the clock.
As TV’s first century gave way to its second, the medium experienced many ups and downs.
The 2000s got off to a strong start with The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad offering uniquely American takes on the trope of the troubled antihero (and building massive global audiences in the process).
But as streaming and social media continued their slow takeover of the small screen universe, it became more difficult for new shows to gain footholds — at home or abroad.
As we’ve previously discussed, our fissiparous political climate is reflected — and perhaps, in part, created — by the splintering of our entertainment preferences.
We don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say a nation that doesn’t watch the same TV shows is marginally less likely to hold the same values.
The same could be said of movies, of course, but no medium is a part of our daily lives quite like TV.
And just as the device receives signals and beams the resultant images into our eyeballs, so too do our belief systems both transmit and receive.
In other words, we’re shaped by television, but we, as a people, also configure the medium to suit our preferences.
The TV of the 1950s helped to form our national identity, but it was also a reflection of the values that already existed at the time.
In a way, our pop culture might be a better indication of our prevailing beliefs than our politics. And it’s certainly more unifying.
A Trump voter and a Harris voter might not agree on much in terms of policy. But there’s a strong possibility that they’re both looking forward to the return of Yellowstone.
So maybe TV can provide a lens through which we can focus on our similarities, as opposed to the differences that are amplified by social media on a daily basis.
The fact is, at some point in the (hopefully very) near future, we’ll have a new president-elect.
And as a result of that development, certain things will change. Perhaps rather abruptly.
It’s an intimidating thought.
But maybe, in these uncertain times, we can take some solace in the knowledge that no matter what happens on Tuesday, NBC’s full slate of One Chicago shows will air on Wednesday.
And Americans from both coasts and both sides of the political spectrum are certain to tune in.
It may not be much, but at least it reminds us that we’re not as different as we think, and that when we work together, we can create wonderful things … or at least pleasantly diverting ones.