Monday, December 30, 2013

Lou Grant and the 1970s

TV Tropes tags the Lou Grant show as an example of The Seventies trope. And there's definitely some of that - I'm in the middle of season 3 and there's definitely an element of issue of the week - they covered homosexuality, race, old age, alcoholism, and nuclear weapons among many others. But I don't mind it, especially because the show tends to shy away from wrapping up neatly. For instance, an episode about an evangelical church getting rich from the gullibility of their flock, while clearly showing the religion to be an opportunistic scam, didn't end with the church getting busted. Instead the last scene with the preacher showed him claiming that the Los Angeles Tribune was doing the work of Satan, and the flock remained as gullible as always.

I do love all the younger men sporting that longish 70s hair - makes me nostalgic.

There's a web site called lougrant.net which is not extensive, and a little grim - it has an obituary page which lists the deaths not only of cast members (Nancy Marchand, Mason Adams) but also behind the scenes people like the makeup guy.

It has a photo of the surviving cast members from 2008 on the front page.