With Passage of Time, Diversions Will Return

Any talk about cooler heads prevailing, at a time when hotheadedness is completely understandable, risks being both pointless and naive.

Still, on a couple of fronts pertaining to television, let’s at least give the notion of perspective a try.

Those who work in Hollywood, as well as those of us responsible for chronicling their movements, have felt more than a little flummoxed these past few days. How do you get out of bed, a colleague wondered last week, and toss out jokes for “Spin City” or “The King of Queens” at a time like this? In similar fashion, obsessing over Anne Heche’s personalities, or if “Friends” can continue to weather the ratings challenge posed by “Survivor,” has probably never felt more irrelevant.

Hollywood, after all, is America’s candy store, serving up confections that have a tendency to wither under the harsh light of reality. It’s not surprising, then, to consider that people who make a living putting dialogue in the mouths of sitcom dads might have a hard time being motivated to do so, or that network executives might feel queasy about discussing their annual scheduling mock combat--rife, as it is, with awkward war-related terminology.

So it’s worth pausing to point out that popular entertainment has always coexisted, sometimes uncomfortably, with real-life events--at times reflecting them, at times foreshadowing them, and at times drawing upon them, tastefully or otherwise, as a source of inspiration.

If this point sounds more than a little obvious, it’s also easily forgotten, as the networks wrestle with scheduling decisions and pundits question whether television viewers will be willing to embrace several new series that--in one of those hard-to-explain bits of happenstance in which the networks specialize--deal in espionage to one degree or another.

CBS (“The Agency”), ABC (“Alias”) and Fox (“24”) all have new shows in production, ordered last spring, which feature Central Intelligence Agency operatives. With NBC offering up another about an elite crime-fighting unit, “UC: Undercover,” spies became one of the few themes to emerge in this fall’s programming menu--a thread that seems unfortunately timed, to say the least, in light of current events.

Premiere dates for these programs have been delayed along with the rest of the networks’ prime-time lineups, and a five-hour “Law & Order” miniseries focusing on an act of domestic terrorism has been scrapped.

Recalling the tensions that surrounded the Cold War, when the most popular sitcom was “The Beverly Hillbillies,” some have suggested that television will, out of necessity, return to more innocuous fare.

Granted, this is possible. Yet remember, many of the same viewers who chuckled at the antics of Jethro and Elly May during the 1960s also tuned in “I Spy,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “The F.B.I.,” as well as “Get Smart” and shorter-lived shows with titles like “Espionage” and “Amos Burke--Secret Agent.”

The same generation lined up at theaters for that most seminal of Cold War franchises, James Bond, who made his big-screen debut in 1962, the same year as the Cuban missile crisis.

In this respect, America has never exactly been a model of consistency. Our revulsion with violent crime, for example, has always corresponded with a fascination in TV programs such as “Law & Order,” “NYPD Blue” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” or movies such as “Silence of the Lambs” and its recent sequel, “Hannibal.”

Indeed, a visitor from space surveying popular culture might very well conclude America has more serial killers in its population than Asian or Native Americans, based on their relative representation in movies and television.

Whatever America’s past viewing habits have been, people will undeniably be more sensitive to certain depictions--especially images and concepts that may recall the horror displayed so indelibly eight days ago.

Moreover, it is equally inevitable that there will be miscues, miscalculations and errors of judgment and taste during this period. Some cable network or local TV station will inadvertently run a terrorism-themed movie or more innocuous title--say, the 1976 remake of “King Kong,” which prominently featured the World Trade Center--that appears wholly inappropriate. An old sitcom rerun may contain an unfortunate joke, or a drama may pan the New York skyline and glimpse an edifice that’s no longer there.

These glitches will be stupid and careless, but they will not be malicious. And while Hollywood has enough apologists, it’s fair to say--of the conscious decisions programmers will be making--that nobody knows how long it will take before people can absorb certain material without wincing. Nobody will announce when the time for mourning is over.

As a result, everyone will be left to feel their own way, guided by their own internal compass and emotional pace, in determining the timing of what to put on and what to watch.

So the candy store will reopen, peddling the usual junk foods--celebrity gossip, wacky sitcoms and, yes, thrilling and violent dramas, which will be consumed by viewers willing and able to distinguish between imagined mayhem and CNN. “We’ll go back to our delights and diversions,” author Haynes Johnson stated last week, in an interview on “Nightline.”

“The Oprah Winfrey Show” delivered a related message during an episode featuring regular guest Dr. Phil McGraw. Silver-tongued devil that he is, Dr. Phil stressed that everyone has their role to play--that each little cog helps the U.S. economic machine run more smoothly. In other words, even comedy writers and sappy sitcom dads have something to contribute.

Although taking advice from Dr. Phil might sound as inane as gleaning significant life lessons from what Bob Saget or John Stamos told the kids on “Full House,” there is something to the idea that people needn’t feel embarrassed about producing such trifles, any more than viewers should feel embarrassed about finding refuge by watching them.

In another of the season’s few trends, by the way, Saget and Stamos will be among the familiar faces returning in new programs--the former in a WB network comedy called “Raising Dad,” the latter in a lighthearted ABC hybrid of “It Takes a Thief” and “Moonlighting” titled “Thieves.”

Based on a sampling, neither show is likely to be among next year’s Emmy finalists. Still, as an escape from what has been on TV lately, it’s a good bet, for many, that Bob Saget will never have been quite so welcome a sight.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached via email at brian.lowry@latimes.com.