Forever Young (Prime Time Special November 28, 2021)
I traveled to the Northeast for work this week. Since I am not a salesperson (or on the business development team as is our company's preferred jargon), I felt there was minimal utility to my presence in what was essentially a week of customer hand-holding. Once again my grand plans of playing catch-up with recaps of the "lost" episodes of Sunday Morning were left to die on the vine.
With the holidays coming up and real time off built in, I hope to fill in the gaps in the last 12 days of the year so that I can put together a complete year in review. This will take me approximately 23 days to complete and once again put me behind on future reviews, but I'm keeping stats.
So I will eschew the normal rambling and move straight to...
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS: PRIME TIME EDITION
Yes, Sunday Morning did a prime time special on November 28. The theme was ostensibly "a one-hour primetime special exploring the wonders, rewards, and challenges of growing older." Watching Sunday Morning segments air at 10 PM on a Sunday evening (full disclosure: I was not able to watch when it aired) feels almost like sacrilege to me. Aside from the oxymoronic nature of airing Sunday Morning on a Sunday Night, and that fact that Sunday Morning is part of my actual Sunday Morning routine that usually begins by attending some sort of church service, Sunday Morning is a 90 minute (60 if you skip the commercials) refuge away from the hustle and bustle of the world whereas Sunday night is arguably when I feel most anxious. Worries about the upcoming week start to burrow into the folded gray matter of my brain. My Sunday night anxiety probably peaked during my high school years, but there still remains some residue of the thought that I am leaving behind a better life/person - i.e. weekend me - for a calloused, cynical version of myself that merely seeks to survive the week ahead. Perhaps a goal of mine for the new year should be to bring the Sunday Morning mindset to the rest of my week. Hopefully it would improve my blood pressure.
Anyway, the segments of this prime time special generally centered around the concept of aging in one way or another. It was almost certainly a way to fill a hole in CBS's Thanksgiving Weekend schedule. Were all the segments originally intended to be part of a coherently themed prime time episode or was it merely a grouping of segments they already had in the can and could easily tie together with some light editing? You be the judge. You might figure where I stand on the question simply due to the fact I'm asking it.
1) Jane Pauley
Let's just take it as a given that anyone who pulls the host/segment double duty automatically gets the top spot. I always lobby for Jane to do a segment more often or at to reinstate Sunday Almanac or something like it. Random trivia bestowed upon by Jane is so much lovelier than generic random trivia.
The segment is an interview of Candice Bergen.
I, like most people know Candice Bergen from Murphy Brown.
I haven't seen any of her movies, but I think I might have caught a rerun of the SNL's she hosted back when she was a favorite (friend?) of Lorne Michaels. She will always be Murphy Brown to me.
I was 5 when Murphy Brown came on the air (and I'm not going to do any research to back any this up, so take the following with a grain of salt...)
There were essentially 2 sitcoms that came to define the 90's - Seinfeld and The Simpsons. Murphy Brown may seem more of the 80's than the 90's, yet roughly 85% of the episodes aired in the 90's. It might be the clothes or the hair or the fact that Murphy Brown did not stretch the boundaries of the sitcom format the way the two previously mentioned shows did. It was not young and hip (Friends), it was not a spinoff of an established classic (Frasier), nor was it a screwball comedy (3rd Rock From the Sun). It did have an antecedent It was essentially an update of The Mary Tyler Moore Show - a workplace comedy centered around a strong female personality. Both work in TV journalism, although Murphy Brown was perhaps a bit more "tough as nails" as an on screen personality than Mary Richards was.
Going into the 1990, if you had to guess what show was going to be most important over the next decade, you would have guessed Murphy Brown. Bergen had already won awards for the show. (She so dominated the best actress category at the Emmys, she eventually requested that she stopped being submitted for consideration.) And Murphy Brown the character was designed to be era defining roll and I don't know who else could have played the character except for Candice Bergen. It's just that as ironic detachment came to define the 90's, Murphy Brown seemed like it from a different era. It was still funny, well written, and well acted - don't hold me to that for all 11 seasons... it's been a while since I've watched it. It just failed to remain part of the zeitgeist as Seinfeld and NBC's "Must See TV" Thursday night lineup ascending to the top of "Mount Pop Culture". Sure Murphy Brown was still doing yeoman's comedy on Monday nights, but to a much older audience. Murphy Brown never really got traction in syndication (despite a catalogue of 247 episodes). I'm not sure if there is some sort of rights dispute over the show, but in the era of digital subchannels where Home Improvement, According to Jim, Grounded for Life, Coach, and roughly 60% of all other sitcoms ever produced still have life in reruns on these secondary broadcast channels, it is somewhat astounding that Murphy Brown is essentially a lost show except to the memory of those who loved it given its pedigree - 247 episodes and many many Emmys.
Did I love it? While it was on, I was a boy between the ages the 5-15, so it would have been pretty weird if I did. So of course I did because I was a weird kid. It was perhaps "too adult" for me, although tame by today's standards I'm sure. I probably didn't really start watching the show until I was maybe 9 or 10 (still weird), but I still remember Murphy and Myles and Corky and Frank (?) and the straight laced anchor with the voice whose name escapes me and all the secretaries that were the bane of Murphy's professional existence and the pretty boy rival (Noel?) and the handyman with whom she had a kid (Elvin? I think I'm stertching for that name pretty far...). I can't remember any particular episode or story lines 25-30 years later, but I remember looking forward to Monday nights when I was a kid.
I did watch the first episode of the attempted 2018 reboot, which was obviously trying to cash in the buzz created by the Roseanne reboot. I did not watch further episodes. Was it that the original show was built up to be something it wasn't in my memory or was the original magic just gone? Chances are it didn't exist after the first 5 or 6 season, but I'm not one to give up on a show. I do remember her transitioning from hard journalist to host of a fluffy morning show towards the end, much to the character's chagrin - and that's probably when Myles got written out of the show. I'd say it had jumped the shark, but it probably happened before then.
Forgive me, but the details of sitcoms I watched when I was 10 are a little bit hazy.
All things considered, even if the five minute interview hadn't inspired a few hundred words on Murphy Brown, it still would have been #1 because the true star of the segment is Candace Bergen's dog (with apologies to Bergen's grandson Archie). And I'm not even a dog person.
Martha Teichner loves animals. And we love it when Martha talks about animals. Even naked mole rats:
There's sort of an unofficial biological rule that the lifespan of an animal is correlated its size. And size heart rate is generally inversely proportional to size, there is sort of this idea that there is a universal fixed number of heartbeats to any lifespan. Smaller animals reach that limit much faster than say humans or elephants or sea turtles or other long lived animals. I'm not a biologist, so none of this is close to being correct or scientific. But it has the veneer of truthiness. I suppose I just like animals too, despite the fact that I was raised to believe that pets are bad. So I'm always going to be a sucker for segment on animals or nature.
Also I can now regale my friends and colleagues at cocktail parties with the trivia that naked mole rats live to be forty five.
"How long do you think naked mole rats live?"
"What? I dunno, like three or four years?"
"They can live to be forty five! If I got a naked mole rat as a pet, it would probably out live me. I also wouldn't have to go through the trauma of burying three pet dogs like you did!"
"Uhh... that's great. Please stop talking to me."
3) Seth Doane
The Mediterranean based Seth Doane once again gets a bump from the power rankings committee due to geographical bias - they are incapable of not enjoying a story originating from Italy. This time Seth takes us to Sardinia. Picturesque, but also home to the more centenarians (per capita) than almost anywhere else on Earth.
Why do so many people live to 100 here? Scientists want to know. Like anything else, it is probably some combination of genetics, diet, and lifestyle. Of course, I could have just written "genetics, diet, and lifestyle" at the beginning of the whole recap and just skipped the rest.
There doesn't seem to be any super restrictive vegan diet, or some kind of fasting or other practice of self-denial. Although they do say that a low calorie diet imposed by World War II in their youth and a higher fat/protein diet in their old age is potentially a key to the exceptional longevity of Villagrande's residents.
The concept of retirement also seems foreign to the 90+ crowd in Villagrande, Sardinia, Italy. They still cook, farm, and gather to chat at cafés. It may also have to do with living in the mountains in a temperate climate on the Mediterranean Sea. It seems you probably wouldn't get tired of living if you had that to look forward to the next morning. That or the people of Sardinia have discovered and are hoarding a cache of spice from Arrakis.
4) Lee Cowan
In the headlining segment, Lee Cowan talks about to scientists about aging. It is in this segment we get statements like.
"Aging can be delayed. Aging can be stopped. Aging can be reversed in several ways."
"Aging should be treated. It should be considered a medical condition, and doctors should pay attention to it."
Of course, this is not news. Ladies and gentleman, please stand for the official anthem of immortality:
Anyone who thought the official anthem would be Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" is officially banished from the power ranking committee.
(Aside: Rod Stewart did do an excellent cover of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man". It may not exactly catch the spirit of the what the Stones were going for, but what's the point of a cover if you are just going to recreate the original? Rod's version is quite the sonic trip.)
Lee speaks to no fewer than three medical experts in the field of aging and not one mentions The Quickening:
So it's already an established fact (handed down by a from a Spaniard with a Scottish accent to a Scotsman with a vaguely French accent) that immortality is possible for some people. But I don't want it.
Maybe it's because I've already had my own brush with serious illness that has caused me to confront my own mortality, but immortality seems more like a curse than a blessing to me. At least that's what I've been taught by pretty much every story I've read except the Bible, and even then you have to hope you end up with the good kind.
So, I kind of recoil at the idea of some Dorian Gray look scientist telling me I need start fasting and eating kale to stop the aging process.
Drew Magary has already predicted (probably accurately) what a future without aging looks like in his novel The Postmortal. I don't want to give away the ending, but let's just say that humanity does not handle immortality all that well. I don't think we're designed to handle it. And if it's all the same to you, I'd like to enjoy this apple pie à la mode and the rest of what life today has to offer instead of abstaining from life's simple pleasures with the goal of tacking on a few years to the end of my life. Even if these sunset years could still be active and engaging like it is for the good folk of Villagrande, I'm honestly worried about the habitability of this planet by the time I'd turn 100 due to climate change. Maybe if I knew a little about the future I'm saving up those extra years for, I could be persuaded.
To answer Mr. Mercury's inquiry, "Who wants to live forever?": Not me.
Susan uses brassy 68 year old Instagram fashion icon/retired professor Lyn Slater as a vehicle for discussion aging and wisdom. Wisdom is kind of a nebulous concept to pin down. But I guess it is a little bit easier to define/quantify/study than say, grace. I don't have much use for social media, so I'm not going to start following Dr. Slater on Instagram, but she's sort of a hoot. I'm not sure that the segment is about wisdom as much as it is about aging on your own terms, which is maybe part of wisdom but surely does not encompass the whole of the topic.
I'd like to address the end of the segment:
Spencer: So when The Who sang, "I hope I die before I get old," they had it wrong?
Slater: Yes! I like to quote David Bowie: "Aging is when you become the person that you always should have been."
In defense of the The Who, first, My Generation is a great rock song. If I ever go on a classic rock kick, I could buy some Who albums. Second, if aging is more a mindset or feeling, maybe the have it right. Who (the pronoun) has the right to say you're old except you? Third, while Keith Moon did shuffle off this mortal coil prematurely thanks to his rock 'n roll excesses, the band did carry on long past what most would consider to be "old". Maybe that kept them young in the same way Slater has managed to stay young.
The Bowie quote is a good one, but awfully aspirational. I'm not sure I will ever be that person.
6) Luke Burbank
The Simpsons on cryogenic freezing:
I don't think death can be reversed. The human body is not a computer. It cannot be fixed by turning it off and turning it again. If we are going to treat the human body like a computer, the brain is probably like RAM - the contents would probably be cleared once the plug is pulled. So if you could revive somebody, would they be the same person?
Questions of the consciousness aside, maybe space travel would require cryogenics to slow the body's natural process of aging for long journeys, but not completely stop it.
Anyway, the story mentions Alcor's most famous member, Ted Williams. Aside from the familial issues alluded to, Google Ted Williams and cryogenics - it has been widely reported that his remains have been abused... or at least not kept in pristine condition. It's a hell of gamble to shell out the cash to freeze your body and it sort of a temporal ponzi scheme. Those who bought in early have to rely on future member paying in to keep the power on and the tanks frozen. I give it a 0.01% chance the power to facility will stay uninterrupted for the next, lets say one hundred years. I'll be back in 2121 to collect my winnings.
7) Nancy Giles
Women live longer for a variety of reasons. Men mature later (if at all) and tend to engage in far riskier behavior than women. You know the old saying that if women were president, there wouldn't be any wars? That would also probably increase the life expectancy of men as they make up the vast majority of people who fight and die in those wars. I knew a woman that had a strong preference to only have boys if/when they had children knowing how difficult it can be to navigate through life as a woman and (I assume) it would be easier to raise a boy, because the bar is set lower (maybe?). Is a longer life expectancy the way women get the last laugh? Somehow, most within the ranks of the "fairer sex" would trade those few extra years for things like equal pay and stuff like that. But this really isn't an either or proposition. Shouldn't both sexes want both things - equality and a long life? Controversial, I know.
8) David Pogue
Growing up, my family had a Commodore 64 computer. (It actually remained functional until my second year of grad school - 2007.) My older brother was champion of all the games. He could defeat Doh the Grid Monster in Arkanoid any time he wanted to.
But awesome video games from the 1980 aside, the reason David's segment comes to mind is because there was this program for the Commodore 64 called Eliza. Eliza was a primitive chatbot that was ostensibly supposed to harness BASIC and 64K of RAM for the purposes of psychotherapy. Eliza essentially just always repeated what you told her (it?) back to you because that was about as sophisticated a decision tree as you could write in 64K of BASIC code.
From an anthropological perspective, having recordings of our elders sharing their stories is interesting. As a way to connect with the deceased, I don't think it is possible to have a real conversation. I feel it will just end of feeling like talking to Eliza. I still have old photo albums of my grandparents, but they are gone now. My parents know all the stories behind the pictures, but perhaps we should break them out again one day so I can relearn the stories.
You know the Carousel pitch from Mad Men?
My childhood up until about age ten is on slides and setting up the projector to look at them every few months was a family tradition up until digital cameras started to proliferate. This is just a fancier version of that. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic or have Luddite analog sensibilities, but I prefer that. What's the point if the projector doesn't get stuck every ten of fifteen minutes?
While I'm pretty sure he's transferred the slides to a digital format, I wonder if my dad still has a working projector.
9) Tracy Smith
At first I sort of wondered if this was actually a new segment or whether they had just cobbled together leftover footage of Tracy's previous interview with Billy Crystal for Here Today to make it seem like it was about Billy Crystal's take on aging. Nothing against Tracy or Billy, but the connection to the special's theme of aging is tenuous at best. Yes, Billy is reprising his role from Mr. Saturday Night in a Broadway Musical next spring (provided the omicron variant doesn't shut it down...) and he's actually aged into the role he played in a movie he made 30 years ago which got mixed reviews. (Full disclosure: I've never seen it.) But the celebrity interview is still just a celebrity interview.
I'm fully aware of the committee's hypocrisy of making give one celebrity interview the #1 and ranking the other at the bottom. Don't shoot the messenger. Also, Candice Bergen successfully lobbied for her interview to be reclassified out of the "celebrity interview" category since she doesn't have any active projects to promote.
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