Niche Nostalgia

Spotting trends in looking backwards: Not the dreary, monochromatic Fifties, nor the post-Kennedy/Beatles/Vietnam/Civil Rights flailing about of The Sixties, but that sliver of history between the two (We could call it "Camelot!") when the world was headed to the stars, or certainly color tee vee for all, is now passing for a trend.

AMC started the ball rolling back to never-was land w/ Mad Men in 2007, now the drones of network telebision have jumped right in w/ two historical dramas that will debut this September, Coffee Tea or Me?Pan Am on the alphabet net, & already controversial The Playboy Club, so unspeakably naughty that the LDS-owned NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City has decided not to show it. (Of course, KSL doesn't run Saturday Night Live either, which, speaking of nostalgia, is apparently still on the air in other parts of the nation.)

Conclusion? None, 'though 1960-63 is one small lode to exploit.

And finishing the telly report, we see that ABC actually has a show about a current war (a mere ten yrs. after the adventure began) on the air ('though just as a summer replacement) startling for an industry whose closest connection to America's wars was a service comedy set in a hospital during the Korean Police Action (M★A★S★H) which aired after the war it was supposed to be about, & China Beach, actually about Vietnam, but not aired until some yrs. after a certain country got its ass handed to it & left 'Nam. The title of ABC's Afghan offering? Combat Hospital.

Interesting (if not telling) that Hollywood prefers to view suffering & murder imposed by Americans from the perspective of dashing doctors & noble nurses, rather than that of the sordid thugs who enforce the will of the oil-igarchy on the other side of the world.