We love Brenda as The Closer

We've been fans of TNT's The Closer since it began in June 2005. It's now in it's 7th and final season, and we're watching the first season on DVD on our new digital TV at our lake house. We don't have cable here, so we're watching one episode an evening, and on Monday nights we go to a neighbors to see last week's and this week's episodes. I've seen some of these episodes several times, and now I can just watch for the humor and team building, watching Brenda's team come together after first resenting her. In the first season we get to watch her and Fritz fall in love; how she got her crazy house; how she came to acquire kitty; why she is always lost; and her addiction to junk food.

Unfortunately, Mr. James Duff (story coordinator), we also see certain themes from the very beginning--favorites of Hollywood: 1) anti-religion, particularly Christianity, but there's nothing kind about Muslims either; 2) sensitivity to gay issues, but with almost vicious reality about gays being the perps as well as the victims; 3) guys as slime balls (except Fritz) when it comes to sex, and women being powerful and smart; 4) southern stereotypes from Brenda's oozing "thank you," to her mother's solicitous, hovering behavior; presenting the right political spectrum in the most unflattering roles possible while not making them either the perp or the victim--just hauling them in for questioning so they can be mouthpieces for the hostility of the writers and producers (nothing similar for the left or socialist view--afterall, that IS Hollywood); people within the legal system, lawyers, police, DAs, private investigators, etc. as criminals. Much of this we'd come to expect on Law and Order--which was particularly hostile to conservatives and Christians, but had good story lines.

Still, even understanding how Hollywood sees those of us in fly-over country as soggy Tea Bags, I'd like to see a little respect once in a while. We pay cable bills too, and buy advertised products. Brenda Leigh Johnson and her crew are great--just too one dimensional and predictable in their dislike for American values.