Major Crimes—it’s just not working for me

"I asked for season 7 of the Closer (DVD) for my birthday last week, which my daughter and son in law gave me when we went out to eat at the Rusty Bucket. Oops. My husband had started over with season one, is viewing one a day, so it may be after Christmas before I get to see it (we watch them together).  Yesterday he started season Two. He's the kind of guy who can put a package of double fudge brownies in the freezer and only eat one a day!"

Kyra Sedgwick the star of the Closer:

After seven seasons, the ratings keep going up. For some people, this would mean staying until viewers stopped watching. But Sedgwick was happy that fans are still begging for "The Closer" not to end. The 46-year-old admitted to the L.A. Times, "People come up to me all the time and go, 'Please! Don't! Why?' It's heartbreaking, and I feel badly about it, but I'm also thankful they're saying that and not, 'You're still doing that show? Oy!' It's so much better to leave having people want more."

                   

Closing out the closer with half price goods

I'm so disappointed in this season's Closer, TNT's award winning program now in its 7th season. Last night's tired old, anti-Catholic scripts that has been done on dozens of shows; predictable group think and talk; Kyra is a caricature of Brenda; and last night's episode wasn't a cliff hanger, it was over the cliff. Maybe they've brought out all the reserve team writers and directors for this season, so we won't miss it when Major Crimes begins immediately after its death. They shouldn't have waited so long to end it. . .

TV writers are not so clever about their anti-Christian bias, if you watch a series for any length of time. All the boogey men and rumors and myths are brought out in the story, then the priest, minister, pastor, etc. are absolved in the end, but the seeds of suspicion and hate have been firmly planted. This also happens on Bones and Law and Order. But Muslims--they are not treated this way. They are usually the victims of prejudice in the story line by unnamed bigoted groups. All the Closer team was going along with the theme--a murdered priest had been a child molester, the church was doing a massive cover up--but he was completely innocent and had been killed by someone whose confession he had heard. Closer also has a strong anti-Mexican theme in many stories and with blatant stereotyping, but allow the one Hispanic character (whose Spanish sounds about as good as mine) on the show always has to interpret the church to the rest of the crew.

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.

Brenda Leigh--you should be ashamed of yourself for misleading young women

We've borrowed and returned 2 seasons of "The Closer" from the library, and checked out seasons 3 and 4. We've thoroughly enjoyed the excellent writing and acting of this TNT show, which ends after the seventh season this year. Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) would be such a beautiful role model for young women who want to be both authoritative, tough and a good manager, but yet feminine and tender too. She wears modest feminine attire, loves her kitty, and is usually emotionally exhausted when coming home from work.) Unfortunately, the writers gave her a live-in boyfriend as a subplot (they marry in later episodes) to help her solve crimes and a former married lover as her boss for tension and humor at work. I guess it would just be too much work to figure out how she could possibly be a fine, capable woman and be sexually chaste too. Since the crime and the team's dynamics are the center piece each episode, how hard could it be to make Brenda really smart?

Since young women (and even some old) have decided living with the guy is an OK opening for marriage and long term plans like having a family, the divorce rate has soared and the child poverty rate has gone out of sight, with only 8% of children from married households living in poverty and 56% with single moms living in poverty. How smart is that, Hollywood, to promote this? Don't you want people to continue buying your product?

Women could virtually wipe out poverty in a generation just by having higher standards for themselves and the men they love.

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I've got my orders

He's an easy guy to live with, but he does have a favorite TV show--The Closer. Tonight he said, "The Closer is on tonight, so when I get home from my meeting I don't want any Book-TV or funny stuff like that on. If I'm late, you'll need to fill me in. Channel 30, TNT."

Yes, boss. The Closer.