If you think WICS Channel 20 has assumed the trappings of civilized media since Mark Hymen’s sneering diatribes were discontinued, think again. (Yes, I know that’s not how to spell his last name, but it works for me and seems to fit.)
In the past I’ve shared my praise of 20’s airing of DaVinci’s Inquest, a series that ranks right up there with Law and Order as a first rate who-done-it, replete with fascinating characters, fine acting and excellent writing. It’s on Saturday nights at 11:30. I ALWAYS stop whatever I’m doing if I’m not with good people, and watch it. Part of the enjoyment of that program since I began watching it is the theme song run at the end as the credits scroll down the screen. Sometimes, if I have lost track of the time, I’ll tune in as late as 12:20 just to hear the closing theme after 10 minutes of fine TV. Why so much ado about a fripping theme song? It’s a good one, haunting, even, and it allows viewers to decompress, to sigh after another provocative episode, and to consider heading back to raid the refrigerator, the home office, the half-full decanter of Carlo Rossi or even retire to sleep, perchance to dream. It provides a buffer between the previous onslaught and the one to come. For the record, it is the only program theme I feel so strongly about.
At the close of the program that began Saturday night, I was ready to sort out the loose ends of the episode, to wonder if there’s romance about to blossom between Dante DaVinci and the charming and beautiful homocide detective, to consider the superb casting and to savor the seemingly ever-new interplay of left and right hand in the single-keyboard theme. The moment lasted a second and a half.
For the first time in my career as a TV viewer (I started out as a child) I witnessed the premeditated murder of the theme by THREE advertising spots launched a second and a half (not that I was looking at my stopwatch at the time, but I have a feel for time, and I always have time for a feel, whatever that means.) The first spot was ten seconds for a Channel 20 program reminder, and the other two were for products — a diet suppliment and a local transmission shop. For some nutty reason, for the first time I can recall two Springfield transmission shops advertised on one episode of DaVinci’s Inquest. I don’t know why, and I don’t remember who.
All I remember is that I was stunned by the theme slashing. For more than a minute I was near catatonia, hoping that it was some new studio engineer’s tasteless blunder. Maybe Mar Khymen was working that night, but I doubt it. I mused that perhaps the theme would pick up where it left off at the end of the unwelcome assault, but such was not to be. Next thing on the air was an infomercial for . . . . I don’t know. My TV was cooling before they said who it was for. And I returned to the office, three feet from my living room.
This new soiling of the airwaves, preventing program credits to run by inserting commercials a second and a half after programs’ ends is an insult to at least this home viewer. I pray that it was a fluke, a small eel perhaps, a tapeworm, a snail, a passing anomaly, a Mike Huckaby among the real players, as it were. Will it continue?
I probably won’t be doing anything significant next Saturday night, so I’ll tune in as usual, and let you know. Better yet, WATCH DaVinci’s Inquest next Saturday night and see for your own good self.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
