The TV choices narrow after this week, a sign of the cynical times.
Going forward, television will still feature feuding families, dating families, spying, heroic and superpowered families.
We’ll have fractured families and families of people who aren’t related but who act as supportive, almost familial co- workers.
We’ll have cutting-edge cable TV families of anti-heroes, mobsters and con artists. Of course there will be “reality” show families racing, surviving and otherwise competing for money.
And there will be families due for extreme makeovers.
But we won’t have families living in some sort of Eisenhower- era bubble, impervious to modern trends and safely sheltered from such nastiness as STDs and abortion.
The last remaining unpretentious and unrelentingly sweet family drama signs off Sunday.
Squeaky-clean “7th Heaven,” the hour that put The WB on the programming map, the proudly cheesy, pro-social-message hour that was slated for a finale a year ago, finally comes to a close on CW (at 7 p.m. Sunday on KWGN-Channel 2).
Since August 1996, “7th Heaven” has been a refuge for those seeking old-style family entertainment suitable for all ages in a shared viewing experience. Like “American Idol” without the singing.
No matter what else came and went from television or assaulted the world, a minister, his wife and seven children and their family travails provided the material for more than a decade of (parenthetically Christian) storytelling.
No soap-operatic twists, no secret identities or supernatural mythologies, just moral teachings and familiar characters.
The end of the series – never a critical favorite – leaves a void in terms of what primetime diversion children and their caregivers can safely share. “7th Heaven” was an afterthought for critics, a popular niche show that didn’t threaten to break boundaries or win acting/writing awards. But its passing will leave an obvious hole in the TV landscape.
The highest-rated show on The WB (in fact, the series that launched The WB’s Monday night and made the network viable), “7th Heaven” grew from a pleasant and innocuous hour to a compelling drama with involving characters and a special place in the increasingly politically charged landscape of TV. Ultimately, it became the longest-running family drama in the history of television.
As envisioned by creator Brenda Hampton, the show filled a need. Even as it grazed issues of the day, it stayed firmly rooted in the drama and dynamics of the family. Drinking and driving, teen pregnancy, homelessness, even war and genocide have turned up in the scripts over the years. But the stories were always focused on the Cleaver, that is, Camden clan.
The hugging conclusions and lessons learned made the series a virtual Sunday-school extension course for millions of families.
And now they’re off, seeing America first.
How many miles per gallon does that RV get? Never mind. Stephen Collins, Catherine Hicks, Beverly Mitchell and the rest of the clan pack it in for the gas-guzzling finale, “And Away We Go.”
Those of us who scoffed at “7th Heaven’s” designation as a so-called “family values” show always asked, Whose values? What kind of family? Who gets to determine that Victorian retro is the only correct and sustaining form of “family values”? We didn’t watch except to marvel at the 1950s ethos as a strange, outmoded relic.
It was “Father Knows Best” transplanted to the chardonnay-sounding Glen Oak, California.
Like “Safe Haven,” the failed hour it was paired with years ago, “7th Heaven” was proudly judgmental. Open-minded to a point, but ultimately a judging moral arbiter.
The irony is that it was produced in conjunction with showbiz legend Aaron Spelling, purveyor of so much sudsy sex- tinged programming in earlier years.
Flavored with the same vaguely Christian themes as “Touched by an Angel” and the earlier “Highway to Heaven,” the series made a blatant pitch to social conservatives.
The cloying aspects of “7th Heaven” won’t be missed, but the role of very safe, very trusted family drama will be.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
