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I wasn't expecting much going into ABC's Threat Matrix. My initial reaction to the show was further diminished by an opening sequence depicting a pair of US servicemen in a Minuteman Silo playing video games and the theft of an American nuclear warhead by a group of apparent terrorists made up of white Americans. I thought to myself, this is going to be like most of 24- they don't want to offend Islamists and liberals so they're going to make a show about the War on Terrorism with white guys as the villains. That's been the path taken by virtually every major television drama when it comes to terrorism. The West Wing responded to 9-11 by producing an hour-long sermon on tolerance. When Aaron Sorkin finally got around to writing a terrorist act into the show, he had it committed by white militiamen. Even shows like JAG and The Agency have addressed the war in only a half-hearted fashion- as a setting, not as a basis. There seems to be a reluctance to write about heroism in the war against the Islamists. As I've said, 24 made their villains turn out to be a bunch of Evil Rich White MenT, plotting to start a war for the sake of oil profits. For the first few minutes I wasn't expecting much better from this show.

A few minutes in, however, it is revealed that the theft of the bomb was not the work of terrorists; it was the work of special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, working to keep the Federal Government on its toes.

`And you two what, go around the country stealing warheads?' asks an incredulous General,

`When the President asks us to,' responds Special Agent James Kilmer (played by James Denton). That's when it hits me; this is going to be the first 21st century show, a show updated to the new sensibilities of the American people regarding foreign affairs and the current war. This isn't going to be a show which creates a fictional liberal-fantasy President (a la 24's 'President Palmer' or The West Wing's 'President Bartlett'), this is the fusion of that most venerable television genre, the police procedural, with the sensibilities of the many patriotic films made during the Second World War lauding the heroism of America's fighting men.

On reflection I ought to have known it sooner. The show opens with a little text and narration bit which, if it is retained, is destined to become a classic, it explains the meaning of the phrase, `threat matrix' (it's the report that the President receives every morning about terrorist threats) and explains how the job of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA have the job of, `keep(ing) us safe.' New sensibilities for a new era.

The plot of the pilot episode revolves around a terrorist plot, which I will not describe to avoid spoiling several excellent plot twists but, needless to say, it's fun and entertaining. More than that, the show is filmed in a wonderful CSI-like style. It's a show about investigating terrorism which is as detailed, as thorough, as the newest crime shows.

But the best thing about the show is its general sensibilities and moral compass. A few years ago, the movie The Siege, depicting a terrorist campaign against New York City, was widely attacked by Muslim advocates for being 'racist' because of its depiction of Muslims as 'terrorists'- a charge that was backed up by many critics. This despite the fact that the movie went to wild lengths to differentiate between 'loyal' Muslims and terrorists, even suggesting that it was America's own fault for provoking terrorism (by holding a terrorist leader prisoner and abandoning the Kurds in Northern Iraq). The movie ends with a US Army General (who is the villain of the piece) being arrested for murder after having a terrorist killed. Even with all of this, film critic Roger Ebert claimed that, `the prejudicial attitudes embodied in the film are insidious, like the anti-Semitism that infected fiction and journalism in the 1930s.'

The same sort of attitude has infected virtually every other piece featuring Muslim terrorists, no one wants to offend those who slaughtered 3000 Americans. In last years The Sum of All Fears the producers went to the insane step of changing the villains from Islamic fanatics into generic European Neo-Nazis. There's none of that in here. At one point in the episode the agents end up taking a group of teenaged terrorists prisoner, classifying them as enemy combatants. One of the agents objects saying, `they're kids,' to which the other agent responds, `They're terrorists, sent by terrorists.' End of discussion in this new day and age. In another scene an agent tells a person with information of terrorism that either he will divulge his information, or she will leave him to be executed by Indonesia. A new show for a new age.

The cast is mostly made up of unknowns (with the exception of Melora Walters, from Magnolia and Boogie Nights). But, like other shows of this type, other things matter more than cast here. This is a brave show. I don't know if it'll survive in this form to air but, if it does, it will prove to be a hit- regardless of how many people denounce hit. Those associated with this production are brave- this defies the conventions of Hollywood by showing things as they are: American security forces as heroes, Muslim terrorists as villains. The way things ought to be.

NBC is counting upon the British-import Coupling to be the breakout show of the fall and, it would seem, a replacement for its long-running Friends. Of course, unlike many other shows, Coupling isn't exactly an import. It is a show about a group of six friends (three men, three women) who live in New York City (at least, I presume, it's never explicitly mentioned) and their relationships. Sound familiar? It should - because the BBC version of Coupling was a rip-off of Friends. In other words, NBC has been reduced to ripping off shows ripped off from its own hit shows. -And the worst part is this: the odds for the show's success are very high.

I recently had a chance to view the pilot episode of Coupling and, I can assure you, it's raunchy and outrageous. The plot goes something like this: people sit around and talk about sex. Then they talk about sex some more. Then they have sex. Then they talk about sex some more. The cast is for the most part a collection of no-name actors. It's most distinguished members are Rena Sofer, who was a regular in the final season of the recently-cancelled Just Shoot Me and who had a recurring role on Melrose Place, and Lindsay Price, who was in a few seasons of Beverley Hills 90210 as well as All My Children and The Bold and the Beautiful. None of the rest of the cast have records that even rival these. In other words, they may be pretty to look at, but they aren't going to be winning any Emmys, and it shows.

The pilot episode, which I am given to understand simply uses the script from the BBC pilot version of the show, is horribly unfunny. It's mostly a collection of sex jokes which lack the subtlety of those on Will and Grace. The first two minutes of the show contain two jokes about `swallowing', a conversation about breasts, a discussion of a couple's 'near-illegal' post-break up sex, and references to a woman's lack of underwear. This, keep in mind, is all in the first two minutes, though it goes on this way for the next twenty-one. A show like this can't fail to be a hit- or fail to be hailed as 'groundbreaking' and 'daring'. The way things are going, by the time NBC replaces this show, it'll have to be showing prime-time pornography.

Now, I'm no prude. Many great recent shows have incorporated sexual themes into their plots (Seinfeld, in particular, comes to mind). The problem here is that there's nothing here. It's just a series of insipid one-liners meant to titillate. Why would people watch such garbage? Because they do. I can't explain it much better than that. Though, I must admit, the creators of this show have set up one element that will keep some people coming back.

One of the strangest phenomena triggered by the combination of television and the Internet has been the development of large fan communities dedicated to relationships between people who do not really exist. Amongst fans of Friends, for example, there is a large division between fans who wish to see Ross and Rachel together and those who want to see Ross and Joey together. The same was true for the recently departed Buffy the Vampire Slayer where millions of fans formed hundreds of websites, writing thousands of stories about various actual, plausible, and decidedly implausible relationships between characters on the show. People who watch these programs become fanatical, scouring episodes for hints that their dream relationship might one day come to pass and engaging in bitter and protracted fights with other relationship partisans. This habit is widespread enough to have a name, `shipping'.

The premise of Coupling is that every single pairing within the group could possibly have a relationship (well, every opposite sex pairing, at the very least). NBC is playing this up in their ads for the show, (you may have seen them already - they're the ones that announce, `she's his ex, he's her boyfriend, they almost had a fling, blah, blah, blah') and they have a very good reason for doing so. With extensive promotion and its 9:30 Thursday timeslot, the show will necessarily attract tens of millions of viewers in its first weeks, and because of its content I'm willing to bet that it will keep the majority of those viewers. (The viewers, after all, being people who tuned in to watch the similar Will and Grace) Later, as it is discussed around water-coolers, it will pick up even more viewers.

It's a tragedy that this is the sort of show the public wants to see. This show is proudly and unrelentingly lowbrow, an appeal to the lowest common denominator. Now, I'm a capitalist, but I still must shake my head just a little at the fact that this is the sort of trash that most of the public seemingly wants to watch.

I don't mean to simply bash television. Quite frankly, I think that this is something of a golden age for the medium. On the whole, the overall quality of what's on TV today is probably better than it's been at any other time in recent memory. The real problem isn't that no one is making good shows, it's that not enough people are watching those shows and the networks are failing to treat them with the respect that they deserve. When conservatives (especially social conservatives) decide to concede television altogether to the moral and cultural left, they are in essence surrendering the high ground in the culture wars. We must remember that although a lot of what's on television is garbage, not everything there is.

In the coming weeks I plan to do something exciting - I'm going to go through some of the television shows that conservatives ought to be watching and supporting, but aren't. I hope to unveil some of the real hidden gems of modern television, shows that are funny, literate, and well produced. I hope that you'll read, and then watch. Because, quite frankly, there's a lot of good stuff out there that you're probably missing and, in my opinion at least, the best days of television are not behind us, Coupling aside.