What are you watching? Readers recommend 'Veronica Mars,' 'A Place to Call Home'

Monitor TV and movie fans share what they've been watching lately.

|
FOX/FILE
‘ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’

For my favorite sitcom, it feels so “basic” to say NBC’s Friends. Arrested Development on Fox (and now Netflix) was a better show, I Love Lucy on CBS was a better show, NBC’s The Cosby Show was a better show (recent #MeToo developments notwithstanding), and yet “Friends” is the one that I can watch over and over again. It’s the one where I can pick up an episode in the middle and it feels, honest to God, like I’m hanging out with old friends. So cliché, but that’s why it’s my favorite.

– Emily Ellet, New York

Veronica Mars, which aired on UPN and then The CW, is a timeless teen detective series from the mid-2000s. The character development and relationships are very strong. Several years after the series ended, the producers created a movie, which involved many of the characters attending the 10th high school reunion. It was crowdfunded by the fan base. When we went to go see it, we found the movie theater audience was abuzz with anticipation. It was full of folks who had seen the series many times.

Also, we discovered A Place to Call Home, which airs on Showcase in Australia and on Acorn TV in the United States, from the Monitor’s “What are you watching?” section.

– Christopher Bowers, Victoria, British Columbia

It’s so hard to choose a favorite sitcom. There have been so many great shows through the years. But I guess it has to be (drumroll, please) Will and Grace, which aired on NBC. It’s followed closely by NBC’s Frasier, NBC’s Golden Girls, CBS’s I Love Lucy, and CBS’s The Big Bang Theory.

– Cindy A. Hogan, Princeton, N.J.

FOX/AP/FILE
‘THE SIMPSONS’

My husband and I always watch Fox’s The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers together on Sunday nights. We also watch NBC’s Saturday Night Live together, usually recorded. – Marguerite Boone, Worcester, Mass.

My favorite sitcom is CBS’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Doing well-written family-friendly comedy is difficult, but they succeeded. – Tasneem Choudhury, Sydney, Australia

My favorite sitcom is NBC’s NewsRadio because of its intelligent political humor and pratfalls, though the network’s The Powers That Be is a very close second.

– Sharon Guerra, Longview, Wash.

What are you watching? Write and tell us at whatareyouwatching@csmonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What are you watching? Readers recommend 'Veronica Mars,' 'A Place to Call Home'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/TV/2018/0928/What-are-you-watching-Readers-recommend-Veronica-Mars-A-Place-to-Call-Home
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe