With apologies to Cousin Rendell, here is part one the 2022 edition of the Bird’s Eye View “Year in Info-Tainment.” This week, we are covering television and music of the past year.
Television: 58-year-old soap opera “Days of our Lives” moved from NBC proper to the NBC-owned Peacock streaming service, delivering a new episode every weekday just like old times, but enabling the viewer to watch whenever convenient – and without interruption. The Peacock version kicked off with stories featuring a back-from-the-dead character, a fiery car crash, a priest impregnating someone in a one-night stand, a twin brother and sister in love with the same woman, and an orchid with mystical healing powers. Emmy-winning “Abbott Elementary” on ABC, created and written by Quinta Brunson, was a critical and ratings success, thanks to laugh-out-loud episodes about teachers who try to do right by their students under sometimes impossible circumstances in our post-Covid world. It was partnered with the reboot of “The Wonder Years,” also on ABC, which was created and scripted by Montgomery native Saladin Patterson – thus, the setting of the show being moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Both programs treated childhood and adolescence with an incredibly touching amount of heart and humor.
