Tube Boob
I’m starting to feel like the Flying Dutchman of television. It seems like every time I get hooked on a new TV show and recommend it to friends and family, the program is promptly canceled and driven off the air like a plague. I first noticed this phenomenon back in 1992 when I stumbled across “ The Ben Stiller Show ” on Fox. It’s been a while, but I remember the show having some excellent sketches, including a medieval version of “ Cops ” and a take-off on “ A Few Good Men ” that featured Stiller cross-examining himself as both the Tom Cruise and the Jack Nicholson characters. I told my friends at work that the show was funny and they should watch it. And it got canceled. Twenty years later, I still haven’t lost my touch. The latest victim was “ Awake ,” a brilliant show on NBC that starred Jason Isaacs as Michael Britten, an L.A. cop who finds himself living two different lives after a fatal car crash. In one version of reality, Britten’s wife has been killed in the accid...