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Regarding Picket Fences.  There are only two tv shows I will not miss each
week.  The other is The Simpsons.  Both shows are unique in that they
consistently deal with topical social issues and do so with humor.
 
What disturbed me most about this episode of Picket Fences is an implied
attitude that the forces of law and order will prevail and in this case they
are correct as well.  Yes, Tom Skerrit agonizes about his decisions, and yes
it's not easy doing law and order when you're a liberal who doesn't like
violence, but violence is still approved as a necessary evil when "crimes" are
committed. It seems as if the show is trying to have it both ways--the Native
Americans are right, yet they're wrong. They are sympathetic, yet they are
trespassing and embarassing the town (the national media will soon get ahold
of this!) The Sheriff both detests and condones violence. The police should
give them time to surrender or think through their options, yet the
political structure knows that it's unseemly to let forces of unlawfulness
prevail for very long.  Even Wambaugh, the Indian' attorney seems for once,
strangely silent about the moral issues presented with the siege.
 
In short, I admire the show for bringing the issues forward for discussion.
Yet it's still another show where Native Americans and their problems
disappear at the end through the violence and might of the white man.  As in
The Unforgiven, the killers agonize over the deaths they cause, but unlike
the Eastwood film, there is no Morgan Freeman who expresses distaste for the
whole enterprise and walks away from it.  All the cops are ultimately dutiful
to their definition of the white man's law and order.
 
 Indian burial grounds and culture be damned.
 
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  :Roger Bullis           Internet:  [log in to unmask]:
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