A television comeback?

I posted about my angst against Friday night TV a few weeks ago. What happened to family friendly TV?

Yes, I know. We don’t need to spend out time in front of the television anyway. But it IS nice to have a fun story to follow on TV that is family friendly and funny.

Seriously, it’s been slim pickings lately. We used to have Everybody Loves Raymond, which, seriously, was absolutely hilarious. I still love the classics I grew up with: The Cosby show, Full House, Who’s the Boss, Growing Pains, just to name a few. What do we have now? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zippo.

But… while watching Dancing with the Stars tonight, I saw an ad for a new show on ABC, “Surviving Suburbia” starring Bob Sagot. Remember him? Full House? AFHV? It doesn’t start until April, and I’ll reserve my opinion until later as to if it’s worth a watch, but I’ll DEFINITELY be looking forward to see if is is finally a return to a family-friendly comedy sitcom.

And… to tie this back to writing… (you knew I’d have to do it somehow, huh!)… I think the reason I crave this so badly is that my books I write have a similar feel. I want to write books that are family friendly, that are not stiff but are funny and intriguing and make you want to watch (er…read) more of! Of course, mine are a little different as they are written from a Christian worldview, but I’m talking about style, not necessarily theme.

One more thing: There seems to be a great trend to make Christian Novels into movies. We’ve seen this with Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly Series, Francine River’s Last Sin Eater, and a few of Karen Kingsbury’s novels that are currently in production.

I LOVE this trend, and hope that as it continues, the quality improves as well. Please note, I’m not saying these are low quality, but there’s no secret that the budgets are low and so obviously, the acting isn’t quite as up-to-par and the videography (is that what you call it??) could be better. My point is that the more we buy them and support them, the better budgets they will get and the better quality they will become.

I’d be THRILLED to see some fun romantic comedies made into movies. I love love love comedies, but there are so few wholesome ones out there, it’d be so nice to see some of the great books that are out there put into movie so we can enjoy them in movie form, and share the stories with those who may not be ‘book’ people.