Whirlwind Week and Bad News...

This last three weeks has had me all over the scope of human workplace comprehension and I've just been away from just about everything I know in general. As I strut proudly and triumphantly from some very cool successes at work into the Memorial Day weekend, I find several things that throw a wrecking ball into my television viewing schedule:

For months now, I have been tracking a show called "BLIND JUSTICE" on ABC, starring an actor that I have long had interest and respect for, Ron Eldard. The story in general is about a New York City Cop, Jim Dunbar, injured in the line of duty, who loses his sight as a result of a headshot he received in an attempt to apprehend a gun-toting bank robber juggernaut in body armor.

At first, I'm not sure if it was the "Daredevil-like" nature of the idea of the show, the actor or the fact that the show was being pushed by Stephen Bochco, a mogul in the cop-series industry, but I had DVR'd each episode from the start and the shows really were starting to catch wings.

The characters, all the way from Hank the guide dog, to Jim's partner, to the squad around him and his informants, were very New York-centric, very solid and helped to create a show that I really liked. One of the last few espiodes depicted a guy returning back to visit Jim who had been in the same squad in the first Iraqi War (Desert Storm), who had been trying to come to grips with the fact that he had killed one of his squadmates during a firefight while in country. The widow of the dead marine lived just a shot outside of New York and he had plans to visit her and admit his wrongdoing because he had carried the anvil of guilt entirely too long.

Needless to say the visit to the house included Jim Dunbar, who had been telling his friend to not drudge up the past and try to move on. His friend decided to go anyway and confront the widow of the man he had "murdered" while in the Gulf.

Eventually he ends up NOT telling her and providing her with a picture of he and her husband in uniform, just prior to him killing him and -- I've often talked about how they "great ones" that make entertainment can say so much by saying so little. This scene alone - where you have three people sitting at a quiet New York suburban home at a dinner table - where one man wants so much so spill his heart's full of guilt to cleanse a soul is just completely capitvating. He looks around at the dining room where there are pictures of a new family, three new children, the different cut and color the widow's/wife's hair and realizes that Jim was right - while she will always have a place and memories of her dead husband in hear heart, she has moved on - and so must he.

A scene where you want so badly to tell someone something but can't - well it had me balling more than I can remember ever in "just watching a television show" and the episode was immaculate.

The only thing that would be sadder and hold ironically more impact, would be to learn that -

The show has been cancelled.

With all the tripe that is on television today, I just so wish that there was time for a show that had a very "off" musical theme (a soft piano intro no less - VERY uncharicteristic for a "cop show"), a blind cop with a gun (sure, improbable but DAMN - how many American Idol singers are improbable?), and the soft yet seasoned tone of actor Ron Eldard portraying Detective Jim Dunbar.

Bad form, ABC - bad form.