43
Television has explored the tragedy of Sept. 11 through drama One decade later
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK
There was bold talk right after 9/11 that TV would emerge from this trauma sadder but wiser. That TV would be steeled with a higher sense of purpose than had characterized it the previous half-century.
Baloney. Soon enough, the flow of TV programming, including scripted drama and comedy with all their distractions and excesses, defiantly resumed with the rest of life’s daily routine. And yet, the events of 9/11 did play a part in TV storytelling in the decade that would follow. Some of it was cosmetic. Some, just grist for the storytelling mill. And there was some, occasionally, that was meaningful.
The most enduring and often penetrating look at life post-9/11 has proven to be FX’s “Rescue Me.”
A drama with darkly funny overtones, it tells the story of troubled New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, when he lost many fellow firefighters, including his cousin and best friend, at the twin towers. Tommy (played by series co-creator and co-producer Denis Leary) is haunted by survivor’s guilt, which is enhanced by his cousin’s occasional “visits” as an apparition that tries to talk sense into him.
The message of “Rescue Me,” reinforced through the seven-season run that concludes Sept. 7, has always been: “Never forget.” Tommy can’t, and “Rescue Me” has been a faithful reminder for viewers.
But “Rescue Me” didn’t appear until 2004.
Before then, and almost immediately after 9/11, the impact of that day was being felt in other TV narratives.
“The West Wing” creator-producer Aaron Sorkin pulled off a remarkable feat within the first month. He wrote and filmed an episode of his NBC drama in time to air on Oct. 3, 2001, exploring the questions and fears thrust on Americans.
Even though the events that inspired that special episode were never specifically addressed, viewers found the Bartlet White House gripped in a familiar state of high alert after the latest of several security breaches. And, in an accident of timing, deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman was stuck in the White House cafeteria in lock-down mode with a group of touring high school students.
“Why is everybody trying to kill us?” one student asked him, articulating worry to which any viewer could relate.
By early November, specific references had crept into dramatic dialogue. “This whole department has been through hell with the World Trade Center attacks,” a fellow detective scolded grumpy Andy Sipowicz on an “NYPD Blue” episode. “You don’t have a corner on personal grief!”
Meanwhile, real life had caught up with TV’s shoot-’em-up, blow-’em-up mentality. Three new series premiering that fall — ABC’s “Alias,” CBS’ “The Agency” and Fox’s “24” — all dealt with the CIA battling terrorism. On the premiere of “The Agency,” a terrorist plot involved blowing up the London department store Harrods. And “24” began with a terrorism-bent passenger igniting a bomb aboard a jetliner, then parachuting to safety.
“Emma Brody” was a series doomed by the aftershock of 9/11. Scheduled by Fox in the carefree days of spring 2001, it was created as a jaunty comedy-drama set in the U.S. Embassy in London. Played by Arija Bareikis (later of TNT’s cop drama “Southland”), the lovely young Emma arrived to take a job as a rookie vice consul, fleeing a soured romance and a pushy mother back in America.
By the time it premiered in March 2002, the series had a new name — “The American Embassy” — and was dutifully retrofitted with a grave tone as an issues-oriented ensemble drama. It was axed after six airings.
After the twin towers fell, they gained riveting new force as visual symbols of all that was lost. Any trace of them was expunged from some TV shows (such as in the opening titles of “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City”). Then their shock value was harnessed by the short-lived ABC drama “Life on Mars.” Airing in the 2008-09 season, that sci-fi cop drama transported a present-day New Yorker back to 1973 and showed the World Trade Center as startling evidence of a bygone era.
Further upping the ante, the Fox sci-fi series “Fringe” displayed, and even put key scenes inside, an intact World Trade Center that continued to exist in the current day — but in an alternate universe where the towers were spared in the attacks of 9/11.In July 2005, the FX network premiered a new drama meant to chronicle a direct result of 9/11.