...or is television just a mirror with better reception?

Well it's almost September and you know what that means. Yes, it means you can pack your little offspring onto a bus and have them be someone else's problem all day. No, it doesn't mean the new car models will showcase. That gig ended with Bonanza. But that's a hint. September means the new fall network shows will premier. True, there has been a steady stream of new shows on cable but the fall lineup has always been special for those of us who remember rabbit ears and Art Linkletter.

As usual ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox (Fox is still a late-comer to us purists) will dazzle us with a glorious array of sitcoms and dramas slavishly copied from whatever was popular last year. Considering that TV has been around since the 40's, you'd think the industry could brag on something more substantial than Shark Week or Bridezilla. True, we had Roots and MASH, Gunsmoke and Howdy Doody, but we also have Snookie and Simon Cowell. Two steps forward, two steps back.

Anyway, the impetus for this quibbling rant is the upcoming premier of the new NBC offering "The Playboy Club". This will be followed by ABC's "PAN AM". Both shows plan a jaunty stroll down memory lane to a time when men were men and women were exploited sex objects. You can thank the success of Mad Men for reintroducing America to the halcyon days of smoking, drinking and ass-pinching.

Both shows are set in the hedonistic 60's. Not the 60's of "hell no, we won't go" or "turn on, tune in, drop out". No, these are the early 60's; a time of Camelot when even the President was using women like Kleenex. Who wouldn't want to return to the days of martinis, wife-swapping and Marlboro's? A glorious time when men could delude themselves into believing that bad behavior had no consequences. After all, did James Bond ever cough from smoking? Did drinking ever stop William Powell as the Thin Man from delivering pithy bon mots? Did swordsmanship keep JFK out of the White House?

There is little doubt that both of these shows will be cancelled before the second commercial break. Copy-cat television rarely succeeds. OK, I know, CSI and Law and Order. But there's a difference between copying and cloning. As TV writers often do, the creators of The Playboy Club misinterpreted the reason for the success of Mad Men. Yes, the men are pigs and the women loose but how is that different from Jersey Shore? The real allure of Mad Men is the same as the formula for any good drama, namely well drawn characters and well written scripts. Copying the backdrop is about as intelligent as assuming The Godfather is about Italian fashion after the War.

Mad Men is good because all of it is good; not just the costumes or the cleavage (both of which are excellent). I suggest that America continue to frequent shows like Justified or even The Living Dead (which, by the way, was stolen from the Republican National Convention) and leave The Playboy Club to the exploitative era from whence it came. Nobody wants to revisit polio either.