BETWEEN THE LINES: WHY CAN'T TV OFFER SOMETHING BETTER FOR SUMMER VIEWERS?

Since Memorial Day weekend brought the unofficial arrival of summer, I can prepare to watch television.

I didn't spend the weekend at the lake, nor was I in front of the TV set either. But with the rain and damp conditions I might as well have been. And if I had been watching television, was there anything worth watching?

Since I work the night shift at the paper, I don't get to watch much television. VCRs help, but I find that most of the shows aren't worth recording.

When season finales and special movie presentations make their appearances on the TV guide, I generally set the VCR. But the season finales and series endings weren't what I'd expected out of the networks this May.

I must explain that when I say I don't watch much prime time television programming, it's not a complaint. Frankly, I seldom find anything worth watching. Sunday night "family" movies usually involve some type of murder, hijacking or kidnapping and lots of brutality. There's really very little "family" entertainment out there. And what there is usually ends up getting canceled midseason.

It's only during sweeps months that I really miss television.

But that's what syndication is all about. Cable TV runs the sitcom repeats until you can recite every line from every episode. And sometime during the summer all the programs I missed during February and March will air in repeats on the big three (now four) networks.

Occasionally I find a network show worth my attention. And it seems that the one show I've been watching lately got the ax from NBC. There was no warning and little detail in the plot that would alert a regular viewer.

But that didn't stop the executives at NBC from canceling "Homicide: Life on the Street."

It's happened before -- just when I get to the point of connecting with a cast of characters, the network executives decide to cancel because the show isn't drawing the ratings or it doesn't fit the lineup.

That was true with "Homicide." But what can you expect out of a program that has been airing at 9 p.m. CST every Friday night? Who is home to watch it -- other than me, that is?

I don't think anybody gave this show a chance. It had the plot and characters, but what it didn't have was a faithful following.

But then I've always thought I'd do better at selecting television programs and their time slots than the people who actually do so for a living.

In college I took a journalism class on television programming. Our assignment for the semester was to pick out one show for the season and watch it. (My dad is still trying to figure out how I got college credit for this. But I'll just tell you this: I got an A in the course.)

We checked the Nielsen ratings and wrote reports about how well or how bad it did each week and why.

For the final, we each created our own television networks and programming lineups. We had to explain which programs or cartoons we would air and why. My classmates and I sat around for days beforehand talking about which programs we liked as kids and which ones we wanted to see again.

Most of the shows I liked were the sitcoms and dramas I grew up watching in the late '70s and early '80s. Now that "Nick at Night" and "TVLand" are available, some of those shows already air on cable.

At the same time, I loved the independent cable channels out of St. Louis and Chicago. They were always the channels I watched when I was sick and stayed home from school.

If I had the chance I'd still choose to air reruns of "Please, Don't Eat the Daisies," "Gidget," "The Flying Nun" and "Hazel" along with cartoons like "Mighty Mouse," "Deputy Dog" and "Casper the Ghost."

What is really wrong with airing "St. Elsewhere" and "Hill Street Blues" again?

Maybe if the networks or cable would air those programs, people would watch TV again. I know I would, anyway.

Until then I'll just keep setting my VCR occasionally and hoping for something better.

~Laura Johnston is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.