East Side/West Side

This was one of the best shows on TV. I recall watching it back when, well i guess i was 12 or 13 judging by the date. it was riveting and unlike so many dramas today, featured a dedicated social worker, George C. Scott with his face of reality and character. Thirty years later, Judging Amy, another fine show, featured Tyne Daly in a similar role, but a shared one within a family including the judge daughter, writer son, etc. Ido not recall individual episodes and came upon this looking for something else, but if i recall, the stories would be as relevant and fresh as good tales representing true life dramas often are. I suspect that the sociological wave of movies and TV shows of the early to mid 60's helped influence those of us at that vulnerable and suggestive age(teenage-young adult) the ideals and aspirations of humans as good, fixable and misunderstood, but with potential with a little dedication and hard work. Over the following decades, the entertainment industry's refocused its emphasis, and maybe coincidentally, so did the nation's ideals. Anyway, they were good shows with top notch acting-don' remember ever being bored with that one.

This was not George C. Scott's only television series, as someone stated elsewhere. While "East Side/West Side" is a brilliant drama with intelligent stories and an incredibly talented cast, George C. Scott was the lead in an abysmal FOX Channel series called "Mr. President" (1987). Both Mr. Scott and FOX would have liked to forget this programme.

Also, as far as "Naked City", that series often did not have neatly tied-up endings. Often, the endings were left deliberately ambiguous to make the audience think. While certainly not the poster child for civil rights programming, "Naked City" did show a multi-ethnic NYPD, and there were often Hispanic and African-American characters/actors with sizable parts in individual episodes. I can't say that the episode "The Contract", about Chinese-Americans and the conflict of cultures was the greatest representation of Asians on television -- especially with James Shigata, Khigh Dhiegh and Abraham Sofaer all playing Chinese -- but the characters were treated with respect, and not as stock figures.

Apparently , the early nineteen sixties was one of the under appreciated eras of TV history. It may not have been a " Golden age; but at least it was a silver one. It began with Newton Minow lamenting the fact that Television was a vast wasteland, it ( probably ) ended when Slattery's People left the airwaves for good. It was a period of interesting writing and of shows that were socially conscious without ( usually ) being preachy. While some of these programs are never rerun and are not even on DVD( Witness SLattery's People), East Side/West Side was actually rerun about seven years ago on the sadly departed TV network TRIO. Of course, It helped that East Side West Side starred a true legend of acting in George C. Scott. Unlike Slattery's People, which (usually) tried to be pretty optimistic, for all its ironic undercurrents, East Side West Side was gritty, melancholy and frequently downright depressing. I have only seen one full episode. I saw as part of a high school class on "Black America" It was the classic, widely banned, Who Do you Kill, with James Earl Jones. I still remember how well acted and written it was, and how utterly sad. Like Slattery's People, and (maybe) the even more obscure Channing, it deserves to be on DVD.

The comparison has been made between this show and "Naked City", which was canceled the spring before this one appeared. Both were grimily serious shows filmed on the streets on New York using new York City Stage actors, (many of whom became famous movie and TV actors). Both shows were well done but there is more than a few months difference in thinking between them . Naked City tended to show stories with neat, (if often tragic) endings. ESWS didn't show ending at all. Everything it depicted was an ongoing problem, with no clear solution. The heroes could not simply arrest someone to end the problem at the conclusion of the hour. Often, they are nothing more than powerless observers, which is not very dramatically pleasing. The "Who do you kill" episode is somewhat disappointing to me because of the complete inefficacy of the heroes- it seems to rub your face in the problem but supplies no solutions. At least that's "real".

The second difference is that ESWS was the first TV program to come to terms directly with the problem of race, to show white audiences what it was like for a black man or woman in America. Black faces are almost totally absent from Naked City. Imagine a "realistic" story about big-city policeman who investigate nothing but crimes involving Caucasians. ESWS showed New York the way it really was- and is.

I saw one episode of this show during the 1990s at the NYC Museum of TV & Radio. I couldn't even tell you what it was about except that, considering it was done in the early 1960s, it was way ahead of its time. It had to do with a family's trouble facing the fact that it had serious trouble, and featured, I think, a self destructive daughter but it was probably something more shockingly specific. By the 1990s, what was shocking in 1963 almost seemed tame. By the way, who said George C. Scott played a *young* social worker? Did the Great Scott ever play somebody young? Along with other great shows of long ago (such as "Slattery's People"), this is one I wish that somebody would release on video/DVD.