Picket Fences

Nowadays, in just about every episode-and they're all either written or cowritten by Kelley-a serious controversy is raised, debated heatedly, and then smothered in overwrought speechifying. What all this suggests is that, festooned with its high honors and low ratings, Picket Fences represents the triumph of middlebrow intellectualism in current television. It is a show that's always Tackling Major Themes whenever it's not trying to achieve the sort of sweet whimsy meant to disguise the fact that this is one of the most profoundly humorless series ever made.