Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer 2005 | Page 50

46 Popular Culture Review set up: “east versus west, frontier versus civilization, science versus mysticism, male versus female.”^ Eschewing linear plots in favor of episodes loosely constructed from multiple storylines and often in dialogic relationships, the writers were able to explore these conflicts from a variety of perspectives.^ The show’s intelligence clearly appealed to viewers. The series did well in the rankings, coming in sixteenth (making it as high as third one week) its first complete season, and the following two seasons eleventh and sixteenth respectively.® It also earned a substantial number of prestigious honors, among them consecutive George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in 1991 and 1992, a “rare” occurrence, according to the Peabody Award’s website.^ In 1992 the Television Critics Association named it program of the year, and in 1992 and 1993 it was nominated for thirty-two prime time Emmy Awards, taking home six of the gold statuettes in 1992. Between 1991 and 1993 it had ten Golden Globe Award nominations, and walked off with two wins, both for best television series, 1991 and 1992. Although it went off the air ten years ago, the show is still popular. It has a plethora of websites devoted to it; it is still in syndication; and it is now available in its entirety on DVD. The series’ intellectual liberalism and social commentary enabled it to present itself as America’s humanist conscience, and, to its credit, it did occasionally offer insightful and sometimes brassy commentary on targets favored by those of the liberal persuasion. But, Brand and Falsey’s daring notwithstanding, the show was also, on occasion, very careful about the social critiques it offered, its caution being most evident in its musings on Deconstruction. The show aired two episodes that took up aspects of this critical theory, and in both instances, the show was anything but courageous and insightful; in fact, it was downright defensive. Why? The answer I wish to propose is that the episodes reflect broader cultural anxieties created