EULOGY

By Richard Zoglin

I last saw BRANDON TARTIKOFF in June, when we met for a drink in Los Angeles. He had just come through a brutal series of chemotherapy sessions (battling a recurrence of the cancer that had first struck him when he was 23), but was eager to do what he always loved--talk about TV. Walking into the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel, he looked gaunt and thin, a baseball cap covering his bald head. It took real guts to show up at this sybaritic show-biz haunt so boldly announcing his illness. But for Tartikoff, it was a statement. Not of some corny TV-movie sentiment (How brave!) but just about the proportion of things. These folks were busy making deals, doing business, being seen. He was living a life.

Tartikoff was not just the most successful TV programmer in history, he seemed to be having the most fun at it. He never tired of discussing the arcana of scheduling or parsing the reasons for a particular show's demise. The programmers who followed him could talk the talk, but they lacked his verve, instincts and humor. (Once, asked if he had anything else to offer if his new fall schedule fizzled, he replied, "My resignation.") Tartikoff truly loved TV--even the crummy stuff he put on between hits like Miami Vice and L.A. Law--and all that went into creating it. As the business grows ever more competitive, and more desperate, that attitude seems, sadly, to be passing.

--By Richard Zoglin