Brooks Peterson

Monday, Feb. 8, 1999

`Walker' has it all: dropkicks, moral clarity

   I was doing some industrial-strength, Category 4 cogitating recently, and as all too often happens, I found myself running smack up against yet another unanswerable question:
   Why on earth do we watch "Walker, Texas Ranger"?
   I mean, this is right up there with the great ones: Is Kant's categorical imperative in fact universally applicable? Was the fall of the Roman empire brought on by armed onslaughts from without or corruption from within? Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop?
   But cereally, as they say over at Kellogg's . . . There is a member of our family (sorry, no names) who is in thrall to Chuck Norris and his little band of crime-busters. Every Saturday night on CBS (and weeknights, occasionally, on USA), we must perforce dial up ol' Walker and settle in for yet another evening of karate chops, flying dropkicks and homey moral lessons.
   Why do we do it?
   After all, it's not as if there's any real suspense as to the outcome: Walker and his sidekick, Ranger Trivette, will, despite overwhelming odds, put the bad guys to rout, then motor off to the tavern run by their retired-Ranger sidekick, ol' Whatsisname. Once there, Walker will rendezvous with his main squeeze, Alex, the beauteous assistant DA, and good-natured joshing will ensue.
   In its own way, in fact, "Walker" is every bit as stylized and ritualistic as some of those foreign divertissements that we callow Americans are wont to puzzle over: say, Japan's sumo wrestling, in which a couple of seriously corpulent individuals grunt and grapple briefly until one is propelled out of the prescribed ring; or those "polar bear" swimming sessions that our Russian friends stage in the dead of winter.
   Ah! Could it be that it is precisely the certainty, the foreordained conclusions of these exercises that render them so appealing? Is it not just possible that "Walker" offers us a measure of reassurance that in a chaotic universe there is indeed some semblance of order? Ranger Walker's flying fists (and feet) of fury reduce moral ambiguity to stern certainty . . . and, brother, we could all use a little of that.
   However, we must go on to note that even as "Walker" clarifies, it has its own little store of mysteries. Indeed, some of these prey on my mind:
   

How do the camera jocks shooting this stuff manage to avoid hurting themselves seriously? Cripes: Have you ever seen so much much zooming, so much swooping, so much over-the-top ride-'em-cowboy fireworks? If this were taking place in another TV series - one which lacked the depth and piercing insights of "Walker" - I'd suspect these guys were trying to dazzle us into submission in hopes we'd ignore the weak story lines. That, or they were using certain substances of which Ranger Walker would seriously disapprove.
   

What is it with these mystic Native American visions that Walker experiences? And how come he has them at just the strategic moment in the chase when all conventional police procedure has failed? Have you ever seen him have one of these visions while sitting around the office back at Ranger Central?
   

And while we're on some of this funky stuff, what about these trips back in time to the Wild West in which Walker becomes his own ancestor, or something? (I have to admit I tune these out: I miss that big ol' Dodge Ram pickup.) Normally, when a show starts going in for this sort of stuff, it's a sign of desperation - a signal that the writers have absolutely run out of ideas and are grasping at anything that will get them through another hour of air time. But "Walker" seems to be thriving; indeed, with the addition of that show about the oriental martial arts guy, Saturday night has become CBS's Evening of Heroes. Go figure.
   

Finally, and most important: Why does Alex persist in going on vacation with Ranger Walker? Granted, there's always someone along - Trivette, usually - to chaperone, but still, she always winds up being abducted by somebody: psychotic drug traffickers, mutant mountain men, devil-worshipping computer programmers (OK - I just threw that one in) . . . I mean, come on, Alex: This is your idea of a good time? Kid, you need to do some serious thinking about your social life.
    (You can reach Peterson by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
   

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