Chuck Norris understands the concept of catharsis about as fully as anyone who has ever worked on television. That is what this show is all about, leading the viewer up to Chuck's eventual mauling of the bad guy. Just like David Carradine's Kung Fu did with an earlier generation. For let's be clear, the bad guys in Walker are not just bad and evil, they are BAADDD and EVIILLL. They leer and smirk and laugh with glee while torturing poor innocents or true blue law officers. And while I haven't begun to see even a majority of the episodes, from what I have viewed it appears that the villains are almost all from the one social, ethnic, and racial group everyone just loves to hate: White males. Following its predecessors, such as the Death Wish and Dirty Harry movies, brown, black and Asian crims are mostly safely integrated only into multiracial "gangs"--absurd as that might be in reality--that would make Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition downright giddy. The master criminal, the true evildoer, the enemy of all mankind is, as far as I can tell, always White. (Note: the Dirty Harry movies were even more "racially correct" about this than Walker. Excepting the opening few minutes of the first film, all of the Dirty Harry villains were not only White but blonde-haired and blue eyed.)
None of this distracts from the Walker Catharsis, however. It probably makes a few soccer moms even feel better than they would usually. Oh, and before some viewers go all holier than thou about Walker being low brow, formulaic, and predictable, just let me ask a question. Is Dancing the Stars, American Idol, and waiting every week to see some pathetic fool voted off an island any better intellectually, artistically, or aesthetically? Give old Chuck credit. He knows how to push buttons and he does it in a style that would be familiar to anyone watching classic TV in the 60s or early 70s. Walker's refusal to go "edgy" or "experimental" almost makes it seem revolutionary in a TV landscape where every series is trying to outshock the other.
None of this distracts from the Walker Catharsis, however. It probably makes a few soccer moms even feel better than they would usually. Oh, and before some viewers go all holier than thou about Walker being low brow, formulaic, and predictable, just let me ask a question. Is Dancing the Stars, American Idol, and waiting every week to see some pathetic fool voted off an island any better intellectually, artistically, or aesthetically? Give old Chuck credit. He knows how to push buttons and he does it in a style that would be familiar to anyone watching classic TV in the 60s or early 70s. Walker's refusal to go "edgy" or "experimental" almost makes it seem revolutionary in a TV landscape where every series is trying to outshock the other.