FRIDAY: "Reba" (9 p.m. ET, The WB)

There's a reason that you haven't heard much about "Reba," even though the WB likes to describe it as "edgy." And it's not that "Reba" sucks, although, to be honest, it's nothing to write home about. "Reba" belongs to a category of shows -- along with CBS's "Two and a Half Men" and "The King of Queens," ABC's "8 Simple Rules," and countless others -- that are constitutionally committed to never breaking new ground. Even though there is more obvious conflict in these shows than there was on, say, "Father Knows Best," there's the same underlying message: As dysfunctional as families can be, they're still the best way to organize American life. Reba (played by country icon Reba McEntire) is divorced, but she still leans on her ex-husband and kids, and is willing to sacrifice to maintain her household above all else. Family matters, as "Family Matters" so eloquently put it. Even ostensibly more risk-taking shows play by these rules: The "Friends" married off and paired up, the men of "Two and a Half Men" formed a family unit to raise a kid, and the "Sex in the City" women wanted nothing more than a satisfying relationship. Even "Roseanne" and "The Simpsons" are, at heart, about the value of family above all else.

It's easy to see why shows about the sanctity of the status quo are so popular. After a long day's work, most Americans don't want to come home to shows that question the very values around which they've organized their lives. Most TV is about entertainment and escapism; being confronted by a revolutionary idea is the last thing many of us want on a Tuesday night. And the corporations producing these shows have little reason to rock the boat by using pop culture as a vehicle to question our assumptions.

There have been shows that break the mold, however, even if "Reba" isn't one of them. "One of the most revolutionary mainstream shows was 'Married With Children,'" says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "The message was that everyone in that family would have been better off if they weren't in that family. That's really subversive on some level." Until Reba walks out on her kids or becomes consumed by the debilitating pessimism exhibited by Al Bundy, however, the WB's claims of edginess ring a bit thin.

SATURDAY: "COPS" (8 and 8:30 p.m. ET, Fox)

John Edwards likes to talk about "two Americas" -- one privileged and the other overburdened. We see the first of those Americas on television all the time, on shows about lawyers, doctors and shallow Ivy Leaguers vying for the favor of capricious millionaires, but we don't see the latter too often -- unless we're watching an interview with the parents of a soldier stationed in Iraq, the press conference of an overwhelmed Louisiana lottery winner or the parade of depravity offered up weekly on "COPS." The other shows on Saturday night are mostly standard comfort food -- among the options are ABC's "The Wonderful World of Disney," CBS's "The Amazing Race" and NBC's movie of the week -- but "COPS," which Fox pairs with "America's Most Wanted," gives us reality in all its disturbing squalor, with the drug-addled, violent and desperate poor having their pathetic lives put before the cameras to make that reaming out our boss gave us last week sting a little less.

Honestly, though, America: Can't we do better than this? "COPS" teaches us that the poor deserve to be that way, and as an antidote to runaway political correctness, it might have a cultural function. Even a staunch Democrat watching the show would be hard-pressed to argue that the shirtless drunk driver with the tooth-impaired, possibly underage girlfriend deserves a welfare check funded by our tax dollars. But what is this celebration of the value of unfettered capitalism really a response to? We almost never see the large swath of underprivileged America that Edwards likes to invoke, and so many Americans can't even begin to contemplate the possibility of a hardworking, socially responsible underclass. Instead, they're given a show that functions to free them from any lingering guilt about their relative affluence. "COPS" is perhaps the most Republican show on television, a horror show that offers up anecdotal evidence in support of harsh prison terms, tax cuts for the rich and a curtailing of welfare programs. If it were the only thing we had to watch, Bush would win in a landslide.

This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

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