Taking Wing(s)

It was never the coolest thing on TV. I mean, one of its own leads bemoaned the show's lack of critical and popular cache. There weren't any Emmy winners, or even nominees. But it was reliably funny. And its production team did an amazing job of developing and integrating new characters when circumstances demanded them.

The show? Wings. And for seven and-a-half seasons it was NBC's indefatigable ratings warhorse. True, it never captured the public imagination to the degree that Seinfeld or Friends did, but Wings was a top thirty stalwart for the vast portion of its existence.

Thirty years after its debut, writing an appreciation does not require marveling at its ability to be a lowest common denominator-styled ratings windfall. That's because three-decades later, trading in a genre that ages faster than unrefrigerated milk, Wings is still funny.

The band of imperfect and occasionally forlorn characters who populated Nantucket's fictional airport were eccentric, but eminently human. Driven by disparate agendas, there was never any shortage of conflict. But when circumstances demanded it, their humanity inevitably came to the fore.

Even if the humanity could be grudging, it was humanity nonetheless. It more or less mirrored the country it played to. But the real genius of Wings is that it never beat you over the head with a message. When there was one, it was tucked in between the sniping and the competition and the calculation.

Joe, Brian, Helen, Fay, Roy, Antonio, Lowell, Casey and Alex were just folk. People trying to make it to next week without declaring bankruptcy, losing their faith or acknowledging the fact it often seemed they might die alone.

And perhaps that human-scale sense of normalcy it what makes Wings so watchable today. There were no blood feuds, winner-take-all struggles for inheritances and no heartless, coldblooded competition for a seat on some corporate board.

It was Joe and Brian keeping Sandpiper, their single-airplane airline, afloat. And with it, the economic sustenance of its thrice-widowed ticket agent Fay and mechanic-savant Lowell.

It was the Italian-immigrant cab driver Antonio making ends meet, both financially and emotionally, no matter how strenuously those ends resisted.

It was Helen keeping her lunch counter (and her heart) open as she fought to carve out a career in music while keeping an eye out for Mr. Right.

And while Roy, who headed Sandpiper's lone competitor, appeared on solid financial ground, he fought his worst instincts as he attempted to replace the one true love of his life—ex-wife Sylvia.

In their writing, Wing's creators fashioned characters we could relate to and empathize with. We laughed with them at least as often as we laughed at them. We cared.

Actors come and actors go, but the best addition to Wings (aside from Tony Shalhoub, whose Antonio became a regular in season three) was Amy Yasbeck, who played Casey beginning with season six.

Helen's beautiful-but-snobbish older sister, unceremoniously dumped by a west coast millionaire, returned to Nantucket with her tail between her legs. Left penniless and with no discernible job skills, she was forced to room first with with Helen and then brother-in-law Brian as she struggled to find a foothold in her strange, new world.

Her arrival brought a fresh infusion of energy, something that Farrah Forke, in her role as Brian's acerbic girlfriend Alex, never quite managed. (Check the episode 'Nuptials Off'—season 6, episode 23—for proof.)

Even minus the cerebrally off-kilter performances of Thomas Haden Church as Lowell, Wings was able to zoom off into the sunset on a high note. And as a fan, that had to make you happy.

So to David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee, Tim Daly, Steven Webber, Crystal Bernard, Thomas Haden Church, David Schramm, Rebecca Shull, Tony Shalhoub, Farrah Forke and Amy Yasbeck, thank you for making me laugh then.

And thank you for making me laugh now.

What follows are my highly-subjective and totally unscientific nominees for the ten best episodes of Wings ever:

The Customer's Usually Right (4)

Nuptials Off (6)

Et Tu, Antonio? (6)

Say Uncle Carlton (5)

Four Dates That Will Live in Infamy (3)

Terminal Jealousy (5)

She's Baaack (6)

The Big Sleep (7)

Miss Jenkins (6)

Marriage, Italian Style (3)

And some honorable mentions:

One Flew Over the Cooper's Nest (7)

When a Man Loves a Donut (7)

Noses Off (4)

2 Good 2 B 4 Gotten (5)

Hey Nineteen (5)

The Lyin' King (7)

Dreamgirl (8)

So Long, Frank Lloyd Wrong (7)

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Policewoman Scorned (2)

The Puppetmaster (2)