John M. Williams

Sue Thomas: F. B. Eye is a milestone in television programming. It is fine entertainment and lives up to PAX’s feel good TV programming. Besides entertaining, the program has a unique opportunity to educate its viewers on a range of technological, political and social issues impacting upon the lives of more than 24 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the country.

Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye is about a deaf FBI employee whose skills as a lip reader were used by the FBI for four years to interpret conversations among crooks. Thomas is a real person. The program’s lead actress Deanne Bray is talented, beautiful, charismatic, energetic and displays a range of feelings such as fear, love, pain, uncertainty, happiness. Bray, who is deaf, brings her life’s experiences into the character and therefore ads credibility to the character’s daily experiences. A hearing actress could not be as credible.

Similar to the real life Sue Thomas, Bray reads lips. My deaf lip reading friends tell me it is difficult for them to read my lips when I stutter. During my conversations with Bray at a premiere of Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye in Washington, DC, she read my lips. I was amazed at how well she read them. Her lip reading skills require continuous concentration, and she demonstrates this characteristic well in the show.

To my knowledge Bray is only the second totally deaf actress to star in a weekly nationally syndicated TV series. The first was academy award winning actress Marlee Matlin with Tom Harmon in the 1980s. Matlin played a prosecuting attorney, and Harmon was an investigator. There was excellent chemistry between Harmon and Matlin and the stories were plausible. I watched that show religiously and weekly. Having seen four episodes of Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye I am now a weekly watcher.

There is a bond between Bray and the other actors. One of the strongest bonds is between Sue Thomas and Jesse, her assisted living dog. Jesse alerts Sue to alarms sounding, to the doorbell ringing and performs other assistive living activities. In one episode Jesse saved a life while nearly losing his. Showing Jesse’s assisted living actions week after week expands public awareness of the value assisted living animals have in increasing the independence of people with different disabilities. For example, a friend of mine who watches the show with her children told me her 14-year-old daughter never knew that dogs could be trained to assist someone other than blind people.

Thomas’s relationships with the other series characters is also forging, and I think as the scripts improve the chemistry will cement. One of the strengths of the show is it shows FBI personnel as flawed characters who lie, deceive, bend the rules and make mistakes. Another strength is violence is kept to a minimum. A third is good triumphs over evil.

I think the show should definitely develop a stronger personal relationship between Jack and Sue. Jack is the agent who recognized Thomas’s lip reading skills. The relationship would motivate him to learn sign language from Sue and add a romantic interest in her life.

One of the show’s weaknesses is people familiar with the FBI tell me that with Thomas’s inexperience she would not be placed in the dangerous situations she is, and she would be disciplined for breaking rules when she jeopardizes her life by running after fleeing criminals.

Being a fan of assistive technology, I want to see more technology used by Thomas at home and in the office. Showing her using telecommunications devices to communicate to others and seeing flashing lights when her telephone or doorbell rings shows the audience how technology enhances her independence. Additionally, the writers should show her using captioned videos and captioned programs on the web. I would like to see Thomas using software to train her co-workers to sign. Once the word gets out that viewers with and without disabilities can see the latest assistive technology viewership should rise.
Since the federal government is the largest employer of people with disabilities in the country, other actors with disabilities should be used in the show. These actors could be shown using technology or talking about employment and civil rights issues.

I’d to see accessibility issues, such as the relevance of section 508 to Thomas and other federal employees with disabilities, tackled in different shows. Tackling 508 issues with Thomas taking the lead will add realism to the show and bring in more viewers. The real Sue Thomas is a firebrand motivational speaker and a strong advocate for equal opportunity for people with disabilities. This characteristic needs to be shown in the series.

Either in the scripts or during the commercials, the writers could mention the contributions of deaf people to the world such as Ludwig von Beethoven to music and Thomas Edison to electricity.

Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye is television worth watching, and the disability community and their families should watch it. To attract more viewers, PAX must promote the series better than it has and work with the disability community to market it.