This Old House's Legacy for Home-Improvement TV

The Atlantic: Now in its 40th season, the PBS home-improvement show This Old House feels like the TV equivalent of New England clam chowder: hearty, wholesome, and old-school. The cast—headed up by the master carpenter Norm Abram and rounded out by the contractor Tom Silva, gardener Roger Cook, plumber Richard Trethewey, and host Kevin O’Connor—returns autumn after autumn, as consistently as uncles you might see every year at Thanksgiving dinner.