Thursday , March 28 2024
A week without PBS is like a week without spudnutty goodness.

PBS Primetime Programming for The Week of April 29

Have you ever had a Spudnut? No? Okay then…

 

Sunday, April 29:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Nature – “Dogs That Changed the World – Dogs by Design”. How’s this for awesome — as more breeds of dogs are created and mixed and transformed and changed and what-not  our relationship to dogs change. As do theirs to us. What’s up with that?

9:00 – 11:00PM

Masterpiece Theatre. “Bleak House, Episode 2 and 3.” I’ll be honest with you, things look dark, dismal, kind of empty. Fine, I’ll say it, things look just plain bleak. I wasn’t going to say it but you forced me to, things look bleak. But, that’s how Chuck Dickens wanted it.   

Monday, April 30:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Antiques Roadshow – “Salt Lake City (Hour Three)”. So many possible jokes exist here, but mainly they’re at the expense of Mormons and so I choose to avoid them. I do hear that Big Love is coming back though, and I really enjoy that show, so go Antiques Roadshow, way to support the Mormons!

9:00 – 11:00PM

The Mormons  First PBS spends a couple of weeks with Antiques Roadshow in Salt Lake City and now there is a four hour documentary on them (this being hours one and two). Hmmm… I think someone’s gotten to PBS. I don’t want to say who (Harry Dean Stanton), but I think we all know what’s going on here. Where, oh where, is Bill Paxton?

 

Tuesday, May 1:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Nova – “Newton’s Dark Secrets”. As it so happens, Newton totally had this crush on a girl, back in the day, and he wrote a lot of letters to her, but he never mailed any of them, and then he put them in his dairy, and then he forgot about them, and then, years later they were found, and the long and the short of it is that it turns out Newton wanted to test his theories about a body at rest getting acted on by another outside force with her. 

9:00 – 11:00PM

The Mormons. I’m sorry, it’s just so ominous how they state the title of the show — The Mormons. Would that be done for another religious group? I tend to think not. It’s as though they’re trying to instill fear upon the public, and I can’t imagine who would want that (Harry Dean Stanton).

  

Wednesday, May 2:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Secrets of the Dead – “Herculaneum Uncovered”. Herculaneum is a city that was covered by the same eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii. Listen to this quote from the press release: “It was engulfed by blistering pyroclastic flows that instantly caused muscles to contract, skin to vaporize and heads to explode.” I’m totally watching this.

9:00 – 11:00PM

American Masters – “Atlantic Records: The House that Ahmet Built”. Ahmet Ertegun was, apparently, the man. He discovered Ray Charles, signed the Rolling Stones, and did other fantastic, musically speaking, things. This two hours spends a lot of time looking at those things. 

 

Thursday, May 3:

8:00 – 9:30PM

Live From Lincoln Center – “Lincoln Center Special a Gala Night at Alice Tully Hall. This will be the last performance from the famed, historic, and in other ways undeniably cool Alice Tully Hall prior to a complete renovation that will undoubtedly last way longer than the scheduled amount of time (it allegedly will reopen in the fall of 2008).

9:30 – 10:30PM

Antiques Roadshow – “Salt Lake City (Hour Three)”. So many possible jokes exist here, but mainly they’re at the expense of Mormons and so I choose to avoid them. I do hear that Big Love is coming back though, and I really enjoy that show, so go Antiques Roadshow, way to support the Mormons!

10:30 – 11:00PM

Signpost to Freedom: The 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott. This is a re-airing of the documentary that was named Best Historical Documentary by the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. It talks about, as if you didn’t know, the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott. 

 

Friday, May 4:

8:00 – 8:30PM

Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal #4644. Another whole week has gone by and good old Gwen Ifill and National Journal are here to fill us in. For the record, I like to pretend the National Journal is a sidekick, like Robin to Batman, Starsky to Hutch, or chocolate sauce to chocolate ice cream.

8:30 – 9:00PM

NOW #318. It’s the Emmy award-winning weekly newsmagazine. It looks at issues facing our democracy. The show is hosted by David Brancaccio. And, even better, they still send me e-mails (I think that makes me cool and them nice). Thanks, Now!

9:00 – 10:00PM

Bill Moyers Journal #1103. This is, apparently, not the same episode that will be airing earlier in the week. Then again, it may be, PBS is tricky that way.

10:00PM – 11:00PM

Secrets of the Dead – “Herculaneum Uncovered”. No jokes, skin vaporizes and heads explode. What more do you need? 

 

Saturday, May 5:

9:00 – 10:0PM

Austin City Limits – “Juanes”. Actually, there’s only one of him, Juanes is his name, it’s not plural for “many guys named Juan.” He’s from Colombia and sings, shockingly, Latin music. Time actually named him “one of the 100 most influential people in the world,” so stop acting so shocked and check him out.

 

Seriously, spudnuts. Who would’ve known, who would’ve guessed, who would’ve thought it. Spudnuts. What more do you need? 

About Josh Lasser

Josh has deftly segued from a life of being pre-med to film school to television production to writing about the media in general. And by 'deftly' he means with agonizing second thoughts and the formation of an ulcer.

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