Friday , March 29 2024
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! James Bond is back!

PBS Primetime Programming for the Week of June 8

Did you realize that there's a new James Bond novel out? Seriously. It came out May 28, and while I've started it I don't want to tell you my thoughts yet because it may spoil it for you. Frankly, I'm just telling you that it's out because I think that for those of you, like me, who are distressed that the new movie doesn't come out until November 7, this might provide a Quantum of Solace.

 

Sunday, June 8:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Nature – “Snowflake: The White Gorilla.” Do you know what I'm against? I'm against giving cute names to animals. Here's Snowflake, a white gorilla. Here's Snappy, a crocodile. Here's a different Snappy, an alligator, Here's a third Snappy, a snap turtle. Here's a fourth Snappy… oh, well, you get the idea.

9:00PM – 10:30PM

The Jewish People: A Story of Survival. Martha Teichner hosts this series that looks back on the millennia of history of the Jewish people. They've had struggles, hardships, successes, and setbacks. Watch and learn, watch and learn.

 

Monday, June 9:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Antiques Roadshow – "Los Angeles (Hour Two)". Did you know that there was a time I lived in Los Angeles? It's strange, but true, I lived there. It's quite the movie town, everyone seems to be an actor or a writer or a producer. It's all quite fascinating. Plus, just about everyone has some sort of movie memorabilia. I wonder if that's what we're going to see on the Roadshow, a Marilyn Monroe-signed bottle of Chanel, that sort of thing.

9:00 – 10:30PM

American Experience – "Las Vegas: An Unconventional History (Part 2)." Las Vegas. Land of plenty. Land of a lot. Land of, let's face it, quite possibly too much. And, as we all know, too much is too much, there is no way around it, it's a fact. Well, the show this week is going to take a look at all that too much, from its beginning to… well, let's say 2005, which is when this first aired.

10:30 – 11:00PM

PBS Previews – "Carrier." PBS isn't going to show you Carrier, they're just going to show you a preview of it prior to actually re-airing the show. They're going to tantalize you. They're going to intrigue you. They're going to tell you about some of the people on the USS Nimitz.

 

Tuesday, June 10:

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 – 10:00PM

Frontline – “On Our Watch.” We, the population of the world, have a terribly short memory. One decade we help free people from concentration camps after millions and millions die in the Holocaust. In another, we decide to completely ignore the genocide in Darfur (okay, so some Hollywood celebs took up the cause). This episode is about that tragedy and why many governments did little, if anything, to stop it.

10:00 – 11:00PM

Independent Lens – "The Cool School." Apparently for an entire decade the "Ferus Gallery was the catalyst of a nascent modern art scene." Watch what happened, watch what catalyzed. Find out if anything that catalyzed eventually needed to be cauterized (and quite possibly disinfected, too).

 

Wednesday, June 11:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Seeing in the Dark. This show is based on a book of the same name and is all about hands-on astronomy. The program features “high-definition astrophotography,” whatever that might be. Well, I could figure out exactly what that means if I break the compound word down into its parts. One second here… okay, I figured it out.

9:00 – 10:30PM

The Cleveland Orchestra in Performance: "Bruckner Symphony No. 5." What can I say about this? The Cleveland Orchestra is going to play… in Cleveland. They're going to play a symphony by Anton Bruckner. It'll be the fifth one that he wrote. Ah, yes, I know, this was recorded in September of 2006.

10:30 – 11:00PM

PBS Previews – "Carrier." PBS isn't going to show you Carrier, they're just going to show you a preview of it prior to actually re-airing the show. They're going to tantalize you. They're going to intrigue you. They're going to tell you about some of the people on the USS Nimitz.

 

Thursday, June 12:

8:00 – 9:00PM

The This Old House Hour – Episode TBA. It’s This Old House and Ask This Old House. It’s like maintenance… for your home. Wait, no, that’s exactly what it is. That doesn’t mean it’s not awesome though. Seriously, The This Old House Hour is one of the finest home improvement hours on PBS. No joke.

9:00 – 10:00PM

Antiques Roadshow – "Los Angeles (Hour Two)". Did you know that there was a time I lived in Los Angeles. It's strange, but true, I lived there. It's quite the movie town, everyone seems to be an actor or a writer or a producer. It's all quite fascinating. Plus, just about everyone has some sort of movie memorabilia. I wonder if that's what we're going to see on the Roadshow, a Marilyn Monroe-signed bottle of Chanel, that sort of thing.

10:00 – 11:00PM

Seeing in the Dark. This show is based on a book of the same name and is all about hands-on astronomy. The program features “high-definition astrophotography,” whatever that might be. Well, I could figure out exactly what that means if I break the compound word down into its parts. One second here… okay, I figured it out.

 

Friday, June 13:

8:00 – 8:30PM

Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal #4750. 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 on PBS #424. 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, you guys are awesome!

9:00 – 10:00PM

Bill Moyers Journal #1210. It’s Bill Moyers. It’s his 1,210th journal (not really, but I’m not going to explain to you the way in which TV shows are numbered at this point in time, maybe later if you’re nice). He’s a good journalist so I assume this will be good journalism (at least the odds are it will).

10:00 – 11:00PM

Churchill – “Destiny.” This episode follows the man, the myth, the legend, from birth to 1931. I like to think of the entire episode therefore as backstory to the good stuff which will come in future episodes. Not that understanding where the man came from isn’t important – it is – I just like the later bits better.

 

Saturday, June 14:

8:00 – 9:00PM

Austin City Limits – “Jack Johnson/Rilo Kiley”. Johnson performs songs from his latest CD, In Between Dreams, whereas Kiley doesn’t perform from Johnson’s CD. Weird, right? I think it would be great if Kiley did Johnson and Johnson did Kiley, but just musically speaking.

 

And that, as they say, is that. I'm still looking for a way to solidify my eventual hiring by Disney as an Imagineer, I'm reading the new James Bond book, and am looking forward to the upcoming film. All in all, life's pretty full. I'm happy in the moment and happily looking towards the future. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!

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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