I'm constantly amazed at how quickly time goes. We're now halfway through the month of March. March. Halfway through. Once March is finished we'll be one-quarter of the way through 2008. One-quarter. It's amazing. The world seems to go more and more quickly. I guess I can take a Quantum of Solace from the fact that it's been a good year so far.
Sunday, March 16:
8:00 - 9:00PM
Nature - “Deep Jungle 'The Beast Within'”. Wow. This is part three of a three-part miniseries - a miniseries, I tell you - that follows explorers and scientists as they examine life in the jungle. Part three deals with the how the jungle may or may not have affected humanity in the distant past (I'm betting that it did).
9:00PM – 10:30PM
Sarah Brightman: Symphony in Vienna. A repeat of the brand new Sarah Brightman concert. It was taped way back in January of this year in Vienna (if Indiana Jones has taught me anything, that's in Austria). She sings old stuff, she sings new stuff. She sings and sings and sings.
10:30PM – 12:30AM
André Rieu: In Wonderland. I would call this the sequel to Alice's visit, but that was the whole Looking Glass thing. Maybe it's now a trilogy. Fine, fine, it's not Rieu and his orchestra, choir, several soloists, and some really kicking music playing at a theme park in Holland.
Monday, March 17:
8:00 - 9:00PM
Antiques Roadshow – "Tampa (Hour Three)". I wonder if the things that appear at the Roadshow in Tampa are imported by snowbirds from New York. Either that or they recall the moments back in the day when the Buccaneers were a good team.
9:00 – 10:30PM
American Experience – "Ansel Adams". What is there that can be said about Ansel Adams? Actually, a fairly decent amount. Adams' photography is truly outstanding. In this documentary Ric Burns attempts to explore "the meaning and legacy of Adams' life and work."
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 (it airs at the end of April and beginning of May). 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, March 18:
8:00 - 9:00PM
Nova – “Saved by the Sun”. See, Al Gore isn’t necessarily right. The sun is good, warmth is good. I’m not even going to read the description of this episode, because I’m completely and wholly convinced that it’s entirely about how global warming will prevent sad deaths on frozen mountains in the winter — people will be saved by the sun. Yes, that’s the only thing it could possibly be about. It’s certainly not about taking solar energy seriously again due to rising oil prices and trouble in the Middle East. No way.
Article comments
1 - Alice Jester
Thanks! I actually have been turning to the PBS over the last month since network TV has been so droll, so I love this summary. I keep forgetting what night Antiques Roadshow is on. I'm thrilled to see someone acknowledging PBS programming.
Austin City Limits has been on my TIVO for two years now and that Allison Krause and Union Station one is a repeat. It's pretty good, but you're right, Kathleen Edwards seemed out of place. They should have given Union Station the whole hour. I've been dying for some new shows. They haven't aired a new one since that fantastic Crowded House hour in January. It's still by far the best music show on TV.
2 - bliffle
Commercial TV has been unwatcheable for several years, and PBS has become the only source of decent, adult TV. Commercial TV now inserts as much as 25 minutes of ads into every hour of elapsed time. That's why some of your familiar favorites have become even more thin and uninteresting: 5 minutes more of plot had to be excised to allow for the ads.
But alas! Now PBS management is determined to make PBS compete with the commercial networks. This is a very stupid move. What's the point? To trick people into watching watered down program content augmented with sugar and made simple-minded? To increase PBS budgets so that the execs get bigger pay?
Now PBS is getting worse with it's ads and programming pabulum. The commercial pitches are as annoying as on the commercial nets. The "Pledge Drives" are much more frequent and are parodies of the annual auctions and pledge drives that used to drive the budget of the stations.
One of the few refuges is PBS KIDS which consistently turns out programs that adults should watch in hopes of becoming as smart as a 5th grader.
Soon, the discriminating viewer will be forced to either abandon TV altogether and/or convert to Pure Pirate Programming by harvesting their own materials from the wealth of good stuff that's available somewhere, if you know how and where to look.
Of course, one of the consequences of the iron grip of the network corporate monopolies on broadcasting is that it's impossible for a small individual or group to broadcast their own community TV. In spite of the fact that the cost of TV broadcasting has dropped to very little, and the conversion of huge amounts of analog TV to digital has freed up enough spectrum to accomodate almost everyone who would want to broadcast a non-commercial signal.