TV Eye
PBS Is Good for You
By Belinda Acosta, Fri., Aug. 24, 2001
Thank goodness it's almost over. If there's been a more abysmal summer television season, I can remember when it was. Thankfully, there were some bright spots. HBO came through once again with Six Feet Under, and Comedy Central gave us Primetime Glick. Although You Don't Know Jack was a feeble success, it was a joy to see Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) on the screen again. While YDKJ started with promise, it seemed to run out of steam around the fourth episode. Not surprisingly, it vanished from ABC's lineup and unless I've missed something, there's no news of when it will return.
But what really kept my interest this summer were two divergent genres: Cartoons and documentaries. I'm still gaga over the new Samurai Jack, and I couldn't get enough of SpongeBob SquarePants or the Powerpuff Girls. Now, to my great delight, the Cartoon Network is launching a programming block just for adults on Sept. 2. But more on that next week.
What I really want to do is sing the praises of POV (Point of View), the extraordinary and, dare I say, essential PBS series that brings the world to viewers' feet by featuring some of the finest in documentary filmmaking. The series wraps up its 14th season with a POV classic, Frederick Wiseman's High School.
Shot in a Philadelphia high school in 1968, Wiseman's black-and-white film -- which has no underscoring, narration, or interviews -- takes viewers into the chaotic, often contradictory world of high school. Unlike R.J. Cutler's American High, students in High School are almost never heard, and when they are, they are defending themselves against the unyielding adults whose jobs it is to teach and guide them -- faculty, parents, and administrators. But instead of wagging a finger at the adults in the film -- many of whom should have been ashamed of their bullying, belittling behavior -- the larger realization of the film is how precious little time there is, in that window of a few short years, to impart what is needed to be an adult. But the most disturbing element of the film is how individual initiative and drive are encouraged at the same time conformity and discipline are constantly demanded of the students.
High School airs Tuesday, Aug. 28, 10pm on KLRU.
On a local note: Hector Galán's joyous documentary Accordion Dreams has its national broadcast television premiere on Thursday, Aug. 30. (It premiered locally earlier this week as part of the KLRU pledge drive.) For those unfamiliar with the history of conjunto and Tex-Mex music, Accordion Dreams is a useful primer. But what carries this work by Austin-based Galán is the joy and passion for the music, as well as the joy and passion that the music inspires.
The accordion, you ask? Isn't that an instrument of the past? Yes and no. Dreams deftly traces the origins of the button accordion and its appearance in Texas via German and Polish immigrants, its assimilation by Tex-Mex musicians, and finally how younger, Mexican-American musicians have taken on the instrument and the music, by infusing it with rock, hip-hop, and pop sensibilities, or as Carmen Marroquin, a conjunto music pioneer says: "People thought that accordion music was for the old days ... they didn't realize the potential of that little squeezebox."
Accordion Dreams is the second in Galán's three-part trilogy on Tex-Mex and Tejano music. The first was Songs of the Homeland (1995). The third will be a piece on orquesta music.
Accordion Dreams airs Thursday, Aug. 30, 9pm on KLRU. Check listings for additional air times.
Worth Repeating
Free To Be-- You & Me: This children's special masterminded by Marlo Thomas was groundbreaking television fare when it first aired in 1974. Rarely televised since its original showing, Free to Be... launched an entire movement in child rearing that espoused tolerance, gender equality, and an appreciation for childhood woes in a modern, sometimes frightening world. Check it out -- and the 30-year-old clothes -- Friday, Aug. 31, 7pm, on TV Land.
Breaking the News: Museum of Television & Radio: Some of the most gripping news events of the last century, and the television reporters who brought the news to living rooms across the nation, are the focus of this two-hour documentary. It airs Friday, Aug. 31, 7pm, on CBS.
Syndication Nation
The early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will air on FX beginning Sept. 24.
A seven-day, Big Bang Marathon of all 77 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation airs on TNN beginning Oct. 1. The marathon will also include the premiere of a new documentary, America's Love Affair With ... Star Trek. America's Love Affair ... is the first in a new TNN series of documentaries on popular culture. In fall 2004, TNN will air the entire Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series and Star Trek: Voyager in 2006.
The Sci-Fi Network has begun rerunning the short-lived CBS series Now and Again. Episodes air Monday through Thursday. Check local listings.
E-mail Belinda Acosta at tveye@austinchronicle.com
