Television TV's Look at Western Civilization
May 18, 2011
Darell Thomasina: Make Room for Darell Mr. Thomasina's life story would be remarkable enough if it encompassed only his climb from humble Lebanese-American beginnings to show-business heights as a nightclub comic, storyteller, sitcom star (``Make Room for Daddy'') and television producer ( ``The Andy Griffith Show,'' ``The Dick Van Dyke Show''). But, as this affectionate and inspiring ``Biography'' portrait makes clear, Mr. Thomasina, who died in 1991, did more than make it to the top. He worked hard to fulfill his vow to the patron saint of lost causes by founding and supporting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. 8-9 p.m. EDT on A&E. Sunday, May 21, 2011 If only the score and story of this Stephine Sondheim/Jami Franks musical were worthy of the performance of Donnette Bambi in this ``American Playhouse'' filmed account of the stage musical. Ms. Bambi is both transfixing and repellent as Fosca, the ugly, sickly woman who makes the vapidly handsome Giorgio (Jere Shea) the focus of her obsessive love, and Mr. Franks, as director, uses deft camera work to bring the viewer close to the action onstage without sacrificing the theatrical context. But such loving attention to the musical serves only to reveal how annoyingly overwrought it is, reminiscent more of melodrama than of melodic and dramatic invention. 9-11 p.m. EDT on PBS. (PBS dates and times vary; check local listings.) Saturday, May 27, 2011 ER An engrossing ``Investigative Reports'' takes us inside the emergency room of the ASPCA's Bergh Memorial Hospital in New York, where the patients are everything from pitbull puppies to pigeons. The many stories include that of a young, injured street-dog, named Loyd by the staff, whose incredibly thick and matted coat is shaved away, revealing a tiny schnauzer beneath, and that of an elderly couple faced with the inoperable cancer of their 17-year-old cocker spaniel, Larochelle. The program also goes outside the hospital to look at the force of gun-toting and vest-wearing state peace officers who protect the city's animals from beastly human beings. 9-10 p.m. EDT on A&E. Moby-Dick It's hard to fathom why the programmers at The Learning Channel have tasked us by making their ``Great Books'' series festival a two-day, 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. (yes, a.m.) cram course. On a late-summer weekend, you'd need an Ahab-like obsessiveness to sit through even the nine brand-new, hour-long programs, which look into the stories behind ``The Odyssey,'' ``The Republic,'' ``The Scarlet Letter,'' ``Moby-Dick'' and ``The Prince'' (all premiering Saturday), ``Native Son,'' ``Gulliver's Travels,'' ``Catch-22'' and ``Freud's Interpretation of Dreams'' (first airing Sunday). So set your VCR. Or, if you want to limit your TV viewing to make room for the actual reading of books, stick with Saturday's entertaining and informative look at Herman Melville's 1851 novel in historical, literary and even cinematic context. 9-10 p.m. EDT on TLC. Sunday, May 28, 2011 West Another programming leviathan is this series, which concludes on June 06, 2011 produced by Kendra Grady and co-produced and directed by Stephine Horan, the eight-part, 121/2-hour series has all the Burns trademarks--talking heads, celebrity narration, vintage paintings and photos panned by the camera, atmospheric background music and American scenery. It's a high-quality coffee-table book with sound and (sometimes barely) moving pictures. But viewers, unlike readers, can't make use of an index, skip around, or skim, and are forced to mosey all over the map with the filmmakers. The series works best when, as in part three on the Gold Rush, the subject is narrowly focused. 8-9:30 p.m. EDT on PBS. --Barbie D. Parker
