I’ve had a deep respect & affection for the Public Broadcasting System since I was a kid. Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and the The Electric Company were all a part of my television diet growing up. Later on during and after adolescence it was Cosmos, Bob Ross’s Joy of Oil Painting, and In Search Of.... I even dug on Ken Burns’ trilogy The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. No matter where I’ve established my digs over the years the station affiliates have always been reservoirs of cultural information as well as refuges from TV mediocrity.
It’s for these reasons that the network’s recent decision to take the easy bait of ‘reality’ programming stung my sensibilities so bad. Granted, the PBS version of what is swiftly becoming the scourge of television credibility and content is several cuts above the sort of tripe (Extreme Makeover, The Swan, Playing it Straight, etc.) that clogs the airwaves of the prime time networks. Their first foray, Frontier House, followed the adventures of three 21st century families asked to live under the conditions of a 19th century homesteaders for span of seven months in the Montana “Territory”. I missed out on that series and ruefully dismissed it as a case of the station trying to cash in on the latest craze.
Surfing through channels the other night though, I stumbled onto what turns out to be the follow-up, Colonial House. This time the setting is 1628, near the site of the original Plymouth Colony. Cast is comprised of 26 participants divided into five ‘houses.’ Each cast member is assigned a role in the social hierarchy ranging from indentured servant to Governor (other guises include: freeman, lay preacher, quartermaster, etc.). The colony is a venture-capital project of a company in Bristol, England. The colonists are given four months to settle the coastal strip of land and prove that they can become a sustainable profit-making entity.
After an intensive two-week immersion period where experts educate them in the elements of 17th century living (cooking, construction, livestock care, social mores, etc.) the cast is set loose upon the land to cobble together a positive coexistence. The same experts will return four months later to judge whether the colony is a success & whether it will be afforded a future by the company. Another difference from most reality shows is that the participants are expected to role-play their fictional selves as accurately as possible. A narrator provides historical commentary to the events as they transpire.
While not quite on par with other PBS original programming like Jim Lehrer’s New’s Hour, NOVA, Frontline or P.O.V. the show has a lot going for it. I came in late and have only caught the final four episodes, but after sitting through the first in this quartet I was hooked. There’s the usual trope of combining a relatively disparate group of folks. Devout Christians with agnostics, the requisite minority & openly gay cast members incongruous with the times, etc. But these orchestrations feel far less contrived. Sure there’s friction, but compared to the transparent and manufactured discord of so many other shows, it’s tame and dare I say, realistic. The far more interesting and recurring conflicts are ideological, entrenched in and arising out of the participants’ attempts to reconcile their 21st century selves with the 17th century ones they’re trying to create and sustain.
One of the most fascinating exchanges occurs in episode seven when a Native American tribe passing through the area confronts the colonists. The tribe consists of other cast members, descendents of a tribe that originally occupied the land the colonists have settled on. The predictable disparities between how the two groups view each other develops, but what’s surprising is the reflexive nature of how each responds & buys into the roles they’re playing. Various members of the tribe express deep animosity toward the colony (one remarking that he’d like to burn it down and only partially in jest). The colonists in turn are caught in an uncomfortable limbo between their genuine feelings of ‘white guilt’ and the artificial roles/perspectives they’re supposed to inhabit.
Other arguments arise out of religious differences, gender inequity and the explicit social stratification of the populace. All colonists are expected are to attend mass and observe the Sabbath, but one of the families is agnostic and refuses. A series of punishments ensues. True to colonial custom women occupy subservient stations, much to the chagrin of several female members of the cast. Late in the series, the producer’s also integrate a power-wielding company outsider into the colonist’s ranks to “shake things up”. Overall the show’s got many of the addictive elements of ‘reality TV’ but temper them with an educational bent that is both sweeping and creative. Long story short, my earlier prejudices are allayed and I’m definitely going to try to catch the series from the beginning. Has anyone else seen this?
"...reservoirs of cultural information as well as refuges from TV mediocrity"
--Derek, just to confirm, you're talking about PBS? To be fair, I haven't watched Colonial House, but PBS has always struck me as one of our most consistent wellsprings of mediocrity and programming blandness. Even the pledge drive "treats" always seem to be something like "The Righteous Brothers Unplugged" or marathon doses of Rick Steves goofing around with an alphorn. POV, Now, and Frontline are stikingly unusual exceptions in the network's flat plain of equal-opportunity inoffensiveness.
Posted by: William Lawless at May 27, 2004 10:57 AMWilliam, yes, I am talking about PBS. Maybe the programming is different here at the affiliate in Minneapolis (& Bellingham & Tucson & Boston & other places I’ve lived) than wherever it is you call home? Sure, there are some lame duck shows (Antique Roadshow, anyone?), but the insightfully-engaging to mind-numbingly-boring programming ratio is far better than any major network (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS) I can think of. Here’s a short list of other shows that have more than held my attention: Africans in America, American Experience, American Family, American Masters, Austin City Limits, BBC World News, Commanding Heights, Deford Bailey: A Legend Lost, Duke Ellington’s Washington, New York, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, School: The Story of American Public Education, and Strange Fruit. I’d pick Alan Alda’s Scientific American Frontiers over Fox’s When Animals Attack, Part 6 any day of the week (& I pretty much despise Alda). The latter certainly wins out on the offensiveness scale, but I’d argue that’s not necessarily a good thing.
I am in agreement about the pledge drives (almost always cheesy & pandering to the point of excess- who really wants a cheap ceramic mug with their donation anyway?), but the flipside is no asinine commercials to sit through during the shows.
Derek, you may be right--it could be that I'm out in the sticks and just don't have access to the cutting-edge stuff. I've seen only the programming in Chicago, where I currently live, Minneapolis, and Seattle. I am familiar with the shows and series you cite, but for my tastes most would serve equally well to illustrate my feelings about PBS. That doesn't mean that I'll be watching When Animals Attack instead, though; it only means that I probably won't be watching much on PBS.
Bill, thanks for the response. Diff’rent strokes I guess. And sweet use of sarcasm (‘sticks’ equaling Chicago) by the way. Please expand, if you don’t mind, on how shows like Africans in America, Commanding Heights and The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow fit into the your “wellsprings of mediocrity and blandness” category. Also, I’m curious about what, in your opinion, is "cutting-edge stuff" these days on regular network TV.
Posted by: derek at May 27, 2004 1:27 PMOn Commanding Heights I stand corrected, because I didn't see it and can't comment. On the others all I can say from my recollection is they felt pretty "teacherly," a bit too earnestly educational and stylistically predictable for my taste. Yes, important topics; yes, yes, good for one to know about; but, as per most PBS docu-snores, kind of square, just as one might expect given their status as the patronage projects of McDonald's and Mobil and the other blue-chip sponsors eager to prove their commitment to edifying projects like "American History" and "The Fascinating Natural World" and "Great Literature From the Past, Dramatized" and so on. Really, it all feels so curatorial and staid. (Different strokes, yep. But am I the first you've ever heard mouthing this heresy?) The most I can say is that PBS is looking more and more commercial these days, as your Colonial House review touches on and might also be observed by observing the actual commercials that book-end most shows. The fact is that PBS is a *total* commercial enterprise, although by so chastely avoiding the big-audience grabbing spectacles of the networks it almost seems to want to deny this. (Again, though, I'd read its turn toward network-style reality entertainments as another inevitable step toward a commercialization it won't much longer be able to deny.) I find this so irritating because public television could potentially be so much more; just check out any documentary fest for a feeling of all the possible topics and approaches that, you know as well as I, PBS would never touch. (You also have only to read a little on the history of public broadcasting in the US to see how PBS's trajectory has gotten only safer and safer, politically and aesthetically, over time, to the dismay of policy makers, academics, PBS programmers themselves, etc.) I say this knowing that, unfortunately, PBS probably couldn't be too much more than what it is, given the realities of its funding. Yes, show by show, there will be exceptions to these generalizations. But there's gotta be some reason I don't like to watch PBS overall--I think these are the reasons.
Cutting-edge network television? Big topic. It's undeniable that there have been "cutting edge" network TV shows and genres and available points of view from time to time. But I never meant to set up a PBS vs. networks dichotomy, and I don't think that's often very useful. All I said was-- well, you know what I said.
Still friends?
Posted by: William Lawless at May 27, 2004 2:25 PMBill, thanks for the thoughtful response & please consider the peace pipe smoked. I apologize too for putting that dichotomy in your mouth, wasn’t fair & it probably tasted bad, but I was curious.
Great points re: sponsorship & the more methodical, prosy aspects of most of the documentaries, programming, etc. I definitely share your concerns regarding the first issue. Commercialist tendencies continue to encroach, but I’m not sure I can blame PBS given what appears to be a larger public apathy toward their enterprise. Though theirs is largely a niche market by choice, I can’t imagine any staff being too excited about the prospect of having to ramp up another pledge drive week & all the stylized entreating it entails. It would be great if they could take more risks, but as you mentioned the current benefactors would likely frown & pull tight the purse strings.
A similar thing happened to American Movie Classics. It used to be a pretty great station- classic Hollywood movies with an emphasis on pre-1970 cinema & no commercials. Now they’re practically one step away from TNT and WTBS. I keep expecting to tune & see Patrick Swayze tearing shit up as the Zen Buddhist bouncer in ROADHOUSE.
As to the second issue of their preferred style & it’s being overly banal, safe, etc. I actually don’t mind it that much. The narrative scope of many of these shows can definitely get bogged down & pedantic, but I see it as a nice respite from the rapid-cut, music video style editing/scripting of most network dramas & sitcoms. No insulting laugh tracks, no trite plots & banter (though this arguably the norm during pledge segments). Just a slow, reasoned tour through history or opinion or whatever. Relatedly, that aspect is really what I enjoyed most about early shows like COSMOS or Bob Ross. Sagan’s voice and affect were almost preternatural in their ability to relax the listener; same too with Ross who’s happy little trees and lakes set my addled mind at ease many a time. I realize this isn’t supporting my initial argument about PBS’s superiority, but I gotta come clean. And the network will forever get my props for running EYES ON THE PRIZE (both series) back in the day- still among the most moving/edifying multi-part documentaries I’ve ever seen.
Switching gears, it would be interesting to trace some cutting edge shows. ALL IN THE FAMILY? BARNEY MILLER? Early HILL STREET BLUES? SOPRANOS? I dunno.
Derek, thanks for *your* thoughtful comments. PBS frequently annoys me--hey, tell you something you don't know already, huh?--but I didn't want to derail the thread or risk a shouting match over it. (Besides, I told my wife what I had been saying to someone online about PBS and she said it sounded like I had been an asshole. I'll leave that for everyone here to decide, but she's usually perceptive about things like that.) Well, gotta go--Antiques Roadshow Tampa's coming up. Bill
Posted by: William Lawless at May 27, 2004 5:53 PMBill, I was combative in my responses (probably moreso) too so no worries. And please derail away, I’m all for it. Hey, I think I’ve seen that Tampa edition of Roadshow, it’s the one with the retired anesthesiologist who found that turn-of-the-century vibrator in her great uncle’s Merchant Marine footlocker, right?
Posted by: derek at May 28, 2004 5:58 AM>I keep expecting to tune & see Patrick Swayze tearing shit up as the Zen Buddhist bouncer in ROADHOUSE.
Hey! I own Road House on DVD. (Watching it every Thursday night on the Superstation just wasn't enough.)
Anyway, I like what I've seen of Colonial House (I think I've missed some episodes). What's fascinating to me is that I don't like either "side" - the Bible-thumpin' governor and his brood are annoying as hell and I sure wouldn't wanna live under their pious thumbs, but the woman who insists on remaking 1628 into some kind of grad-school feminist workshop, and dragging her whipped hubby along with her on her crusade, is just as irritating. I wish somebody would slap the crap out of both of them. But whaddya gonna do?
Posted by: phil at May 28, 2004 10:58 AMPhil, ROADHOUSE probably falls under the so bad it’s good category [curious about extras on that dvd- Swayze commentary? Jeff Healey videos?] It also has one of the most (un)intentionally hilarious monologues of 80s action cinema (thank Jehovah for the IMDB):
“All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice. If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal. I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice.”
I hear what you’re staying re: COLONIAL HOUSE; none of the cast members are all that likeable & their attempts to play their parts frequently seem half-assed. I thought it was pretty amusing when the ‘feminist’ cast member got some harmless comeuppance by being chained to the stake in the cornfield for not attending Sabbath. All the while the narrator describing the historically accurate punishments that would have been visited upon her in the 17th century (flogging, bilboeing, etc.)- scary stuff. It was also funny watching the various people exploit the second governor’s academic biases by suggesting creative & scholarly pursuits (learning Greek, practicing cartography) for themselves in an attempt to get out of the hard manual labor jobs. But I was disappointed in the ‘shake-up’ episode where the producers play up the possible frictions of the company man coming into the colonial ranks only to have him chicken out & not assert his authority to the degree he claimed he would.
Sadly, there are no extras on the DVD. I was hoping for the "lost footage" where Swayze and Sam Elliott finally fall into each other's arms, all those years of side-by-side bar-fighting at last revealed as nothing but homoerotic foreplay.
My favorite line in Road House is when the villain whispers in Swayze's ear, "I used to fuck guys like you in prison." I've watched the flick dozens of times, and I'm still not sure whether that's supposed to be a brag, a threat, or a come-on.
Posted by: phil at June 1, 2004 2:25 PMIf PBS just had Frontline it would be worth far more than the rest of the cable wasteland combined. Now that you can watch them from the website no need to actually tune in for any "teevee"
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