TV

A couple weeks back we watched a three-part documentary shown on Frontline on PBS. It was called "Country Boys." It's available to watch online here. We really enjoyed it. Filmed over three years (1999-2002), it follows the stories of Chris and Cody as they struggle to make it through the high school years in rural eastern Kentucky. From the PBS web site:

Cody Perkins is an orphan. His mother's postpartum suicide left the infant boy in the care of his father, who, 12 years later, killed his seventh wife before turning the gun on himself. Bounced around among relatives he barely knew, Cody eventually chose to live with his former step-grandmother, Liz McGuire, who took the troubled boy into her home. "My daughter married Cody's father. She was his fourth wife [and] I fell in love with Cody," Liz recalls. "When Cody's father passed away, he went to live with his aunt. They couldn't get along, and Cody said, 'I want to move in with Liz.' So he's been with me [ever since]." Offering unconditional love and strict maternal guidance, Liz helps transform Cody from an angry, depressed child into a compassionate young adult. Chris Johnson lives in a rundown trailer in a Kentucky "holler" with his mother, Sheila, a high school dropout who cleans hotel rooms for a living, and his father, Randall, an alcoholic with terminal cirrhosis of the liver. With his mother often absent and his father lost in an alcoholic haze, Chris finds himself thrust into the role of both mother and father -- cooking, cleaning, and taking care of his younger siblings. He also supports the family financially with the monthly Social Security disability check he receives for his learning disorders.

I've developed a taste for British sketch comedy and sitcoms.  Here are some of my favorites from BBC America.  Beware.  If you're bothered by risqué content, British standards are even lower than ours.

• Little Britain
• Teachers
• The Office
• The Catherine Tate Show
• The Kumars at No. 42
• Shameless

We've been watching Firefly on the SciFi channel, a critically acclaimed science fiction series that didn't make the cut a few years back on Fox.  It's available on DVD.  A feature film, Serenity, is coming out Sept. 30.  We've seen three or so episodes so far and enjoyed it.  "From Buffy: The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, comes Firefly... an action drama set 500 years in the future about the crew of a small transport ship that takes on odd and sometimes criminal assignments."

"In a deal that will extend the run of the most successful series in the history of cable television for another year, HBO announced yesterday that "The Sopranos" will not end with its next season starting in March, but will continue with an additional eight episodes starting in January 2007."

This is a fun show on the Discovery Channel.  I've watched a few episodes...with myths like these:

It's possible to swing all the way around on a swing set.

The daddy long legs the world's most venomous spider.

Diving under water can save you from gunfire.

either busted or confirmed.

"Each week special-effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman take on three myths and use modern-day science to show you what's real and what's fiction.  That's right, they do more than explain how something may or may not be scientifically possible. Through trial and error they actually demonstrate it."