It's Errol Morris in an episodic format.

This American Life's television show debuted on Showtime last Thursday. The launch was a workmanlike effort, no flash and grandiosity, just the essence of the show.

As listeners of the show know, each episode is broken up into acts revolving around a central theme, with Thursday's episode, called 'Reality Check', following three people who devise a scheme, thinking they've made a dream come true only to see it go horribly wrong.

Act two is a reworking of a 1999 piece about an improv group, ImprovEverywhere, who decides to make a fledgling band's dreams come true.

They find a band, Ghosts of Pasha, from Vermont, who is playing one of their first gigs in New York City. The band is new...and pretty bad...and have no fans. So 35 people from the Improv group buy their CDs, memorize their lyrics, make up band t-shirts and show up for a 10pm Sunday show that was, before they showed up, absolutely devoid of patrons. They sing along to the lyrics, they dance, they jump on the stage and hug the bassist and then promptly leave. The band is stunned. The fallout is crushing.

As with many of the better segments of TAL, when the radio segment originally aired, I can remember exactly where I was, driving through Council Bluffs on the way to Denver. I can remember the section of the interstate I was on, passing Rosenblatt stadium during the interview with the bassist, crossing the state line when the segment ended. For context, I can't remember what I had for lunch two days ago (and I tried). It's been one of the best thing on radio and the TV show should be worth the time and subscription.

Check out ImprovEverywhere. Some of their 'performance acts' border on hysterical, with the Starbucks gag approaching perfect.

And we said goodbye to HBO and said hello to Showtime in order to get the show. It was time. Their monthly movie lineup has been brutal for at least a year and The Wire is on hiatus until 2008.

I gave The Sopranos a chance but never loved the mafia as a meta-narrative. Entourage was good for a grand total of three weeks in season two. Big Love had Bill Paxton, probably one of the top five worst actors working. Rome/Deadwood never held my attention and I'm still waiting to get the ten hours I spent on Carnivale back. And Bill Maher is just too smug, even for me.

One great thing HBO had this year, which, most likely, was a contractual obligation they had to meet, was Louis C.K.'s stand-up Shameless, easily the best stand-up I've seen since George Carlin.


Quick tidbit. The Newsroom, a comedy along the lines of The Larry Sanders Show that aired on the CBC and PBS during the 90s and early aughts, is finally available to purchase on Amazon and DeepDiscount.com. If you haven't seen the show, find it! Ken Finkelman's George Findlay is the most delightfully amoral character on television. It still airs occasionally on PBS during the weekends.


Coming soon: In-depth and wildly silly MLB breakdowns and predictions of all six divisions. Thank God baseball is back.