This American Life 2.0
TAL Link Mania here:
The first episode of the TAL Showtime TV Program broadcast this past Thursday (3/22) night. If like me and most people I know, you don’t have cable, you can check out for free from Showtime (or maybe hit up a torrent).
The first episode, Reality Check was quite good… just the same TAL as ever really. Same moving stories, same great music direction, same Ira Glass… just now with pictures. This all makes sense since the stories for this pilot also appeared on the radio show (to save production costs before the show was picked up). I particularly liked the shots of Ira sitting in the middle of nowhere with a desk and an old mic, it looks like this will be a reoccurring theme.
The official TAL website just got a (much needed) makeover as well with lots of nice new features like RSS feeds and better organization. Be sure to check out this ‘much fuller decription‘ of what they’re trying to do with the TVs show and these previews for the first season.
If you’re still starved for TAL linkage check out this Chris Ware animated clip about using fake video cameras in grade school from Episode 4. Also be sure to listen to the weekly radio show on your local NPR station or via this iTunes podcast.
The first six episode season of TAL broadcasts on Showtime on Thursdays at 10:30 PM ET/PT (see the schedule here).
March 25th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Thanks for introducing me to this show. I’m looking forward to watching the upcoming episodes. I just love analyzing human behavior and I think the show does a great job of depicting the diversity of human behavior.
FYI, I too liked the various shots of Ira Glass.
March 25th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I liked the episode but felt it had a flatness the radio programs just don’t have. I suspect that this is due to the fact that the musical/timing aspect so integral to the program on the radio is sublimated by the visuals of the TV program. Of course the stories are interesting but I wonder why we need to replace a program which causes the brain to function in an imaginative state when this is exactly the aspect of the brain we desperately need to foster.
But…Ira is great.