History Channel’s new series Tougher in Alaska, which debuts Thursday, May 9, is hosted bya brawny guy with a strange name Geo Beach. He presents a broad view of the rugged individualists who come to Alaska to challenge themselves in this arctic cold region. In an odd twist, the biggest city in Alaska, Anchorage was recently listed in the top twenty gay friendly cities in America, along with Jacksonville, Florida. Yes, Alaska attracts all varieties of independent macho men and free spirited women. Alaska and the Northwest Territory are considered America’s last frontier, where brave souls thrive in this wild and frigid region.

Host Geo Beach, a hulking man of 6'3" tall, sporting a shaved head, and weighing in at 225 pounds, has lived in Alaska for 25 years. He has worked as a logger, firefighter, medic, and commercial fisherman, including fishing for king crab on the Bering Sea. He has survived everything Alaska can throw at him, including earthquakes, avalanches, floods, and fires. Geo is a savvy media expert. He’s an award winning writer, print journalist, and NPR commentator. His “World of Mouth” radio essays have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered.

Clearly, Geo brings his great knowledge of Alaska to his hands-on documentaries. The premiere episode features Geo traveling to the gold mining region of Alaska . Now that the price of gold is at an all-time high, he joins gritty prospectors searching for valuable nuggets and the big companies efforts to find the rich veins of gold. He takes viewers to frontier mining towns as miners blast through 250 feet of solid rock in 20 degrees below zero weather in hope of hitting the motherlode. Alaska is a modern version of the wild west.

In the second episode, May 15th, Geo showcases the late June salmon fishing melee, with over 2,000 fishing vessels crowded in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Here the vessels under the watchful eyes of the State Troopers, who reign over the greatest natural spectacles of the nature–the annual run of millions of sockeye salmon driven by instinct to their spawning grounds. The average catch is ten million fish valued at more than $100 million . The short three week run looks like chaos, as the boats jockey for position in a choreographed regatta of serious fishermen  navigating the bay, looking for a large school of salmon. Strict rules of boat movement are enforced and violators can get heavy fines or arrested. 

Thinking of John Denver’s “Witchita Lineman” song leads to the May 22 episode in which hardy linemen replace electrical lines after storms or earthquakes in sub-zero weather. Yes, strap on those spikes and climb up the pole with the wind chill at minus 140 degrees. What a rush. Geo flies out to the remote village of Kasigluk to help install power poles and string wire by hand. Bucket trucks in the bush are for sissies.

Alaska has a long history of native people who learned to be self sufficient by living off the land and inventing new methods of dealing with the cold. During WWII, the Japanese invaded the islands off the coast of Alaska. The Army hired the native Alaskan men to be scouts and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese Army. These rugged mountain men set out in small boats and scouted the Japanese occupation of these small islands. The Army let them dress in their skins and they were on their own with no supervision. The Army called them cut-throats for their skills with knives. They played an important role in driving the Japanese off Alaskan soil. For them, it was their way of life, so no special training was required.

Other episodes will feature the long, dark, and bitterly cold winters around Fairbanks, Alaska, and the emergence of the railroad to connect remote towns. In other episodes Geo chronicles the logging industry along the coastal mountains and steep valleys while terrible weather make this work even more deadly than it is normally. 

Viewing this series underscores that there are still places on earth that invite adventurers and people looking for the wide open spaces and are not afraid of hard work. Hell, you can find anything you want in Alaska including bike messengers in Anchorage, gay lifestyles at 40 below,  lonely endless nights and plenty of tall tales and whiskey at the bar. The show is worth checking out. 

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Ax Men History Channel’s Logging Series
Danger in The Woods

By Rick Grant 

From Alaska’s frigid Bering Sea where brave crab fishermen risk their lives for the Deadliest Catch, the History Channel has moved into the woods of the Pacific Northwest to document another dangerous job–logging on mountains. The documenary series features the area’s biggest logging companies that own their own land. Using time honored crop rotation, they reforest the mountain sides with new growth as they cut swaths over steep inclines. They use high wire powered drag lines to pull trees up the mountain to be loaded on to trucks. These are rugged real men who are not afraid of hard work and constant danger.

Armed with heavy duty chain saws and tree climbing gear, these macho men have to be vigilant to avoid getting killed or injured as the trees are pulled up the side of the mountain, causing large pieces of debris to fall into the paths of the cutters. This is a tough lifestyle which has driven  many generations of logging families to work in the woods. For hundreds of years, these loggers came to the region with only two-man hand saws and axes, living in crude camps.

Over 13 episodes, the series follows four logging crews through their daily struggle to harvest the trees, meet their quotas, and go home at the end of the day in tact. The owners of the companies are out on the mountain with their men, working and supervising the operation. Men throw-out their backs, lose hands or legs, and in the worst case scenario, die instantly when they get hit by a falling tree. It happens every logging season. One of the owners is proud of his mangled stump where his hand used to be. He got it caught in some rigging. “It was just a hand,” he said.

Like watching the huge waves and icy conditions of the Deadliest Catch, one gets a strange vicarious thrill viewing these burley loggers cheat death and work feverishly to harvest large trees. Since the housing market tanked, lumber prices have been dropping, forcing the logging companies to speed up their operation before the next drop in price. Some logging companies were forced to close or cut back on production, laying-off workers.

More importantly to viewers, seeing men doing manual labor for their money gives viewers a sense of history and nostalgia. This principle of a hard days work for a days pay harkens back to the early 1500s Puritan settlers in Jamestown in the New World  Their work ethic was directly tied to their religious beliefs. At the end of the day, they wrote down their accomplishments in journals, justifying the day by doing God’s work.

Indeed, America was founded by men and women who were not afraid of hard work. Today, we out-source manual labor jobs to India and China. In 2008, American youth are sedentary and soft, playing video games in their spare time and not getting enough exercise. They would cry like girls at the thought of working as loggers. Hey, send them to logging camp for the summer.

Since the early days of logging under primitive conditions and Spartan camps, today’s loggers have chain saws and other modern equipment, but logging on mountains is still as dangerous as it was in the old days. The hours are still long, and quotas are high. Even with high wire logging and helicopters, meeting the company’s expectations is difficult. Equipment breaks down and men get tired, but the pressure to get the logs into the factory is still a main driving force which motivates the loggers.

The History Channel’s tradition of filming hour-long documentary-styled series is an intriguing option compared to the dumb reality shows like Big Brother. And, as a bonus, the loggers of Ax Men are genuine Americans, not illegal aliens.

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History Channel’s UFO Hunters
A Serious Investigation by Credible Scientists

By Rick Grant   TV Commentary

Since the defining UFO incident in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, the whole subject of UFOs has been distorted by myth and legend, overshadowing reality in the plethora of books and folklore on the subject. People who have had close encounters of the third and fourth kind have been ridiculed in the media to a point that now people stay quiet about their UFO experiences.

Likewise, for over sixty years, commercial airline pilots have been a fertile source of legitimate UFO sightings. Serious UFO investigators have acquired the communication tapes between the pilots and air traffic controllers that offer proof positive that yes, UFOs exist and they are extraterrestial in origin. These mostly daylight sightings are up close and personal with large silent craft shadowing the planes and coming dangerously close. The pilots descriptions are quite specific and mind blowing.

More significantly, in the absence of physical evidence, the diverse and authentic sightings by credible people -- pilots, astronauts, policemen, and thousands of ordinary citizens -- has led to a consensus of opinion by a myriad of scientific investigators that UFOs and USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects) not only exist, but they have been observing us for thousands of years. We just lack a piece of a ship or alien DNA to show the world. In fact, the conspiracy theorists claim that our government has possession of an alien spacecraft and alien bodies and have kept it a secret for many years. Of course, this is one of the unproven myths that haunt serious UFO investigators.

Thus, any serious investigation has to overcome the built-in mythology and skepticism about the subject. So, the History Channel has launched an intriguing new show and hired respected scientists and funded their worldwide UFO hunt. The team is looking for proof–tangible or authentic observed evidence that can be studied using the scientific method. Their findings are astounding, involving many credible incidents that describe actual daylight encounters of large craft, that are not the typical yahoo with a shaky camcorder shooting a light in the sky that could be a helicopter or the planet Mercury.

The History Channel  team is led by William J. Birnes, Ph.D, who’s a best selling author of twenty-five books and encyclopedias in the fields of human behavior, true crime, current affairs, history, psychology, the paranormal, and UFO research. Birnes is also the publisher of UFO Magazine–the definitive source for UFO information.

Joining Birnes is Pat Uskert a Czechoslovakian immigrant who fled his country’s occupation in 1968 and moved to San Francisco. Pat finished his education at California State University. After an encounter with a strange metallic UFO floating over Venice, California, Pat became interested in UFO investigation which caught the eye of Birnes who offered him a staff position. 

Also on board in this quest for UFO proof is Ted Acworth, who holds a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering Design from Stanford University and an MS and BS from Columbia University. He is currently a researcher at MIT, and an MBA as a Sloan Fellow. He is the egghead and voice of scientific reason on the team. His approach is always skeptical and scientific.

Jeff Tomlinson is the intern of the team. Jeff attended the University of Hawaii where he studied a wide rage of practical and applied science. He is currently finishing his studies at the California State University where he is working toward a Biological Degree in Technologies and Geological Inquiry. 

The team takes famous and legitimate sightings and puts them through their rigid scientific inquiry using state of the art instruments and other testing gear. Interestingly, there was a recent spectacular multiple sighting in Stephenville, Texas on Jan. 10, 2008 that the UFO Hunter team investigated as an entire episode. It was a rare cluster sightings that had been going on for over a month. The team went to Stephenville, Texas and set up shop in a store front across from the court house. They went on the radio seeking witnesses to the event, asking the people to please come forward, tell them their stories, and bring any videotape they have of the incident.

Soon, the team had dozens of eye witnesses who spotted the craft in daylight and at night. The witnesses included half a dozen police officers and ordinary citizens from all walks of life. The descrpitions were eerily similar. The craft hovered silently over an area then sped off at a high rate of speed. One woman said that she set up a video camera in her front yard because her livestock was disappearing. She captured a beam of light that didn’t touch the ground and there was no noise with a craft hovering above. There was the proof on her video. Another resident described the same beam of light that made no noise and did not touch the ground. Others described the craft in detail as a cylindrical object with lights that changed colors around the craft. Multiple sightings like the ones in Stephenville, Texas are considered promising, and because they come from so many different sources, the team can say its legitimate, unexplained UFO activity in that area.

Clearly, UFOs are a big subject to tackle in one program, so the team weeds out the suspicious and anecdotal sightings and only investigates the major incidents–past and present. Recently, the whole field of UFO investigation has come out of the closet and gone legit. Yes, it’s up to the viewer to decide  whether to believe in UFOs or not. But, seeking the facts presented in an unbias manner will change a lot of people’s opinions.

Frankly, after hearing the airline pilots conversations with air traffic controllers and seeing other documentaries on the subject, including this series on the History Channel, I’m a believer. All those professional people can’t be making this up. In fact, on the airline pilots tapes, the air traffic controllers ask them if they want to report the incident as a UFO sighting, the pilots say no because if they did,  they could kiss their careers goodbye. Thanks to this show, the subject is getting much more respect as a legitimate scientific inquiry. 

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Aftermath of Writer’s Strike Still Wreaking Havoc on Television Landscape

By Rick Grant    TV Commentary

On February 26, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) members ratified its new contract. The strike was over, but as of April 14, its aftermath continues to negatively affect all aspects of television production. Immediately after the strike, chaos ensued as producers scrambled to get the popular shows that had been on hold, cranked back up again. The shows that were hovering on the line between cancellation or reinstatement were cancelled. There was no time or motivation to give them another chance. The ax fell with extreme prejudice.

The immediate concern for decision makers was to get the popular shows back on the air before they were forgotten. Meanwhile, gaps in the schedules were filled with dumb reality shows.

Overall, television production companies lost hundreds of millions of dollars. According to TV-Week, “Ad-supported cable picked up nearly all of the viewers the broadcast networks lost.” Indeed, for everyone involved in this dispute, large sums of money were lost. The writers suffered greatly–some scribes lost their homes and cars, and had to take jobs at fast food restaurants to make money.

Of course, the long-term effects of all strikes leave bitterness and resentment across the board.  After the Writer’s Guild strike, creating a congenial working environment has been difficult when many writers lost everything and producers lost millions. The only remedy was to get back to work on those killer 16 to 18 hour days with salaries restored. When the dust cleared, the writers didn’t gain that much and it will take them years, if ever, to make up their losses.

Shows like Dirt on FX  Network had 7 rushed through episodes in the can. So producers decided to run the 7 story arc right away and work to make more during the summer months. Regrettably, the hastily written scripts were not up to the original standards of the show. Other shows like The Riches, also on FX, faired better, featuring the family of con-artists carrying on their deceptions with many twists and surprises. 

The much anticipated Juliana Margulies vehicle, Canterbury’s Law on FOXlaunched on time with six episodes completed before the strike. The show got mixed reviews but Margulies has created a flawed but brilliant lawyer character, Elizabeth Canterbury. TNT’s megabit, The Closer had all 15 episodes of the third season made. Jericho on CBS, which was saved by fans, had all 7 episodes of the new season made and launched, filling a void of scripted hour-long dramas. The highly acclaimed AMC hit, Mad Men resumed production for a summer premiere of its second season. FOX’s immortal detective drama New Amsterdamhad all 8 episodes completed and premiered March 4, 2008. The verdict is still out on its renewal.

. Wildly popular Monk and Psych, which run back-to-back,both had all 16 of their episodes completed and has burned through them. FX’s other big hit, The Shield had all their episodes in the can. And, HBO’s seminal series The Wire blew through its best and final season. Watch for big DVD push for this excellent series. Steve Earle, who wrote The Wire’s theme, Down in The Hole, benefitted by increased record sales of his latest album with the hit as the last cut. Earle performed it live on Jay Leno two weeks ago.

Other popular shows went on hiatus and will not premiere until January, 2009. But the alphabet networks are the biggest losers of viewers to the tune of 11% decline in adults 18 to 49 last season. In contrast, the in-tact cable lineup of shows reaped increased numbers and viewers discovered cable’s quality lineup.

The Writer’s Guild strike underscores the vast gulf between greedy producers and the  writers, without whom televison would be a wasteland of stupidity.  Since the Internet revolution, respect for writers in general has declined. Now, every hack writer has a blog or a website. Many TV writers including Conan O’Brien, who got his start writing for SNL, are Harvard graduates. Eventually, however, the cream will rise to the top, even on the Internet.

The truth is, there is plenty of money in televison for everyone to make a decent living. But the producers and studio moguls were dickering about pennies and wouldn’t back down. After the strike, these same moguls had to eat millions in losses.  Unquestionably, they would have been better off just to give the writers what they wanted in the beginning. But their greed overcame their common sense. Such is the nature of the beast.

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HBO’s Epic 7 Part Miniseries,  John Adams
Premiered As Top Quality  Drama

By Rick Grant   TV Commentary

This seminal HBO production based on John McCullough’s Pulitzer-Prize winning book takes a detailed and riveting look back at a time when a few flawed but brilliant men fomented a revolution. Against all odds, these brave men hatched the United States of America. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney co-star as John and Abigale Adams, an intellectually and politically equal couple who gained strength from one another during those tumultuous times. Although the first 17 years of their marriage they were mostly apart, their devotion and abiding love held them together as John worked feverishly to help the Colonial Army’s cause. He even traveled to France to rally the French to support as the Revolutionary War dragged on.

In Part 1 & 2, which was broadcast Sunday, March 9th back to back, attorney John Adams is asked to defend a group of British soldiers who are charged with murder for opening fire on a rock throwing crowd of protesters. At that point in Adams life, he was content to kept the status quo between the Crown and the Colonies. However, philosophically, Adams was sympathetic to the Colonist’s cause of protesting taxation without representation.  Every month, King Charles was levying taxes willy-nilly on daily necessities like tea and other food stuffs. There was talk of independence and revolution was in the air. Secret meetings were taking place. It was in this hostile atmosphere that Adams defended the soldiers.

After gathering the evidence, Adams made a brilliant summation, showing the soldiers acted within their rules of engagement. Ultimately, the soldiers were found innocent. Ironically, this gave Adams more credibility with the Colonial Insurgents, who knew he was an eloquent speaker and both the Continental Congress and the Insurgents would respect him.
As fate would have it, before Adams could think about his position as a Congressman, the British army attacked a group of Insurgents and both sides sustained heavy casualties near Adams’ farm. Now, blood was shed, and Adams witnessed the horror of the battlefield first hand. There was no going back. The only way to deal with the British was go to war and defeat them. But all the Colonists had was a rag-tag militia of part-time soldiers up against the most powerful army in the world.

This epic dramawas skillfully directed by Tom Hopper(HBO’s Elizabeth) with Tom Hanks and Gary Goelzman as executive producers. The miniseries was written by Kirk Ellis. Stephen Dilane portrays Thomas Jefferson and Tom Wilkinson superbly interprets the complex personality of Benjamin Franklin. Dan Huston deftly inhabits Samuel Adams skin and David Morse plays the tall stoic George Washington, who always wore a uniform in case he was called to duty. But it’s Paul Giamatti’s stunning portrayal of Adams that inspired the cast and rivets the viewer.

As the revolution becomes a terrible reality and not a concept, Adams knew that the Colonial Army needed a strong leader. And, voila, there was 6'6" Washington in his general’s uniform ready to take command. Indeed, Washington had an up-hill battle to convert a rabble of militia into a disciplined army. Incredibly, the harmonic convergence of savvy leaders who happened to come to together in that critical timehad its brilliant general to lead America to independence.

HBO’s miniseries continues on Sundays with Part 3, “Don’t Tread on Me” March 23rd at 9:00 pm. Again, HBO has created a memorable work that strives to tell the real story of America’s struggle for independence through the eyes of John Adams.

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Canterbury’s Law Premiered on FOX
Juliana Margulies Shines with Heady Material

By Rick Grant

After a three episode story arc as a character on the Sopranos, and before that, her long grind with ER, Juliana Margulies was looking for a cable series with a complex character that would challenge her acting chops. When Denis Leary (Rescue Me) and his co-executive producers Walon Green, Jim Serpico, and Dave Erickson sent her a script for their new legal-eagle series Canterbury’s Law, she loved the character and pilot writer, Dave Erickson’s quality script. Best of all, the script said FX. Strangely though, it was a typo and it should have said FOX. Before she read the script, Margulies was against doing a network series, but when the mistake was brought to her attention, she was already intellectually committed to the material and the character-- tough defense attorney Elizabeth Canterbury. With noted director Mike Figgis on board, Margulies signed on to do the pilot and a regular season, contingent on the show being picked up after its seven episode run. 

After I viewed the pilot last Monday night, I can say unequivocally that Margulies made the right decision. She has taken over the body and soul of Elizabeth Canterbury with a vengeance. Elizabeth is a brilliant lawyer and complex woman who struggles with grief after the her son’s disappearance, which is unsolved. Her college professor husband Matt Furey (Aidan Quinn) is also suffering over the loss of their son, and their marriage is in trouble. In fact, Elizabeth is having an affairto, as she puts it, “feel something again.” But it’s Elizabeth’s zealous advocacy for her clients and the fascinating way she uses the nuances of law that keeps her working almost 24/7.

“Yes, she’s stubborn. She drinks too much. And, she cheats on her husband. But there’s the backdrop of her having lost a child without closure that helps the audience accept herodd behavior,” Margulies said in a recent interview with Associated Press writer Frazier Moore.

At her firm, Canterbury and Associates, Elizabeth has a loyal and efficient staff of young lawyers, with her right hand man, Russell Krauss (Ben Shenkman) who was forced out of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office when he argued with his dictatorial boss. Russsel is Elizabeth’s sounding board and voice of reason, even when she refuses to listen to him. He can anticipate his former boss’ moves which helps Elizabeth keep her law licence. Make no mistake, Elizabeth is in charge and she is a demanding boss. She wants information yesterday. Although Elizabeth  is abrasive, her staff respect her as a smart and savvy defense lawyer, who most always wins her cases. 

In the pilot, Elizabeth is representing a  young man who has mental problems. He is accused of murdering a boy, but she believes he didn’t do it. Elizabeth suspects the father of killing his own son. In her research, she uncovers a history of the father abusing the son. However, her client has confessed, and has made other incriminating statements to police. But she finds out the DA withheld her client’s medication and the police detective coerced the confession.

In a shocking scene, she set up the father to possibly confess on the stand by goading him with her aggressive questioning. It works perfectly. In fact, the guy punched her out and tips his hand as the boy’s killer. In Canterbury’s realm, she will do most anything to prove her client is innocent and that includes sending her lover into the dentist office to get information from a juror. Clearly, Margulies has found a challenging character to stretch her considerable acting talent. It’s a winner.

The pilot was written by co-executive producer Dave Erickson and directed by  Mike Figgis. It runs on FOX, Monday nights at 8:00 pm ET

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Dirt Returns to FX Network with Seven Story Arc
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By Rick Gran

Sunday, March 2nd  Courtney Cox returned as Lucy Spiller, the ball-busting editor of a tabloid magazine called Dirt on FX Network.Cox is both executive producer and star of this groundbreaking series that parodies the tabloid press and its insatiable appetite for salacious scandal. FX decided to go ahead and run the seven episodes it already had in the can after the writer’s strike was settled, rather than delay the series for another six months.

Whereas the first season focused on how and why the magazine got its fictional stories, this season’s scripts came directly from the tabloid headlines. In a Daily Variety piece, Cox said that her audience needed stories that they could relate to based on recent headlines. Cox went on to say,  “I think the people who loved Dirt last year will, hopefully, love it this year. But there will be just more of an audience because the people who read US and In Touch, and all the other tabloids, will get a kick out of the show.”

The season opener features Lucy recovering from her near-death experience after being stabbed by a crazed starlet who was hit by a car and killed leaving the scene. By her bedside is her best friend and confidant, Dirt’s schizophrenic photographer, Don Konkey, played deftly by British actor Ian Hart. Don is now on advanced medication administered by a psychiatrist and he is trying to adjust to feeling normal. He’s sad that his cat no longer talks to him and his hallucinatory girlfriends no longer appear.

Lucy finally wakes up from her coma and after a short rest, she is anxious to get back to work. Against the advice of her doctor, she leaves the hospital and charges into the Dirt offices taking over with her usual heads-will-roll bluster. 

Ironically, in playing Lucy Spiller, Cox, who herself has had problems with the tabloids, has found herself in the enemy camp. She recently said in an interview that she now has much more understanding for what these magazines do and what function they play in a celebrity’s life. Although she can relate to Lucy’s difficult job, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Cox agrees with how aggressive the paparazzi have become in stalking celebs in today’s world. But, Cox’s character, Lucy will do anything to get the money shot, and her pal, paparazzo, Don Konkey will go to any extreme to get what Lucy wants.

In the opening episode, Lucy hires a new reporter, Farber Kauffman (Ryan Eggold). When a young daily newspaper reporter sneaks into her room using a ruse, she hires him, tripling his salary. He has to adjust quickly to his new job, and finds out that his journalism degree means squat in the fast-paced world of tabloid reporting. When he uses big words in story, she criticizes him and he realizes that this is a whole new world of dumb-downed writing.

In this new story arc, brooding  actor Holt McLaren (Jon Stewart) is waiting in the wings to resume his steamy relationship with Lucy. But will she take him back after their last encounter. In a poignant scene, Lucy confesses to Don that she briefly crossed over, and it was wonderful, but she must have a reason for coming back. She realizes that Don was the only person to stay with her and she now values their friendship even more than before her stabbing.

In a touching scene, Lucy and Don visit the grave of his late cat, which he had buried in a human cemetery. They hold each other with a blazing full moon in the background. For Lucy, having one close friend means everything in her cut-throat world of back-stabbing colleagues and celebrities who both use and abuse her for their own gain.

Dirt  runs Sunday nights at 10:00 pm ET on FX Network.