Word: pbs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hopeful Blip. One would like to entertain idealistic dreams about the sudden consumer resistance to business as usual in television. Occasionally, indeed, a hopeful blip appears on the screen. Last week a worthy special, The Incredible Machine, running on PBS, whomped its commercial competitors in some major markets, gaining a record-breaking 36% audience share in New York. It was, ironically, part of a documentary series that has been booted off all three commercial networks for lack of audience appeal. Jennie, a PBS import about Winston Churchill's mother, has done better in some significant urban areas than...
Considering these biographical riches, Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (PBS, 9 p.m. E.S.T.) the seven-part series that starts this week on 200 PBS stations, should be a romp. Alas, this English production has been authorized by the family. Raciness is sacrificed to discretion. Lee Remick reduces Jennie to a bright, transparent coquette. There is no hint of Lady Randolph's unpredictable passions or the fatal allure that caused eminent Edwardians to lose their heads. The liveliest scenes are domestic...
Bombings and Trashings. That conflict is recounted with harrowing accuracy in Shoulder to Shoulder (PBS Masterpiece Theatre, Sunday, 9 p.m. E.S.T.), a six-part series that began this week. If there is a television aesthetic, the BBC comes close to fulfilling it in Shoulder, a show that could have easily degenerated into agitprop; instead it is made a continually probing revelation of period and character. Led by a beautiful, red-haired widow, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, the suffragettes endured ridicule, torture and repeated jailings; several of them were killed. The angriest went underground, accelerating their...
...with BEACON HILL (Tuesday, 10 p.m. E.D.T.). The network does not merely admit that the series is based on Upstairs, Downstairs; it is positively insistent on the point. That is a sensible policy, since it is doubtful if the uninstructed viewer could perceive any connection between the engaging PBS bundle from Britain and its vulgar American cousin...
...nation's most respected science writers. ∙ Died. Clifford Durr, 76, Federal Communications commissioner and civil liberties lawyer; of a heart attack; in Wetumpka, Ala. On the FCC from 1941 to 1948, Durr lobbied for "public interest" channels, helping to make possible today's PBS-TV network. Later, in his native Alabama, Durr defended Mrs. Rosa Parks, a seamstress, whose 1955 arrest for violating Montgomery's bus segregation ordinance became a landmark in the struggle for integration. ∙ Died. Leroy "Buddy" McHugh, 84, legendary police reporter; of heart disease; in Chicago. Last survivor of the brash Chicago...