www.whyville.net Jul 12, 2001 Weekly Issue



MediaWiz
Staff Writer

What's On!

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What's On!


MediaWiz
Times Writer

Rocks in space, storms in movies, and dinosaurs in North America... it all keeps coming!

Friday, July 13th
    Asteroids!

Saturday, July 14th
    Biography: Madam Tussaud
    The Perfect Storm

Sunday, July 15th
    Gold Rush: A Real-Life Alaskan Adventure
    When Dinosaurs Roamed America
    Terminal Count: What It Takes to Make the Space Shuttle Fly

Monday, July 16th
    How Buildings Learn
    Expedition Journal: Fire From Above

Tuesday, July 17th
    Tidal Waves

Wednesday, July 18th
    The Mystery of Genius: Masters and Madmen
    Building the Biggest Supership

Thursday, July 19th
    Battlefield Engineering

Friday, July 13

"Asteroids!" (History Channel, 8-9 p.m. E/P) Space travel runs two ways, although the incoming traffic has been unmanned as far as we know from picking though asteroid impact craters. This documentary, rich in computer recreations explores the long history of these missiles from space and what future threats they pose to earth.

Saturday July 14

"Biography: Madam Tussaud" (A&E, 8-9 p.m.) Whyvillians may think they know a lot about assembling face parts, but wait'll they see this person's handiwork. She became famous for founding the wax museum in London where this documentary was filmed. But Tussaud's career started in Paris where she learned the trade of wax sculpture as a girl, taught art at Versailles, and when Revolution broke out in 1789 was ordered to search though piles of hears severed by the guillotine and make death masks. Her sucessor technicians are shown there today putting together likenesses of famous people (movie stars, royalty, criminals) for display.

"The Perfect Storm" (HBO, 9-11 p.m. E/P rated PG-13) This is a movie about water power, specifically about the effects of one of the worst storms of the 20th century on a New England commercial fishing boat. Very convincing and scientifically accurate special effects. It stars George Clooney. For a huge, HUGE dose of video footage of the real thing -- hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, tune in to the History Channel all day Monday July 16 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. -- they're running a marathon of the channel's "Wrath Of God", about typhoons, earthquakes, dam bursts, firestorms, and volcanic eruptions. Something for everyone!

Sunday July 15

"Gold Rush: A Real-Life Alaskan Adventure" (ABC, 7-9 p.m. E/P) This movie, based on a true story that happened 100 years ago, follows a spirited young woman who went to the recently discovered Alaska gold mines to seek fame and fortune -- armed not with a pick and shovel but with a typewriter, in those days a rare device. She was quick-witted, but had a rather thorny personality. (Remind you of anybody you know?)

"When Dinosaurs Roamed America" (Discovery Channel, 8-10 p.m. E/P) This documentary uses newly discovered fossils as the basis for computer-generated tour of North America 30 million years ago. The producers even put up a website where you can look up whether some of these creatures used to live in your neighborhood.

"Terminal Count: What It Takes To Make The Space Shuttle Fly" (CNN, 10-11 p.m. ET / 7-8 p.m. PT) This documentary about the Space Shuttle Discovery explains the nitty-grity technical details of what it takes to get it up in the air, keep it there to complete a mission, and get it back to earth safely.

Monday, July 16

"How Buildings Learn" (Ovation Channel, 3-4 p.m., noon-1:00 p.m. PT, repeating 7-8 p.m. ET, 4-5 PT) This is the first episode of a documentary series about buildings, looked at not as static things standing there but rather as things that change as time passes and people do things to them. Certain Whyvillians will get a lot of ideas from this series, which was written by Stewart Brand, who became famous for compiling an awesome book "The Whole Earth Catalogue", about environmentally-friendly home technology. Put a long tape in your VCR and program it to record this episode, entitled "Flow", as well as the others. Their titles are "The Low Road", "Built For Change" "Unreal Estate" and "The Romance of Maintenance" and they'll be aired on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the same times The series is based on Brand's new book, "How Buildings Learn: What Happens to them After They're Built", which is full of excellent before-and-after pictures of places as they evolved.

"Expedition Journal: Fire From Above" (National Geographic Channel, 6-7 p.m. This is a documentary about the struggle to predict and tame lightning.

Tuesday, July 17

"Tidal Waves" (History Channel, 4:30-5 p.m. E/T) This documentary in a series includes a reenactment of the effects of a tsunami (Japanese for giant sea-wave) that struck Hilo, Hawaii in 1960.

Wednesday, July 18

"The Mystery of Genius: Masters and Madmen" (A&E Channel, 7-8 a.m. E/P) Get up early and check out part one of this documentary on the relationship between insanity, keen intellect, and creative insight. The payoff is that you might find yourself described here in one way or another as the miniseries looks at people as diverse as French physicist Marie Curie and Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. Part 2 airs Thursday July 19 at the same early hour, if you don't find yourself nailed in part 1.

"Building The Biggest Supership" (The Learning Channel, 10-11 p.m. E/T) This documentary shows how metallurgists supervise the consistency of steel quality when it's destined for use in shipbuilding -- in this case the world's largest cruise ship, "Voyager Of The Seas". Built from blueprint to launching in 24 months, it was constructed in sections which were then joined together and filled with pre-fabricated cabins and rooms. The regular method would have been to build it slower, from the outside in, layer by layer.

Thursday, July 19

"Battlefield Enginering" (History Channel, 10-11 p.m. E/P) This documentary contains the kind of information about things like swamps and quicksand that video gamers can use to vanquish their foes. Military engineers in Roman times were able to construct desert, mountain and wetland roads and fortifications -- and even to bridge rivers -- in just a few days using simple tools and their own soldiers. We moderns do exactly the same things -- such was the case during Desert Storm -- in the same length of time using bulldozers and huge cranes but fewer soldiers.

 

 

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