Three cable miniseries to go with "One Punk Under God." Fire up your DVRs!
All times Central.
SUNDAY
“Tsunami, the Aftermath” (7 p.m., HBO). Two years after the devastating earthquake and tidal waves killed as many as 230,000 people in and around the Indian Ocean is the basis of a two-night dramatic movie, co-produced with the BBC and starring a host of solid if not well-known actors like Tim Roth, Sophie Okonedo and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The scene where the tsunami hits is accomplished more with audio effects than visual, yet captures those few minutes of chaos with terrifying realism. Part two airs a week later on HBO.
Also on Sunday, the second season of “Sleeper Cell” begins at 8 p.m. on Showtime. Now subtitled “American Terror,” it will air a new episode for the next eight nights, though I suspect most subscribers will catch up using the on-demand channel. I wasn't impressed by season one, which ended in a low-budget blaze of glory at "Dodger Stadium" and, to my mind, didn't capture the psychopathology of domestic terrorism the way a really good crime drama does (say, “Brotherhood,” also on Showtime). It appears Showtime has agreed, and has retooled the show, with more sinister characters on screen. The action is more global and more realistic, with at least one attack taken from the nightmare scenarios of former security adviser Richard Clarke. And there's some accounting for the passage of time: When we first see Farik (Oded Fehr), the cell leader from season one, he's getting an interrogation straight out of the Abu Ghraib-Gitmo manual.
MONDAY
“The Lost Room” (8 p.m., SciFi). It's becoming a TV-critic cliché to say of programs on the SciFi Channel that they sure don't seem like science fiction. That can't be said of this space-shifting thriller, which centers on a mysterious hotel room anyone can check into from any doorway as long as they hold the magic key. If that isn't science fiction, then Rod Serling was a sitcom writer. Still, what the critics are getting at is the technophilia and pedestrian dialogue of so much TV sci-fi. That would not describe “The Lost Room,” starring Peter Krause as a detective who comes into possession of the key and tries to unlock its secrets, along with his cute daughter played by Elle Fanning (yep, Dakota's sister). Krause, the “Six Feet Under” and “Sports Night” star, and Fanning bring the human element into this three-night miniseries, which concludes 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday.
TUESDAY
“Taking the Hill” (8 p.m. on Discovery Times, digital cable). Ostensibly this is a chronicle of four Iraq War veterans running as Democrats for Congress, the so-called “Fightin' Dems” of whom double amputee Tammy Duckworth from Illinois was the most visible member. Instead, this project of the Renaud brothers, who distinguished themselves with the series “Off to War,” actually serves as a document of how petty, needlessly divisive and just plain stupid a lot of rhetoric from the recent campaign was. Like when we see Duckworth confronted by a man who calls her a “liberal” who would “cut-and-run” from Iraq. Yeah, her and the Iraq Study Group. It makes you wonder how much more elevated the discourse might have been had the President cut and run from Rumsfeld before the election.
| Aaron Barnhart, The Star
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