Amazingly, none of these is on Yahoo Buzz

OK, I thought it was weird enough for a PBS "Nature" program about the disappearing North American honeybees to be running the exact same day AND HOUR, in some markets, as a "60 Minutes" segment on CBS about the disappearing North American honeybees. But then to start seeing ads for Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" AND this very clever HP tie-in ad (above) with the man himself ... well, it's like Albert Einstein once said: "If Jerry Seinfeld returns to NBC, mankind will have six weeks of oxygen left."

To learn what else Einstein didn't say, read my review of "Nature" from Sunday's Star. It's on the jump, as is another video.

'Nature' wants to create buzz about bee crisis

  With tonight's episode of “Nature,” public TV kicks off a spicy fortnight in science programming, with two shows that are sure to get a lot of viewers hot under the collar -- whether from outrage or fear depending on your point of view.

  “Nature” will look at the colony collapse disorder that is depleting the country's bee population and has been the subject of much hand-wringing in environmentalist corners. On Nov. 13, “Nova” will recount the recent court case involving intelligent design in Pennsylvania, reconstructing the trial in ways that are sure to delight evolution supporters and infuriate opponents.

  The intersection of science and politics is a busy and noisy one these days, and the longtime producers of these iconic PBS programs are to be commended for venturing into the melee and trying to bring some narrative order. Still, I had misgivings after watching “Silence of the Bees,” the 26th-season premiere episode of “Nature,” airing at 7 tonight on KCPT and KTWU.

  You've probably read or heard about the mysterious disappearance of as many as one-third of North American honeybees since 2004. With “Nature” crews following beekeepers on their rounds, we hear how devastating the loss of up to 800,000 beehives has been to them. We also learn how the phenomenon has surfaced in Spain and France in recent years, puzzling scientists and worrying environmental activists there as well.

  As it has so often done the past quarter century, “Nature” takes a complex and not entirely well-understood emerging trend in natural science and turns it into a compelling, well-filmed and sophisticated whodunit. That's the good part.

  The troubling part is the tenor of the program, which suggests that the situation is well on its way to catastrophe, when it's possible that the problem is isolated and temporary. At one point, the narrator intones that the honeybee crisis is potentially “more immediate (in its impact) than global warming.”

  Wow! Such hyperbole I would expect from, say, Bill Maher, who ended one of his HBO “Real Time” programs this spring by quoting Albert Einstein, who supposedly predicted humanity could not survive the loss of its bees more than, oh, a month. (If only Maher's staff had checked the Snopes.com Web site, which had exposed that quote, like so many Einstein quotes, as a fake.)

  I'm put in mind of that 1975 Newsweek story, still glowing hot after 32 years, titled “The Cooling World.” In it, the writer reported “ominous signs” that “the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.” In the finest tradition of alarmist journalism, the story revealed that scientists are “almost unanimous” in their belief in global cooling, indeed that the data “has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” Flat-earthers have had great fun with that line over the years (Jack Cashill brought up global cooling recently on KCPT's “Week in Review”) but they have a point.

  The overwroughtness of so much TV reporting these days erodes public confidence in what we -- “Nature,” me, everyone in media -- do for a living. In fairness, however, the narration on “Nature” had toned down considerably by the end of the hour.

  Speaking of narration, F. Murray Abraham, whose buttery voice lends a light touch to the sometimes grim subject matter of animals devouring animals, came out to meet and greet the TV critics this summer. An Oscar winner and accomplished stage actor, Abraham now reads into microphones quite a bit, including books for the blind. (It should be noted that “Nature” is one of the very few shows on TV described on a separate audio channel for the visually impaired.)

  “The people who are writing (the scripts) have begun to know me and my rhythms and the sound of my voice and my approach, so that when you start to match, it becomes a mating of -- of disciplines -- the director of the video, editor of the video, the writer, and myself,” said Abraham. “This kind of thing simply doesn't happen very often in our business.”

  It's not just that “Nature” sounds great, thanks to high definition TV and the latest and greatest portable technology, “Nature” looks better than it ever did back in the day. The images of silvery rows of bees clinging to honeycombs are dazzling, even when viewed on my low-definition TV set at work.

  “Smaller cameras, lipstick cameras, different types of recording devices -- they're much more portable, they're better-made, they're cheaper and they're easier to take with us on a location,” said Fred Kaufman, the show's longtime executive producer. “Everything has been ratcheted up a bit for some really beautiful images.”

  Some ratcheting down on the script would be welcome, though.