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Also this issue: The Mars Volta Candid Camera Early Bookings |
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July 10-16, 2003
mixpicks
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Tukufu Zuberi is a respected sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. During his scholastic tenure, he's written Thicker than Blood (University of Minnesota Press) on the subject of wrong-headed African-American test scores, racially motivated eugenics and a society that would calculate such; been named director of its Center for Africana Studies (where he got the title "the Barry White of academe" from U of P faculty member Michael Eric Dyson) and was named one of Philadelphia's 76 smartest people by Philadelphia mag. So what the hell is this guy doing, wasting his time doing television? Zuberi is one of four hosts for PBS' new series History Detectives, a gripping, oddly funny program that mixes bits of the forensic frenzy of shows like Cold Case Files and I, Detective with the whimsy of Time Bandits. This non-Mod Squad takes on American historical mysteries in order to root out the true from the false, the folklore from the fact, with the use of old-fashioned nosiness and newfangled CSI-style technologies. If episode one is any example, there's scads devoted to our very area, as New Jersey is spotlighted for its history of white prejudices toward black ballplayers in the 20th century, why pebbles along Mantoloking beach have eerie faces and why President Ulysses S. Grant spent so much time hanging around the Morristown fire station. If you can make Morristown interesting -- and it does -- History Detectives must be very good.
History Detectives debuts Mon.-Thu., July 14-17, 8 p.m., WHYY-TV 12, thereafter Mondays, 9 p.m.
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