There’s only one good reason for anybody to be watching TV on a holiday weekend like this one, and that’s because they or someone in the family is confined to bed.

Holidays are times to take advantage of the time off and find fun ways to connect with each other that doesn’t involve sitting around a TV screen.

But I also concede that sometimes that’s your best option.  Like it hasn’t stopped raining for three days and if you have to play one more game of Candyland, you’ll re-enact your favorite Heroes episode.

So just in case you can’t get out to see fireworks live on Saturday, you’ve basically got three options.  I personally recommend A Capitol Fourth, on PBS.  It’s the live broadcast of the c0ncert and fireworks from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.  And I have been in DC for that show and it’s a good one.

Not only that, Jimmy Smits is hosting, Barry Manilow will be there, and if you’ve got young ‘uns, several members of the Sesame Street gang will be there, including Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.  Check your local listings for times.

At 10 p.m. on CBS, The Boston Pops will do their annual thing with Neil Diamond performing and Craig Ferguson hosting.  And for those of you rolling your eyes, Diamond may have that cheesy reputation, but it ain’t as bad as Manilow’s.  And Diamond does put on a good show.

Finally, NBC is aiming a tad younger with Rob Thomas and Jewel headlining their broadcast of the Macy’s 4th of July Spectacular.  Also, the cast of the current revival of West Side Story will perform.  This show starts at 9 p.m.

Actually, all the times are Eastern, with tape delays for us in the Mountain and Pacific zones.  Sigh.

One final note – there will be no post on Monday.  That’s because I’m taking Friday off.  I’m going to avoid turning on my computer until Monday morning.  It’s a holiday, for crying out loud.  We need to relax.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

Not too long ago, I was thinking about writing up a film for this blog, but decided against it because the opening scenes were far too violent – and unnecessarily so.

Why do I say unnecessary?  Well,  just because there are some violent scenes in a movie or show, that doesn’t mean that the overall program is violent in nature.  The classic example, of course, is the film Schindler’s List, about how businessman Oscar Schindler rescued hundreds of Jews from a concentration camp during World War II by using them as labor in his factory.  It’s an incredibly violent film and the story really doesn’t have the same impact without seeing what the Nazis did to the Jews at the time.  But I don’t know anyone who would suggest the film preaches or encourages violence in others.

And what constitutes violence?  What about animals behaving according to their nature, such as lions running down and killing a gazelle? There’s death involved, caused by a purposeful attack.  But the lions do things like that because that’s how they eat.  They don’t kill for fun.  It’s their nature to hunt, so that’s what they do.  Does that count as violent behavior?

It’s important to think about these things because when we, as parents, are trying to figure out what’s appropriate for our kids to watch, there’s a lot of stuff to sift through.  What makes one show unforgiveable and another acceptable, even though maybe both end with the same number of bodies?

There are tons of studies, and it seems pretty obvious that too much screen violence isn’t good for anyone.  If that’s all you’re looking at, no duh, you’re going to view violent behavior as more positive, or even end up falling into a sense that the world is filled with cruelty and violence.  Especially if you’re foregoing normal social contact for watching violent media and playing violent games.

But that’s an extreme.  And I’m sorry, the other end of the spectrum, extreme non-violence, is pretty boring.  You’ve got to have some conflict or you end up with Special Agent Oso, in which a lost letter becomes a crisis sufficient to call in a special agent.  Yes, I know it’s for little kids, but puh-leeze.  At some point, little ones have to get some perspective on the world and making everything a crisis isn’t going to do it.

So what do we, as thinking caring parents do?  First off, I think we start by looking at what worries us about violence.  In my case, I worry about the hardened heart and cruel world syndromes.  Cases of folks being inspired to shoot up malls are extremely rare, and if they weren’t, we would have never survived the 1970s, when TV was extremely violent and the bad guy never came in alive.

But I can certainly see kids having a harder time developing compassion and an easier time of developing fears about the outside world and the unknown by watching too much violent television.  So when a show is violent, I have to look at who’s committing it and why.  Is it fantasy violence, in which the cartoon character falls off a cliff and bounces back?  Or there’s lots of shooting and no one dies?

The second step is moderation.  How much of what your kid watches is violent in nature?  All of it?  The odd show here and there?  I’m not going to worry about a kid who has one action adventure show on her watch list, especially if I’m there watching it with her.  A kid who wants to watch nothing but, I’m going to find some alternatives to add to the mix.

Finally, watch with your kids and talk to them about what they’re seeing.  Ask them why they think someone shot up someone else.  Ask them how they might resolve a similar situation peacefully.  And lead by example.  If all you’re watching is shoot ‘em ups when the kids aren’t around, they’ll catch on.  Also, develop non-violent habits and language.  Don’t joke about hurting and killing people or pets.  You don’t want to get sappy.  Yuck.  But you don’t want to glorify hurting others, either.

Violence is a tough issue and there is far too much of it on TV these days.  But like a lot of everything else, it also comes in a lot of shades of gray, and it’s up to us to decide which shades work for our individual  families.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

Courtesy Discovery Networks

I was telling my husaband about Monsters Inside Me, Animal Planet’s new series premiering tonight at 9 p.m.  The show is about parasites and parasitic disease and is about as gross as you can imagine.  My husband certainly did.

“Yuck,” he said.  “The eleven-year-olds are going to love it.”

And that may be the point.  It’s one thing to understand intellectually that the affinity for gross-out stuff that sets in around the ages of 10 to 12 is an early part of the onset of adolescense and part of the whole separation process that turns your dependent child into a functioning independent adult.  It’s another thing when all of a sudden your sweet little tyke starts laughing uproariously at the same poop jokes that you laughed at back in the day.  It’s jarring, trust me.

And, no, those jokes weren’t funny when we were kids and they still aren’t.  We’ve just grown up.  Your kids haven’t yet, and that is also the point.  Ang there is little that is charming about a tween sense of humor.  Nor is there much that is charming about Monsters Inside Me.

The good news is that the show, while gross and disgusting and big on the EEEEUW! side of things, also has some decent information.  The narration is only moderately hyped up – you don’t get a lot of relentless repetion regarding this bug doing that specific thing – although you do hear a fair amount commentary on how deadly parasites can be.  You also hear fairly frequently how uncommon most of these events are.  In fact, that’s one of the biggest problems in each of the case studies – because the disease is so rare, it’s very hard to diagnose.

If you have younger kids or a particularly sensitive child, you might want to find a way to find something else for them to do while you watch with your tween.  The show can be pretty scary.  In fact, I’ve been fighting off the heebie jeebies, myself, since I saw it.  But then, I passed eleven a long time ago.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

deGrasse Tyson trying to sing, photo courtesy PBS

NOVA scienceNOW may be intended as a video magazine for adults, but it’s a fun show for kids, too.  The fourth season kicks off tonight on PBS at 9 p.m. (but check your local listings because your local member station may have changed the time).  It’s part of PBS’ Super Science Tuesdays programming block for the summer.

But getting back to deGrasse Tyson – the man obviously knows his stuff and has that scientific mind and all that.  But he’s one of those rare individuals who can not only translate that knowledge for lay people, he can infuse it with a real passion for knowing and finding out.

Consider the opening to tonight’s segment on human-made diamonds (note to self – we do have to get the scienceNOW people on board with the gender-neutral language).  Using special effects, deGrasse Tyson does a wonderful take off on Raiders of the Lost Ark, that not only is silly, but it explains perfectly what we’re about to see.

It gets even sillier when deGrasse Tyson does the segment on AutoTune – software that the recording industry has been using for years to correct badly sung notes.  Warning – deGrasse Tyson gives them lots of badly sung notes to correct.

The point is, not only do we get some fascinating information about what’s going on in the world of science, but it’s presented in a way that’s fun and engaging.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t the numbers-crunching, coding, grunt-work side of science.  But you’re not going to get kids to be open to that without getting them excited about the process, first.  And we need girls to get excited about it as much as we need boys to.  Now, if only we could find an exciting show that can show the direct link between learning boring old algebra and making diamonds…

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

If you can get past the title of the show, Dance Your Ass Off, premiering tonight on Oxygen at 10 p.m., you might find some meat here.  Or you may not.

The show is basically a combination of So You Think You Can Dance with The Biggest Loser, Marissa Jaret Winokur as host.  The idea being that dance is an excellent way to get fit and healthy – which it is.

Personally, I can do without the elimination/competitive aspects, but they do work.  And there is an interesting twist to “The Bottom Two.”  The last two dancers are the ones who have lost the least – in terms of percentage of body weight – and they dance last.  It certainly ratchets up the suspense.

My only other complaint is that, especially for some of the contestants, there is far too much emphasis on weight as an aspect of appearance – they want to lose weight to look better.  The good news is that there is some sense that the contestants are often told they’re beautiful even before they lose the weight.  And one, I suspect, didn’t lose as much weight because she put on some muscle, which weighs more than fat.

Weight is a tricky issue these days.  There is some compelling evidence coming out recently that being thin is not an automatic ticket to good health.  But you don’t want to be too fat, either.  And another good thing about the show is that they’re pushing leading a healthy life-style, with lots of exercise and good food.

Ultimately, it’s more inspiring than not.  Do be aware, this is a 10p.m. show and there is the occasionaly inappropriate allusion (one of the judges, in fact, flat out said he knew where one of the contestants could earn some money if she didn’t win it).  Oh well.  We’ve all heard worse and nobody was suggesting she actually do it.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, photo courtesy Disney Channel

It’s actually a light weekend, programming-wise.  You’ll have your choice of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett retrospectives to choose from.  TVLand, for example is airing the first two episodes of its reality series Chasing Farrah at 9 p.m. on Saturday,preceded by two episodes of Charlie’s Angels, the series that made Fawcett famous (be aware, it was pretty violent).  Then on Sunday, the channel is doing back to back airings of its five-hour mini-series “The Jacksons – An American Dream” at 2 p.m., then again at 7 p.m.

For your tween girls, however, tonight is the big night.  Disney Channel is premiering its movie Princess Protection Program – a rather silly bit of fluff that actually starts out bad and gets better.

Disney, of course, is big on the whole princess thing, so of course, if you’re going to get two of your hotter stars (in this case Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez), you want to do a princess theme.  The hard part is that if you’re going to a modern-day tale, there aren’t a lot of European-style monarchies left to hang your story on.  So obviously, you’re going to have to create a fictional country.  That’s fine.

In this case, it’s Costa Luna.  The king has died and Princess Rosalinda (Gomez) is about to ascend the throne, even though she’s still a teen.  The only problem is bad guy General Kane (Johnny Ray Rodriguez), a neighboring dictator who assumes control of the tiny country by holding Rosalinda’s mother hostage.

Rosalinda, however, is rescued during the takeover by Joe Mason (Tom Verica), an agent in the Princess Protection Program – a top secret world agency that protects princesses in danger.  Because princesses are always in danger, right?  But for some unexplained reason, he takes this one home to hide with his own teen daughter Carter (Demi Lovato), a tomboy who helps him run his bait shop.

So we’ve got a fish out of water story, a find your true self story and plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon.  The good news is that when the story is focused on the two girls as real human beings, it actually works after a fashion.  It’s all the artifice surrounding the princess thing that doesn’t.  We see Rosalinda as a very nice, almost deferential young woman at home, then all of a sudden she gets imperious and orders Carter around when she first gets there.  It creates conflict but doesn’t make sense in terms of the character.

I could go on and on.  The bottom line is that while this isn’t the best written script by a long shot, there are good moments, such as when the girls chose to learn from each other, and face up to the real-life dilemmas of being a teen-ager.

One final note, however.  The notes say that the movie was shot entirely in Puerto Rico, even though the American scenes are supposed to be Louisiana.  The problem is, I didn’t see one African American character in the entire film – and if there were any Blacks among the extras, I couldn’t find them.  And this is Louisiana?  Don’t think so.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

I’m not a particularly big fan of either Farrah Fawcett or Michael Jackson.  But it’s kind of hard to ignore that they both passed away today.  In fact, network news agencies are scrambling.  CBS and NBC have announced special news programs airing at 10 p.m. tonight.  CBS is focusing solely on Jackson, while NBC’s Dateline is looking at both Fawcett and Jackson.

ABC and Fox haven’t sent anything out yet, but who knows? Update – ABC just announced a special 20/20 tonight on Jackson at 9 p.m.

The thing that’s surprising about the CBS move is that they had some idea about Fawcett – whose bout with cancer has been reasonably well-publicized.  On the other hand, NBC does have all that footage from the broadcast earlier this spring.

Ah well.  How important you consider either Jackson or Fawcett will largely depend on your experience and how important you consider the cult of celebrity.  Personally, I am saddened by the passing of two more people from the planet.  So I nod in recognition of the iconic status of each and move on.  Only time will tell how profound their ultimate legacies will be.

Might be worth talking to your kids about, though.  One of the great realities of death is that it does help us get our priorities in place.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

It’s time to take the night off from TV again.  There really isn’t anything on.  And when the best I can come up with is the whole Jon and Kate Gosselin divorce (oh, like we didn’t see that one coming), it’s time to throw in the towel.

I know.  Did the glare of the spotlight trash another relationship?  What about the kids?  Should they even have been on TV in the first place and if they shouldn’t, who’s responsible?

These are the same questions that have been popping up since the culture of celebrity started almost 100 years ago – and if you really think about it, have been around since spouses got caught cheating.  So what’s the big deal?

It’s sad for the kids.  But it’s also none of our business and I’d just as soon keep it that way.

But, unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much else to write about.  So read a book tonight.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

We’ve got a billionaire wanting to get down and dirty with his giving and your brain on music tonight.

Courtesy NBC

First up is NBC’s new summer show The Philanthropist, at 10 p.m., starring James Purefoy as Teddy Rist, a billionaire adrenaline junkie who decides to do good works.  There’s some violence and implied sex and sex talk in the show, itself.  But it’s probably okay for middle school or older with supervision.

Overall, I thought it moved somewhat slowly and the characters weren’t all that involving.  That being said, I also thought that the show brought up some interesting ideas, like trying to exorcise your personal demons by going beyond writing a check and actually getting down and dirty in your giving.  Except that while Rist does risk his neck to get some cholera vaccine to a remote Nigerian village (and I couldn’t help but wonder what my Nigerian friends would think of the episode), he doesn’t really do the grunt work of working the food line or building the huts or whatever.  Of course that’s not as exciting to watch.

I also wonder how much of the uneveness in the show will work itself out in later episodes.  Somehow, I doubt it will get that much of a chance since nobody seems to be watching NBC these days and this show isn’t that good.  Yet.

Next up is The Music Instinct: Science and Song, which (you guessed it) is on PBS at whatever time your local station decides to air it.  Should be 9 p.m., but check your local listings.

Bobby McFerrin in The Music Instinct, Courtesy PBS

The film is about the neurological science behind the human need to make music, and it is fascinating.  Okay, it’s also about half an hour to an hour too long.  But that may be because there were aspects of the physics of sound that didn’t quite grab me.  The relationship between music education and brain development, that said a lot even before the actual subject came up.

Why, oh, why, with all this evidence that learning to play an instrument (including our voices) helps kids learn, do we still leave arts education an afterthought, if we fund it at all?  It’s one of those things that just makes me crazy about our current education system.

Because the film is two-hours long and not always the most riveting, you may want to record it ahead of time and play it in segments.  There’s a lot of meat here and as a parent, you might want to watch it with a view to thinking about how you are educating your kids.  Your older kids might enjoy it if they are either scientifically or musically gifted.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer

I hope I don’t come off too spacey here.  But my husband was alarmed enough to insist that I write with an open jar of Benedryl capsules next to me.  It may be stress.  Or it may be that I am, in fact, allergic to walnuts (which would totally mess me up since I believe that chocolate chip cookies and brownies with walnuts are truly among God’s greatest gifts to humankind).

Fear not.  The symptoms are very minor and I have not blown up like a puffer fish.  But I’m not feeling entirely myself, either.  Oh well.

The good news is that ABC’s new video player is now working on my computer.  The bad news is that I was unable to review their new game show The Superstars (premiering tonight at 8 p.m.) since the network only posted a highlight reel.  However, I do want to offer a big shout out to Michael Ng and Kerry Reis over at ABC Communications.  They’re the tech support guys and are suffering grievously getting the new player to work.  But they both got back to me today and I appreciate their efforts.

That being said, the fact that some language got bleeped in The Superstars highlight reel may be an issue.  Other than that, I’m almost tempted to watch it.

The conceit is that an athlete (and we’re talking some fairly heavy-duty folks here, including one of my personal faves basketball pro Lisa Leslie)  are paired with celebrities such as Paige Hemmis (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) and Julio Iglesias, Jr. and everyone competes in a series of games with one of the eight pairs being eliminated each night.  When the announcer on the highlight reel claimed that brawn was being paired with beauty, I initially cringed until I realized that a good chunk of the brawn was female, including tennis pro Jennifer Caprioti.

Of course, speaking of tennis, The Tennis Channel (yes, there really is one) is featuring Wimbledon coverage.  ABC Family (which as has been noted many times here is not all that family-friendly) is premiering the second season of The Secret Life of the American Teenager tonight as well.  And as I scanned the schedule for tonight, I saw that EWTN is featuring Mother Angelica Live.  While I personally can do without the judgmental old… ahem, nun, I find the “live” part interesting.  As in she’s still alive?  Well, to paraphrase that wonderful line from Fiddler on the Roof, may God bless her and keep her far way from us.

Anne Louise Bannon

Your Family Viewer