# 1162
On Sunday night the Discovery Science channel telecast a 2 hour docudrama on avian influenza. This production appeared earlier this summer on BBC's Horizon program, and featured Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic, and Professor John Oxford.
The shame is this show was shown on a relatively obscure cable channel, one that many homes simply do not get. It was not only good enough, it is important enough, to deserve a wider audience.
It is, I suppose, a sign of our times that we have so many channels of entertainment and information available to us that an important show gets lost in the clutter.
For those of us over about the age of 40, we remember when there were only 3 network channels in the United States. Networks routinely showed documentaries, in prime time. In 1960, Edward R. Murrow gave us Harvest of Shame on Thanksgiving Evening. This expose on migrant workers was widely watched, and shocked a nation.
But back then, TV, despite its reputation of being a vast wasteland, sometimes did things like that. Even during primetime.
Today, the big networks mostly rely on shows like The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives, relegating documentaries and such to the specialty channels. If something really important happens, like another O.J. Trial, I'm sure the big networks will rally and carry wall-to-wall non-stop coverage.
While few people actually watched this pandemic special, the good news is it can still be viewed on the Internet, if you have a relatively fast connection.
To view Pandemic, click here.
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