This American Life — on Showtime

You’re likely familiar with Ira Glass and “This American Life”, the weekly NPR radio show. Did you know they have a TV series on the pay-cable channel Showtime? Last year, its first run, was pretty uneven. But this year, they’ve really hit their stride. I caught Episode 3 tonight, “Going Down in History,” very much like the radio show — one theme told in several acts, in this case three stories. 

You want to grasp the concept of a unique character? 

You want to see how in a matter of minutes, a viewer can become emotionally connected to a story’s character?

Check out the last story in this episode — a guy beaten up outside a bar one night, brain damaged from the assault, and now he lives in a semi-fantasy world of his own creation, populated by doll figures, playing out scenes of his own imagining set in WWII.