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TV Tidbits: 'Extreme Makeover' builds new house for North Carolina family
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Published: March 13, 2009
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, an ABC series, is helping another family in North Carolina.
This week, the show has been in Jamesville, a town in Martin County, completing work on a new house for Jeff and Clara Cooper and their children, Aaron and Windy. Jeff Cooper is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War who has Gulf War syndrome and multiple sclerosis.
The show has demolished their aging double-wide mobile home and has replaced it with a custom-designed house built by about a thousand volunteers.
The family has been sent on vacation to Washington during the construction and is due back today to see the results. "It's very exciting," Aaron, a 14-year-old student at Jamesville High School, said in a report published in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance. "I'm anticipating more space in the house."
The episode is scheduled to air May 24.
Fans of the offbeat crime drama Life on Mars may hope that ABC is pulling an April Fool's Day prank. But the show will end April 1, a victim of low ratings. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the season finale was written as a possible series finale in case the show wasn't picked up for another year.
The public-television series P.O.V. is making some of its documentaries available for free viewing online at www.pbs.org/pov.
Viewers can watch a selection of full-length and short documentaries. The selection will change every few weeks. There are currently five full-length films: My American Girls: A Dominican Story, about a family of first-generation immigrants; Sweet Old Song, about the life of a fiddle player; Critical Condition, about the health-care crisis; Campaign, about the rituals of Japanese electoral politics; and 9 Star Hotel, about a group of Palestinian men working illegally as construction workers in an Israeli city.
The site also has two short films: the 14-minute City of Cranes, about the work of crane drivers, and the eight-minute Ars Magna, about a man obsessed with anagrams.
PlayStation 3 and PSP users are now able to download TV shows and movies to their game systems.
Sony, the company behind both products, announced a deal this week with NBC Universal to make shows available the day after they air and movies available the week they are released on DVD.
The movies are available to own in standard definition or can be rented in either SD or high definition. The TV shows will be available to buy in either SD or HD. Movies will include such new releases as Milk and Role Models, plus older titles including Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Wanted and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. The initial lineup of TV shows available includes The Office, Heroes, 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica and Eureka.
Robbie Coltrane is best known in the United States for his role as Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies. But in England, he has had a long career in both comedy and drama. One of his most popular roles was that of Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a sarcastic, boorish but brilliant forensic psychologist in the series Cracker. The series ran from 1993 to 1995 and was followed by several specials, the most recent in 2006. It is now available on DVD in the 10-disc boxed set Cracker: The Complete Collection from Acorn Media.
An older British series, The Baron, is also available in a complete-series boxed set. This stylish series, which was shown on ABC in 1966, follows an international antiques dealer who helps the British intelligence service track down stolen art objects.
Also on DVD this week: the first season of The Starter Wife, with Debra Messing as a recently divorced woman trying to start a new life; the second seasons of Get Smart, a 1960s spy spoof, and Caroline in the City; and the fifth season of Family Ties, Michael J. Fox's popular 1980s sitcom.
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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