Choice 2012 even-handed
Frontline’s The Choice 2012, the sober, exhaustive, illuminating — and evenhanded — twin profile of U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, comes just days after Romney vowed to cut his government’s federal subsidy to public broadcasting.
The Choice hails from PBS, a public broadcaster that doesn’t get any money directly from the U.S. government. But it is not partisan or skewed in any way. It’s the kind of program that the echo chambers at MSNBC or Fox News can’t or won’t do.
Instead, viewers are treated to a Biography-style profile of leaders-in-themaking, from adolescence to adulthood, and how their family and life experiences shaped the men they became. “On the one hand, we have an incumbent,” veteran Frontline producer Michael Kirk told reporters. “A lot of people think they know everything there is to know about Barack Obama. And then you have a candidate in Mitt Romney who seems very controlled, very hidden in some ways, in terms of the major events that have happened in his life — his Mormonism, his faith, his time in the business world with Bain Capital. While the whole project seemed daunting in the beginning, it became a much more interesting film to make than I expected.” (WTVS — 7 p.m., PBS — 10 p.m.)
The Rick Mercer Report’s travels bring the titular host to Horseshoe Valley, Ont., where Mercer explores the wonders of recreational sports’ new It pastime, Zorbing. (CBC — 8 p.m.)
In Vegas, the hard-workin’, fun-lovin’ casino workers host a “hotheaded Mob kingpin,” who just happens to be Mia’s (Sarah Jones) dear old dad. (Global — 8 p.m., CBS — 11 p.m.)
In New Girl, a group of rowdy twentysomethings moves in across the hall and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield) are faced with a decision: ignore them or make friends. (Fox, Citytv — 10 p.m.)