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‘48 Hours’ takes on polygamy
“48 Hours” takes on a full-court investigation of polygamy tonight (at 9 p.m. on CBS), pegged to the controversial revelations provided by the raid on the Eldorado compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.
The raid and the 450 children taken from their parents after a call alleging abuse has been front page news since April 3. Just last week a Texas appellate court ruled that officials did not have sufficient grounds to seize the children, but the whole mess is likely to be tied up in court for months.
CBS News has fanned out, sending Susan Spencer to investigate the sect’s practices and check on self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs, who continues to lead the sect from prison. (He was convicted of rape of a minor in connection with one of his teenage wives.) She interviews Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (who refers to the sect as “the American taliban”) and 21-year-old Elissa Wall, who was forced to marry at the age of 14.
Reporter Peter Van Sant engages in a hand-to-hand combat interview with Willie Jessop, who insists the sect does not break any laws and charges that Texas officials’ demand for birth certificates and DNA samples from church members is “un-American.”
“48 Hours” has been tracking two women who escaped from an sect community in Salt Lake City in 1999, when they were teenagers. Reporter Erin Moriarty reports on the status of one of the girls, now a young woman permanently separated from her family.
Finally, reporter Troy Roberts explores the face of modern polygamy. And yes, HBO’s “Big Love” pretty much has it right. A family consisting of one husband and three wives (two of them twins) lives in a “normal” suburb of Salt Lake City with their 22 children. They have regular jobs and wear modern clothes, but they face a daily challenge of fitting in and staying under the radar.
If you’ve been wondering about polygamy, this hour will answer lots of questions.
Bye bye, Jim
The season finale for “According to Jim” airs tonight at 7, which immediately brings to mind:
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
The ABC sitcom, an old-fashioned nuclear family model, is wrapping up its seventh (yes seventh) season and is not on the network’s recently announced fall schedule. So the back-to-back episodes serve as the show’s finale, the end of the run, the swan song of a show that debuted in 2001.
Will anybody care?
“Jim” has been a mediocre utility player throughout its run. ABC has dropped it from the schedule, picked it up and moved around more times than anyone can count. Unless you’re a devoted fan (and, seriously, who can that possibly be?), you might not even know it was still on the air.
Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne-Smith star as a married couple with children. She’s the smart one; he’s the doofus. The stereotypes are long-running and rampant. And incredibly tiresome …
If you feel the need to bid farewell to an ancient genre, tonight’s your chance.
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