TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: March 28
A select viewing guide for Thursday, March 28
REALITY My Teenage Wedding (Slice, 7 p.m.) Launched several weeks ago, this new Canadian series profiles teen couples absolutely insistent on getting hitched. This being a reality series, the entire reason to watch naturally stems from the young couple’s friends and relatives telling them to hold off on their cliff dive into matrimony. Watch the sparks fly in tonight’s new episode when Leah, 18, and her boyfriend Codey, 19, make plans to walk down the aisle. Leah’s mother thinks her daughter should probably finish high school first; Codey’s best man thinks his pal is making a huge mistake. And things get even more complicated when Codey’s fiancée, mother and grandmother get into a nasty scrap over where the newlyweds should live. Ah, young love.
NATURE The Nature of Things (CBC, 8 p.m.) Hey, remember the beaver? The industrious, semi-aquatic rodent adorns the back of our nickel but most Canadians don’t give the beaver a second thought. Written and directed by Jari Osborne, the documentary The Beaver Whisperers provides fresh insight into the noble castor Canadensis, which has been on the planet for an estimated 30-million years and will apparently play a significant role in the planet’s future. The film travels to Quebec’s Gatineau Park, where the University of Alberta professor Dr. Glynnis Hood and former trapper Michel Leclair have enlisted a veritable army of beavers to help them control flooding in the area. Will the beaver be the hero that reverses the effects of global warming and prevents the looming crisis of world-wide water shortages? Watch and feel proud.Michael Runtz
DOCUMENTARY Doc Zone (CBC, 9 p.m.). Memory loss comes with growing older, but take heart that we can actually do something to improve our powers of recollection. This film from Montreal filmmaker Josh Freed travels the globe to deconstruct the many mysteries of human memory. Freed talks to Kitchener, Ontario native Dave Farrow, who was diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid but now holds the Guinness World Record for Greatest Memory. There’s also a visit to the annual World Memory Championships, where last year’s champ, British accountant Ben Pridmore, memorized pi to 50,000 decimal place. Along the way, the film includes simples tips and tricks to improve your own memory, which includes making acronyms and taking mental snapshots of important items. If nothing else, you might remember where you left the TV converter.
FASHION What Not to Wear (TLC, 10 p.m.) All good things and rescue fashion missions eventually have to come to an end. TLC’s makeover series wraps its 10 th season tonight, after which style mavens Stacy London and Clinton Kelly will take a break before filming season 11 (which should arrive sometime next fall). And based on advance clips, they saved the toughest case for last: Meet Elizabeth, a pleasant wife and mom whose floral smocks and mom jeans have her kids cringing with embarrassment. As in makeovers past, Stacy and Clinton begin the process with a ruthless cleanout of Elizabeth’s closet.
MOVIE The Last Temptation of Christ (Vision, 11 p.m.) Not your typical Easter story, this unflinching look at the life and times of Jesus Christ stirred up quite a ruckus back in 1988. Based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis and directed by Martin Scorsese, the film cast Willem Dafoe in the role of Jesus, with the central assumption that the son of God was a mere mortal and therefore not immune to the human frailties of fear, doubt, depression and, of course, lust. What really had the devout marching in front of theatres was the fantasized sex scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey). Watch for pop star David Bowie in a brief screen turn as Pontius Pilate.