Frontline

Frontline infobox 5/4/10 'Frontline' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: Not rated

First-year medical student Hannah Segal sees the same patients and finds herself managing the same ailments during her frequent visits to a community health clinic on downtown Los Angeles' skid row. It's not the most glamorous or desired duty among her USC classmates, many of whom aspire to prestigious, high-paying medical specialties. But her work on the front lines of patient care has helped Segal find her passion. "I'm always really excited to come here," she said. "I get to really problem-solve over time.

'Frontline: The Vaccine War' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

Take Shelter Sony, $30.99; Blu-ray, $35.99 Writer-director Jeff Nichols re-teams with his "Shotgun Stories" star Michael Shannon for "Take Shelter," a film about a blue-collar, small-town family man who worries that a recurring apocalyptic dream is either a prophecy or a sign that he's mentally ill. "Take Shelter" is more ponderous than it needs to be and too predictable as the hero suffers one setback after another. But Nichols is less concerned with those losses than he is in how people react to a loved one's mania.

At a time when the Public Broadcasting Service is coming under fire for what some conservatives believe to be its political bias, its weekly documentary series "Frontline" is preparing to enter a fifth season with a series of reports that promise to provoke as well as to inform.

Lest you think that "Front-line," TV documentary's Parnassus, is above any concerns over ratings, a glance at its "Monsters Among Us" (tonight at 9 on KCET Channel 28 and KPBS Channel 15; 8:30 on KVCR Channel 24; Wednesday at 9 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50) will wipe away any illusions.

TV is at its best covering war, tragedy and blizzards. And with tonight's episode of "Frontline," PBS' much-heralded documentary series(9 p.m. on Channels 28 and 15), we get a chilling look at all three. "The Bombing of West Philly" offers the amazing history of a decade-long war between Philadelphia police and a black radical group known as MOVE.

Take Shelter Sony, $30.99; Blu-ray, $35.99 Writer-director Jeff Nichols re-teams with his "Shotgun Stories" star Michael Shannon for "Take Shelter," a film about a blue-collar, small-town family man who worries that a recurring apocalyptic dream is either a prophecy or a sign that he's mentally ill. "Take Shelter" is more ponderous than it needs to be and too predictable as the hero suffers one setback after another. But Nichols is less concerned with those losses than he is in how people react to a loved one's mania.

Lights, action, AIDS. He was Fabian Bridges, a gay man with AIDS, a miserable, wretched, uncaring victim-turned-victimizer who used his body as a lethal weapon. Even as he was dying, Fabian continued to have promiscuous sex, knowing he could be infecting his unknowing partners with the fatal AIDS virus. "I'm just to the point where I just don't give a damn," he said without emotion. What an awful, awful illness. And what an awful, awful person.

"Frontline" checks in tonight with a gloomy assessment of the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and an equally pessimistic view of whether the U.S. can prod/seduce/jawbone/bribe the Pakistani government into truly confronting Al Qaeda forces in its border region. In political terms, the title says it all: "Obama's War." President Obama has called Afghanistan "a necessary war" compared with the war in Iraq, which he opposed and vows to end. The rhetoric helped squelch Hillary Rodham Clinton -- an early supporter of the Iraq war -- in the Democratic primaries and defeat the hawkish John McCain in the general election.

Last Oscar season, author Sebastian Junger and photojournalist Tim Hetherington walked the red carpet together. Their documentary "Restrepo," recorded while they were embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan's remote and dangerous Korengal Valley, was nominated for an Academy Award. For months the two men had lived with the troops, sharing the same food, the same stifling quarters, and the same long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of adrenaline-fueled terror.

The biggest of USC's men's basketball players should also be the biggest factors this season in determining the Trojans' success. Nikola Vucevic, the smooth-shooting Serbian, and Alex Stepheson, the brutish, broad-shouldered Angeleno. Both are 6 feet 10. Vucevic, a 240-pound junior, relies on finesse. Stepheson, a 250-pound senior, counts on power. So different, yet the best of friends. And both so important as USC tries to improve on a 16-14 record forged last season amid the tumult of self-imposed penalties and an NCAA investigation.

Torii Hunter is an aspiring general manager, and he's had several lengthy conversations with Tony Reagins in the last two weeks, so the Angels centerfielder knows how stressful the run-up to Saturday's trade deadline has been for the team's GM. "Do you hurt your future or do you try to get someone now?" Hunter said in the wake of Sunday's deal that brought ace Dan Haren to Anaheim and sent four players, including left-hander Joe Saunders and two highly regarded pitching prospects, to Arizona.

There's not much love out there for upscale single black women who have been publicly lamenting their lack of marital options. And I'm not talking love as in romance. My Saturday column about successful black women stuck on single because of a shortage of comparable black men drew plenty of response from readers, but very little sympathy. The consensus — delivered through stinging stereotypes and blunt from-the-trenches advice — went something like this, from an e-mail by Alan, a "white middle-aged man" in Woodland Hills: "Any male, black or not, would be intimidated by the loud, raucous, foul-mouthed 'braying' of so many black women.

The sap is running on a crisp spring morning — sugar maples along the roads are festooned with every manner of container, from gallon milk jugs to shining buckets. Steam and smoke waft upward from jury-rigged sugar shacks and multiroom log sugar houses worthy of a spread in Architectural Digest. This variety is typical across the country — the small producer's next-door neighbor might be a multimillion-dollar producer. But beneath the bucolic image, there are questions.

Frontline infobox 5/4/10 'Frontline' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: Not rated

Frontline Wireless, the company that sought to build a nationwide public-safety network, closed down, raising the likelihood that it won't bid in a U.S. government sale of airwaves set to start this month. "Frontline is closed for business at this time," spokeswoman Mary Greczyn said Tuesday. "We have no further comment." Greczyn declined to say whether the shutdown was permanent or whether the closely held company had abandoned its plans to bid in the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction.

I want you to know that after viewing the April 6 episode of "Frontline" about street cops, I was so moved that I felt pity for both the cops and the suspects. Please let the "Frontline" people know that they must continue their endeavor in the pursuit of human nature. The show was wonderful! Michael Lunsford, Pasadena

Let's hear it for " Frontline," which continues to take on topics for no earthly reason save they're important. In this week's "College Inc.," you won't meet lovely coeds who are stripping to make tuition or nerdy con men amassing small fortunes through pre-fab thesis papers. No, it's all those Universities of Phoenix, whose signs are becoming more ubiquitous than lap-band billboards, and their fellow for-profit colleges that the show's indefatigable correspondent Martin Smith has in his sights.

'Frontline: The Vaccine War' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)