from the TV Barn archives
Click here to return to the home page.

Pick to click

On paper, tonight's "Dateline NBC" (9 p.m. Friday) wouldn't seem worthy of a full hour of network TV time. It's about people whose medical claims were denied because the insurance company pulled a bureaucratic fast one.

But by the end of this carefully explained report, it's clear this is much more than another story about patients up against a faceless and heartless insurance system. The maneuver is called a "paper review" and, as correspondent John Larson explains, few regulators he spoke to even knew it existed. Larson reports that insurance companies routinely use outside firms to review suspicious medical claims. They're called paper reviews because the doctor never sees the patient while conducting the review.

Which can be a problem — especially when the doctor isn't a doctor, but a free-lance journalist filling in a few blanks from a template supplied by the review firm. Factor in a very slippery company president and two hard-luck cases of claim denial and you've got a surprisingly gripping hour of TV.

Also Saturday, Bill Kurtis slips into the denim and moseys out west to profile "The Real Cowboy: Portrait of an American Icon." The two-hour special looks at the shaping of the cowboy myth in Hollywood (actor Richard Farnsworth is interviewed) and contrasts it with the realities of cowboy life, then and now. The program is airing, not on Kurtis' usual stomping grounds at A&E, but sister network The History Channel, 11 a.m. Saturday.

But that's just my opinion ... Al!

No, you didn't mishear the news in your early-morning fog: Dennis Miller really is going to be the third man in the booth this fall for "Monday Night Football." The comedian best known for reading the fake news on "Saturday Night Live" and for his current live show on HBO will go live with play-by-play man Al Michaels and jockocracy rep Dan Fouts when ABC launches the 31st season of "MNF" Sept. 4.

I'll have more to say about this next week. Longtime readers of TV Barn and its predecessor, Late Show News, know that I've tracked Denny's career for years. What do you think? I'd like to hear from you. Personally, I wonder where a guy who's spent the past few years telling us how much he enjoys having six months off will muster the energy to crack wise with Fouts and Michaels.

On this date...

in 1962, TV Guide runs a layout of super star "Mr. Ed" doing the Twist.

June 24: in 1949, NBC becomes the first network to give cowboys and Indians a shot, with a series of repackaged "Hopalong Cassidy" serials. Though all episodes were seen 15 years earlier in movie houses, star William Boyd (now age 50) provides new narration and even gets back in the saddle for a scene or two. -- Tom Heald

Previously at TV Barn:

 

Copyright © 1999-2001 Aaron Barnhart | Back to TV Barn home