I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the PBS series Frontier House. It was shown on Twin Cities Public Television in three 2-hour segments on Monday through Wednesday evenings, April 29-May 1, and the whole series will be repeated on Sunday, May 5, from noon to 6 pm.

I know that not all PBS affiliates follow the same schedule. So I'm advising all Mudcatters to go pbs.org now, and follow a link to your local station (see "Station Finder" in the upper right corner), and find out when the show will be shown or repeated in your area. If you can't watch it, tape it or get somebody to tape it for you. Even if you can watch it, you may want to tape it anyway because you may want to watch it more than once. I plan to.

I haven't been this moved by a PBS series since Ken Burns' "Civil War" or maybe "Lewis & Clark."

The concept is that 3 families have to live like homesteaders in Montana in 1883. I guess that makes it "reality" TV, but it's a lot more real than "Survivor" and the other crap that gets shown on commercial TV. There is no phony competition, or voting on who gets kicked out. (Although one of the kids does say, at one point, "I wish we'd get kicked out.") It's a bit like The 1900 House which was produced in London, but more dramatic and more relevant to me at least, because it's closer to how my own ancestors lived 2 or 3 generations ago. Heck, it's closer to how my parents lived when they were kids.

There's only a little bit of homemade music in it, but that doesn't matter. It's about the kind of things songs are written about, and that's what should matter.

I could say more, but I want to hear your comments first