The National Geographic Channel announced Thursday that it will re-telecast the documentary “Restrepo” at 9 p.m. Monday, after news that Tim Hetherington — one of two men who made the film — was killed Wednesday while covering the combat in Libya.
In January 2010, the channel acquired the global broadcast rights to “Restrepo,” in which Hetherington and journalist Sebastian Junger (author of “The Perfect Storm”) chronicled the deployment of a U.S. Army platoon stationed at one of the most dangerous outposts in Afghanistan.
NatGeo ran the Academy Award-nominated film in November. The replay will include a tribute to Hetherington, NatGeo said.
The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost in the Korengal Valley called Restrepo, which was named for a medic who was killed in action.
On Aug. 7, Hetherington and Junger went to the Summer TV Press Tour to talk about “Restrepo.” Hetherington was asked what makes him “need to go and do all this difficult work?” and whether there was “any adrenaline or any sort of thing like that that’s also something that you seek out.”
“It’s important to cover stories that gave meaning to me,” Hetherington answered.
“You know, adrenaline is a small part of that, but it’s not really the reason why I go back,” he said. “The same for the soldiers when they fight. Soldiers fight in war for, ultimately, brotherhood. The adrenaline is a part of it but not the driving factor.”
‘Idol’ shift
Fox is moving “American Idol” back to Tuesday and Wednesday nights — but only for the season finale.
The final performance episode will air May 24. The final results night, when the winner (cough — James Durbin — cough) is crowned, will air May 25.
Why the move?
The official 2010-11 TV season ends the night of May 25. If this season’s final “American Idol” results show aired Thursday night that week, as it has all this season, Fox would not get to include the show’s sure-to-be-big ratings in the network’s season average.
Last season’s finale was no barnburner, and it managed to clock 24 million viewers. Fox doesn’t have many shows that attract 24 million viewers. Heck, Fox doesn’t have any other shows that have 24 million viewers.
Fox had decided to move the hit reality series from its traditional Tuesday-Wednesday play pattern and air it instead Wednesday and Thursday nights to establish a beachhead on Thursday night. CBS had moved its Thursday reality hit “Survivor” to Wednesday, so there was plenty of room for “Idol” on Thursday.
Thursday night is big in the broadcast-TV world — it’s when movie studios really like to start pitching their weekend openings in a big way, for instance, because we apparently decide Thursday night what movie we’re going to see that weekend.
It’s also apparently the night we decide what new car we’re going to go test-drive that weekend, and which new washer and dryer we want to look at. Weird, I know — but the networks have research. Put “Idol” on Thursdays and movie studios, car companies and appliance retailers come pouring in, wanting to reach their potential customers — and willing to pay “Idol” ad rates. Everybody wins.
Oprah books Frey
Truth-challenged author James Frey and Oprah Winfrey will continue their use-use relationship next month when he appears on one of her very last shows while she is Queen of Syndicated Daytime Talk TV.
Oprah’s Harpo Productions won’t say what day he’ll show up — just that it will be “sometime in May.”
Naturally, Oprah’s looking to attract the biggest audiences possible for her final few episodes so she can go out with a bang.
Frey will appear for the whole hour, to talk about his new novel, “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible.”
When last we saw Frey and Oprah together on her show, in January 2006, he was on the receiving end of quite a verbal walloping. Oprah was understandably upset. First, she endorsed the guy’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” and had him on her show to plug the book, which promptly shot to 2 million copies sold.
Then, when rumors started that Frey had partially fabricated the story, Oprah stood by him in interviews, causing pundits and navel-gazers to look at her squiggly-eyed and write unpleasant things about her credibility.
Then, it became painfully clear that he had, in fact, fabricated parts of his story.
So there he was, on Oprah’s show, with his tail between his legs while being lit into by the Queen of Syndicated Daytime Talk TV — after she’d first told her viewers, “I made a mistake” defending Frey and his book. On that show, Frey for the first time acknowledged that in writing “A Million Little Pieces,” he systematically lied.
“I feel that you betrayed millions of readers. . . . That bothers me greatly. . . . I feel that you conned us all,” Oprah pounded and pounded some more.
It was brilliant television.
“She was unrelenting,” William Bastone, founder of the Smoking Gun Web site — which had eviscerated Frey’s book — told The Washington Post. “I thought she was incredible. I thought she was fabulous.”
(In fall 2008, Oprah reportedly contacted Frey to apologize for that on-screen drubbing.)
Now, Oprah has a show to wrap up and historic ratings to try to achieve. Frey has a new novel to plug, about the second coming of Jesus in contemporary times as an active bisexual former alcoholic with a prostitute girlfriend who aborts her first child.
Oprah and Frey: on again. It’s a match made in heaven.
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