"P.O.V.: 49 Up." Tonight at 9, PBS (WNET-Ch. 13).One of the earliest experiments in the reality TV genre remains, after more than 40 years, one of the very best. It's the Michael Apted series of "... Up" documentaries, and it only gets better with time.
That's because its subject, more than anything else, is time.
The PBS series "P.O.V." concludes its 20th season tonight at 9 (WNET/Ch. 13) with "49 Up," the seventh film in the cycle of seven-year visits with the same small sample of British citizens.
Apted, before directing "Coal Miner's Daughter" and long before directing episodes of HBO's "Rome," worked on the first film, "7 Up," in 1964. That project was a documentary for Granada TV, asking a wide range of schoolchildren across England, all age 7, about their hopes, dreams, hobbies, feelings and anything else.
Taken by itself, "7 Up" was interesting only because, at the time, few people on TV, other than Art Linkletter, was getting youngsters to speak openly about anything. But the filmmakers had grander visions in mind, and their vision crystallized a bit, seven years later, when Apted reunited with the subjects of the original for a sequel, "14 Up."
Then came "21 Up," "28 Up" and so on. Tonight we're up to "49 Up," which includes a look at one of the people who has boycotted the series for more than two decades. It also includes what may be the last look at a woman who, at age 49, has had enough of the locust-like media intrusions.
"Every seven years," she tells Apted this time, "it all gets opened up again, and it's difficult."
She warns him that, unless she feels differently in the intervening few years, "I shall bow out."
It's a little difficult to watch, too, because you see dreams shattered, marriages ended, careers stopped. But you also see the rebirth of hope, the love of children and grandchildren, and all sorts of lessons - and perspectives - that come with the passage of time.
You don't have to have seen any of the other films in the series to feel the full impact of "49 Up." Clips from all the other documentaries are included, and the effect is like flipping rapidly through other people's scrapbooks. They may not be relatives - but by the time "49 Up" is over, you'll feel like you know them.
And you may well be reflecting about your own life, wherever you are on the spectrum, as well.
davidbianculli@comcast.net
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