TV Reviews : Kibbles and Bits Make Up ‘The ‘90s’

The syndication market is flooded with TV “magazine shows,” certainly, but “The ‘90s”--a PBS series premiering tonight on Channel 28--may be the first television documentary series with a format genuinely akin to USA Today, full of amusing kibbles and bits instead of chunkier pieces.

Brevity is the key here: Tonight’s initial hour (airing at 10), which focuses on the theme “Money Money Money,” has no fewer than 20 segments; next week’s show, called “It’s Only TV,” features 13 reports. These contributions come from independent video documentarians all over the country, each week’s odd collection of short video pieces gathered around a single, very loose theme. It makes for wildly uneven but sometimes fun viewing.

No one will mistake tonight’s money-themed episode for the Financial News Network. The opening segment (not a very good one, alas) takes viewers inside the source of all cash flow, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. From there, it’s on to tax resisters, career counselors, Wall Street protesters, armchair economists and a bemused Quaker who sits alongside a freeway and pities “the lonely crowd” on its way to work.

Next week’s show takes on a more predictably lurid subject--the electronic media--with the legendary 1986 expose of TV faith healer Peter Poppoff’s method for getting divine revelations through a hidden earphone a highlight.

The overtly satirical segments are generally deadly. It seems no interviewee was considered too dull to be edited out. And beware of individual documentarians armed with a camcorder and a “Roger & Me” complex. At least “The ‘90s” lives up to its name--full of piffle, occasional information and useless, oddball stuff you might not want to miss.