TV REVIEW : A Fitting Finale for ‘Smithsonian World’

“The Doors of Perception,” airing tonight at 8 on Channels 28 and 15, is in many ways a fitting finale for the “Smithsonian World” series, which ends its run on public television with this broadcast.

Fitting because it strongly shows the imprint of series’ executive producer Sandra Wentworth Bradley, who guided the show during its six seasons on the air. Bradley is the producer-director of “Perception” and it offers her signature mix of the profound and the trivial, the intelligent and the insipid. “Perception” offers much food for thought--just don’t get thrown by some irritating moments disguised as deep discourse.

“The Doors of Perception’s” subject--an exploration of the relationship between the external world of “reality” and the internal world of human consciousness--is weighty stuff, difficult to capture on the small screen.

The show jumps around, from a look at cocaine use in the 19th Century to an interview with an artificial reality expert, from Balinese dancers to a group of neo-pagans, from a Catholic Carmelite monastery to an interview with artist Robert Irwin.

The mix never quite jells, and the show frequently loses sight of its subject, but there are a number of folks tossing a number of intriguing thoughts about. Big questions are asked--What really is real? What truly matters?--and some of the “answers” are stimulating.

All in all, “Smithsonian World”--with shows that encompassed all of the human experience--will be missed. (Its funding dried up.)

The series always challenged the mind, even if it didn’t always hit the mark. And that’s more than can be said of many of its contemporaries.