A less-than-perfect picture of ‘This American Life’

WATCH enough “This American Life” (Showtime, Thursday at 10:30 p.m.) and the very act of fairly and accurately capturing something through media, especially visual media, feels more and more like a ridiculous proposition. Several segments aired over the last few weeks are predicated on a sort of skepticism about just that possibility. In one, a news photographer who captured a woman drowning and didn’t intervene has switched his metier to cheerier work. In another, graphic novelist Chris Ware illustrates a tale of how carrying fake cameras inured a group of schoolchildren to violence in their midst.

Mediation -- it changes the observed act, and it can change the observer.

As a radio show, “TAL” has long been charming and small -- sometimes cute, sometimes profound and always delicate. “TAL” the TV show, though, toes the line between delicate and precious. At least in part, it pretends to be about the profundity of ordinary people. Rarely are the stories told here the sort that are covered elsewhere. These are marginal tales, and often refreshingly so.

But, at its worst, the televised version of “TAL” can feel like a prank on its subjects. Sometimes it reads as bad ethnography, a sort of “Body Ritual of the Nacirema” for Generation X, but without the punch line. Ira Glass’ questioning can leave the distinct impression that not only is he interested in sussing out a good story, but that he’d like his subjects to also take something away from their interaction. (At least twice this season, he’s been told how wrong he was in his assumptions by his interviewees, though leaving those interactions in the show is brave, it should be said.)

Nevertheless, there remains much to recommend “TAL.” The camerawork is confident and often lyrical, particularly when it comes to bold color and use of lighting. (A couple of visual tropes recur, though, which end up smacking of gimmickry.) And the show succeeds in finding participants who are genuinely willing to submit to the documentary process, with little apparent hesitation: In the first episode, a cattle owner is mauled by his favorite bull (a clone of his prior favorite), and he lets Glass interview him in his hospital bed.

Still, too often “TAL” is at a distance -- not ironic, but a bit too considered. Glass’ spoken outros, which always feature a snippet of slightly ludicrous dialogue from the show, feel disingenuous and smug. And the assumptions written into the show can grate: In one episode, a young white woman reads her teenage diary to an audience, and seems to get as many laughs for the ethnic last names of her crushes as for the ridiculous things she does with them.

This week’s first-season finale (the show has just been renewed for a second season) features two segments, each representative of one of the show’s weaker impulses. The first focuses on modern pig farming -- or, worse, on how the “TAL” crew reacted to spending time on a pig farm. After seeing a pig give birth, the sound man vomits into his mask, then swears off meat. And that’s it -- there’s no explanation or justification, just a few dismissive comments about pigs. It’s indulgent and maybe a bit snide, undermining the beauty of the footage.

The episode’s second half is about a Chicago hot dog restaurant where, during late-night weekend hours, the largely white clientele verbally berate the serving staff, all of whom appear to be black. The store owners -- a pair of white men -- are interviewed about the dynamic, but casually so. “TAL” treats the environment like a curio, as if they’re scared to really engage. There’s that camera, again, keeping things at a remove. Considering what an uncomfortable spectacle is at play here, the distance is disturbing. This, and many of the subjects of “TAL,” often deserve better, and more. Instead, the overall effect is that of a dog harmlessly sniffing a flower -- or a rotting carcass -- nudging it around a bit with its nose and then moseying along, unaffected.