Ionarts Tells You to Watch Television

Ionarts' man on the ground in Hollywood, Todd Babcock, writes here on film and other things when he can, most recently last September with a review of Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Lately, Todd has been exceptionally busy, with auditions and work, something about which all of us are very happy. So, although we miss reading his remarks on movies, we are doing our best to understand.


Now, this may be a first for Ionarts: we want you to watch television. And not an opera or other cultural programming (rare as it is). We want you to tune in to CBS this Friday, for the April 28 episode ("Sex, Toys, and Videotape") of a television show called Close to Home (on Fridays at 9 pm EST). Lawyer Annabeth Chase (the very attractive Jennifer Finnigan) prosecutes a man for the murder of a woman strangled on her wedding night. Chase discovers that the woman was already secretly married, a fact that may have had something to do with her murder. Writing credits go to Erica Shelton and Lindsay Jewett Sturman, and Lewis H. Gould directs. Our very own Todd Babcock guest stars as Jeffrey Drake.

Todd also tells me that he recently shot an episode of Cold Case, which will air on Sunday, April 30, 8 pm, also on CBS. This episode, The Hen House (no. 67), is about "the 1945 case of a murdered newspaper reporter. [...] New evidence suggests that the woman was thrown in front of a passing train by someone she knew." David Von Ancken directs the story written by Craig Turk. In the wildest turn of events, Todd plays the character Noah Pool in the scenes set in 1945, and Peter Graves -- yes, that Peter Graves of Airplane and so on -- plays the character in the present. That is a stitch.

Set your Tivo!