The latest ”Frontline” installment, ”Coming From Japan” (9 p.m. Tuesday, PBS-Ch. 11), begins with the forcefulness of a good novel: ”The first time I met an American was a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.” The man speaking these words, and many other equally engrossing ones throughout the hour, is Shuichi Kato, a white-haired writer and social critic who serves as guide for this investigative piece.
The focus of the hour is on Matsushita, the electronics giant that did not attract serious public attention until its 1990 purchase of MCA-Universal for $6.8 billion.
Even though most Americans-even I, until watching this show-would have a hard time correctly pronouncing the company`s name, its controversial history addresses many of the diciest elements of the increasingly headline-grabbing U.S.-Japanese business relations.
But what makes this more than a solid investigation is the perspective Kato brings to it. In his words and observations come an understanding of the Japanese and their business culture.
Here is a sampling:
”In our society, even the Japanese can be outsiders, but the ultimate outsider is the foreigner.”
”More important than religion, or ideology, perfection to us is almost an aesthetic sense, deep in our culture and hard for others to imitate.”
”This is what Americans have not understood. The walls of Japanese corporate life that shut you out shut us in. The power of Japanese
corporations is a problem for Americans-and for us, as well.”
The show makes a case that the U.S., distracted with the Cold War`s
”evil empires,” allowed the Japanese to take control of the TV and VCR markets. Kato says the U.S. was ”careless with its future.”
”Japan would unfailingly support U.S. foreign policy,” he says. ”In return, the U.S. would overlook our transgressions in trade. . . . The U.S. government`s actions were inept almost to the point of scandal.”
With few interesting images at his disposal-talking heads, factory assembly lines, newspaper headlines, TV commercials-producer Thomas Lennon has fashioned a captivating work, carried on the shoulders of Kato.
– ”Can You Believe TV Ratings?” (8 p.m. Tuesday, PBS) is a show I`m sure the people at Nielsen and Arbitron don`t want you to watch.
It correctly states that TV ratings are ”life and death” and then intriguingly explores whether those ratings are even close to being accurate. An installment of ”Nova,” the show tries its best to be accessible, taking us behind the scenes of the new sitcom ”Good & Evil.”
On paper, this show had all the makings of a hit: producers and stars with proven track records. It failed, this show asserts, not so much for creative reasons but because of poor ratings that might not even be correct.
The show charts the history of TV ratings, from the days of a diary system to the terribly flawed ”people meter” system. It interviews advertising types, TV honchos and Northwestern University professor Peter Miller.
Most interestingly, or frighteningly, it examines some of the methods that might one day be employed to more correctly measure audiences.
Miller says there is ”an Orwellian quality” to some of them, especially a watch gizmo that would provide information not only about what you watched but what you read and ate.
There`s also a scary scanning system being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At times statistically dense, the show answers the question posed in its own title with a loud, ”No.”
– What a messy movie Robert Urich has gotten himself into, and what an unlikable clod he plays: a blind professor framed for murder and stalked by a psychotic killer. ”Blind Man`s Bluff” (8 p.m. Wednesday, USA cable network) is a thriller in press-release hyperbole only.
What more is there to tell you than that Urich explains his blindness to a hooker by saying: ”I got a disease four years ago. You never heard of it.” The dog playing Urich`s pal and helper is the best thing-the only good thing-about the film.
Vastly better, though one-third as long, is the latest ”Showtime 30 Minute Movie,” ”Without a Pass” (9:35 p.m. Wednesday, Showtime cable network).
It stars John Amos as a famous jazz saxophonist who returns to America from Germany for the funeral of an old but long-estranged friend and musical mentor.
The visit, highlighted by a trip to an old jazz club gone rap joint, resurrects in flashback the horrible event that took place in an alley during the Watts riots and forever severed the relationship between the two young jazz men.
Marco Williams` script is fairly simple, but he directs with an assured hand and a good feel for the sting of bigotry and the rhythms of the jazz scene.
