PBS -- The "P" Does Not Stand for "Porno"

When last we checked in on The Saga of Phil's TiVo, the plucky personal video recorder was gasping out its last, dying breaths, freezing on programs, and filling recordings with annoying pauses and glitches and skips, and just generally slouching its way toward the appliance graveyard. I'm happy to report that, following the purchase of a $150 hard drive from CompUSA and a visit to Jason Snell's TiVo repair factory, my TiVo is back in business. It's up to snuff and full of beans.

("It's full of beans?" you ask. "Well, maybe that's the problem with your TiVo right there." Quiet, you.)

So I'm back enjoying the many benefits of TiVo -- watching programs when I want to watch them, pausing live TV, and perhaps the greatest feature of all, searching for shows I normally wouldn't think of watching, recording them and spending time viewing them that I could have used for reading or volunteer work or conversing with my wife.

Oh, TiVo -- don't ever leave me again.

It was in the midst of searching for some of these otherwise overlooked and never-to-be-seen programs when I stumbled across a show called "Farmers' Daughters," airing on my local PBS affiliate. TiVo's programming guide offered a cursory yet intriguing description:

Jackie Lorenz, Colleen Donovan, Linda Vittoria, Brenda Adamson and Christine Lyn Rude plow, skinny-dip and go to a hoe-down.

"Hmmm," I thought. "Seems a bit racier than your normal public-television fare." And indeed, the helpful parental content advisories on the bottom of the programming guide seemed to confirm that "Farmers' Daughters" was a shade more ribald than what you might expect from the likes of "Frontline," "Washington Week in Review" and "Antiques Roadshow." The warnings read: Adult, Special (AC, N, GL, SC).

I'll assume that you realize "adult" does not mean "sophisticated, frank discussions about the issues of the day," but rather, "someone's taking off their top at some point in the next hour." But just in case you're not familiar with the alphabet soup of parental content warnings, AC N GL SC stands for:

AC -- Adult Content
N -- Nudity
GL -- Good-looking ladies
SC -- Skinny-dipping Chicks!

So I recorded "Farmers' Daughters." I figured it was some PBS Pledge Month stunt and the least I could do was indulge them. Plus, there was the promise of nudity -- and potentially classy nudity at that, thanks to its appearance on public television. If it's on PBS, after all, it can't possibly be smutty.

You can imagine my surprise, my shock, my disappointment when -- after making sure that the wife would be out of the apartment for the better part of the evening -- I sat down with a glass of whiskey and prepared to enter the enlightening, enriching world of public television in general and "Farmers' Daughters" in particular, only to find my local PBS affiliate was showing a black-and-white movie starring Loretta Young and Joseph Cotten. Its name? "The Farmer's Daughter." Its plot? Well, let's see if "Leonard Maltin's Move and Video Guide 1995 Edition" can shed any light on this:

"Young won Oscar for her performance as headstrong Swedish girl who fights for congressional seat against the man she loves. Delightful comedy with excellent cast."

You will notice the absence of Jackie Lorenz, Linda Vittoria and even Christine Lyn Rude from the cast. You will also note the distinct absence of any plot twists involving plowing, hoe-downs and -- most distressingly -- skinny-dipping. And anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Hays Code will realize the unlikelihood of a 1947 romantic comedy with Loretta Young and Joseph Cotten featuring anything involving AC, GL, SC and especially N.

By now, savvy net users have perhaps gone to Google and typed in the words "Farmers' Daughters Jackie Lorenz Colleen Donovan Linda Vittoria Brenda Adamson Christine Lyn Rude." Don't worry if you didn't think of this -- I've already done it for you. You will discover that the "Farmers' Daughters" described in the TiVo programming guide is, in fact, a 1987 Playboy pictorial featuring Jackie Lorenz, et. al, in a series of rustic settings with their gingham dresses and Daisy Duke shorts unfastened or rent away or otherwise cast aside so as to better enjoy nature. Their cowboy boots, however, remain on. It is likely that, in addition to the magazine supplement, Playboy also produced a video version of "Farmers' Daughters" that every now and again airs on pay-per-view channels unafraid of broadcasting provocative, adult fare.

The explanation for the mix-up is so obvious even a child could deduce it -- so naturally, I had no difficulty: somewhere, some knucklehead mixed up the descriptions for the delightful 1947 romantic comedy "The Farmer's Daughter" with the just-as-delightful 1987 soft-core pornographic video "Farmers' Daughters," thereby managing to deceive and fluster unfortunate viewers such as myself. The only question remaining is, who is responsible for this deceit and chicanery? And how will we make them pay?

I've narrowed the list down to three likely culprits.

A. Some knucklehead at Tribune Media, the provider of TiVo's program guide: The misleading description for "Farmers' Daughters," after all, comes from the TiVo. And let's face it -- TiVo's show descriptions are not always subject to the same rigorous editorial review process enjoyed by peer-review publications such as the Journal of American Medicine, the Harvard Law Review and TV Guide. Just consider this description for 1990's would-be blockbuster "Days of Thunder": "An upstart stock-car driver goes to the edge for his manager, his brain-surgeon girlfriend and himself." This is a ridiculous, puerile description, as anyone who sat through "Days of Thunder" will tell you. A more accurate summary would be along the lines of "The heads of audience members violently explode as viewers are asked to simultaneously believe that not only is Tom Cruise the best driver on the NASCAR circuit and Nicole Kidman is a brilliant neurosurgeon, but that the two are actually attracted to one another." Just in case you're thinking the TiVo programming guide writer was having a bad day when it came time to summarize "Days of Thunder," here's another description, this one for Cartoon Network's "Popeye" reruns: "The sailor courts Olive Oyl and gains strength through spinach." (Hey -- I think I saw that episode!) TiVo doesn't enjoy a track record for reliable, accurate programming summaries -- that's my point here. So I have every reason to believe TiVo is responsible for promising me porn and then failing to deliver on that promise.

B. Some knucklehead at the local PBS affiliate: We have long since established that San Francisco's PBS station is staffed by gibbons and imbeciles. The station would -- if it thought it could get away with it -- turn over its entire programming lineup to Suze Orman specials and Andrew Lloyd Webber tributes. It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that some mouth-breathing staffer at this PBS Affiliate of the Damned saw that the station was airing something called "The Farmer's Daughter" and naturally assumed that the station was broadcasting a 1980s-era Playboy video in an effort to goose ratings and viewer pledges. It's no more out of place than the 128th consecutive broadcast of "The Three Tenors."

C. Some nefarious, powerful outside force who hacked into the TiVo programming guide and changed the description for "The Farmer's Daughter" as part of an ongoing and extensive campaign against me specifically for the purpose of driving me mad: As you can see, it's working.

While my first instinct is to assign blame to C, ultimately it doesn't matter who's responsible. I was promised porn, porn was not broadcast -- reparations must be made.

There's only so much TiVo can do in that regard, and I certainly don't expect the nefarious, powerful outside force that's plotting against me to offer any aid or comfort. So it falls on the local PBS affiliate to make amends. I propose that San Francisco's PBS station, in an effort to appease me and any other viewer unfortunate enough to tune in Saturday night expecting to see Jackie Lorenz and associates wearing nothing but smiles only to discover the slightly less alluring image of Joseph Cotten fully clothed, broadcast "Farmers' Daughters" -- the correct "Farmers' Daughters" -- in its entirety. No edits, no cropping, no interminable pledge breaks. We were promised plowing, hoe-downs and skinny-dipping, and, by God, plowing, hoe-downs and skinny-dipping is what we shall receive.

Come on, San Francisco PBS affiliate, do the right thing. I might even be inspired to pledge $50 or so the next time you come begging for donations. And I won't even ask for the tote bag in return.