The best thing I watched on TV this week was the documentary about Bill Hicks on ABC2 on Sunday night. Of course I recorded it and watched it on Wednesday but we won’t quibble over the details. I am ashamed I was not particularly familiar with Bill Hicks. I had heard his name here and there but never really got any further than that. After watching the documentary I was mightily impressed that such a small “l” liberal, subversive comedian made a career of any kind in the USA. I was also very sad that he died so young of pancreatic cancer. The footage of his final shows made me think that he was on the brink of a big career that would have transcended comedy and morphed into spoken word political comment a la Mr Henry Rollins. We shall never know. I also finished my bingeing on Being Erica thanks to BBC IPlayer. Sadly, they don’t have Season 4 but I read the summaries on Wikipedia and I think I will manage without seeing it. Canadian television is interesting. Why don’t we get more of it? And last night, once I had seen Federer put Tomic back in his place on the tennis, I watched the final episode of Season 3 of Treme. While not without its flaws I have grown to love those characters as well as the look, feel, pacing and of course music of this great program. By the end I was sad, hopeful and uplifted all at once. If TV can manage that then I think it’s okay. If you have never seen Hoop Dreams then you must watch it tonight on ABC2. It’s a classic documentary and a devastating expose of the Great American Dream.