First Aired: January 17th, 1983
Status: Continuing
Network: PBS
Summary: Since it began in 1983, Frontline has been airing public-affairs documentaries that explore a wide scope of the complex human experience. Frontline's goal is to extend the impact of the documentary beyond its initial broadcast by serving as a catalyst for change.
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Season 1995
Episode 1: The Nicotine War
Air Date: January 3rd, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE tells the story of Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler's bold attempt to regulate tobacco--an industry which has defied regulation for more than thirty years. The program details Kessler's efforts to prove that manufacturers have been manipulating nicotine in cigarettes to keep smokers hooked and examines how this mission may be in jeopardy because of the Republican landslide in Congress.
Episode 2: Does TV Kill?
Air Date: January 10th, 1995
Summary: Before the average American child leaves elementary school, researchers estimate that he or she will have witnessed more than eight thousand murders on television. Has this steady diet of imaginary violence made America the world leader in real crime and violence? FRONTLINE correspondent Al Austin journeys through what is known about television violence and how it affects our lives. The program reveals some unexpected conclusions about the impact TV has on the way we view the world.
Episode 3: What Happened to Bill Clinton?
Air Date: January 31st, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE presents a thoughtful and challenging examination of the Clinton presidency at midterm. Moving beyond the conventional analysis of Clinton's troubles and the Republican electoral victory, the program lays out a mosaic of perspectives and insights on the man and his performance from some of the nation's savviest political thinkers.
Episode 4: The Godfather of Cocaine
Air Date: February 14th, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE travels to Colombia for an investigative biography of the rise and fall of the richest and most violent cocaine drug lord, Pablo Escobar. Before Colombian police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency hunted him down and killed him, Escobar built an estimated $4 billion fortune through international cocaine smuggling alliances and the violent repression of his enemies.
Episode 5: The Begging Game
Air Date: February 21st, 1995
Summary: Each day, thousands of panhandlers work the streets and subways of cities all across America. Are the hard luck stories they tell believable? What are their lives really like off the street? Correspondent Deborah Amos explores the hidden world of panhandlers in New York City, gaining access to the intimate details of the their lives, investigating the real story of why they beg, and examining the impact of New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani's crackdown on panhandlers.
Episode 6: Rush Limbaugh's America
Air Date: February 28th, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE explores the phenomenon of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Three hours each day, five days a week, Limbaugh is heard on more than 600 radio stations, in addition to hosting a daily half-hour television program. How much political clout does Limbaugh have? Tracing his rise to fame and fortune, the program also takes an in-depth look at Limbaugh's audience and asks what impact he had on the Republican congressional landslide.
Episode 7: Divided Memories Part 1
Air Date: April 4th, 1995
Summary: Today, a raging debate over the validity of repressed memory about sexual abuse divides the therapeutic community, the women's movement, and thousands of accusers and accused. In 'Divided Memories,' producer Ofra Bikel examines the complicated issue of repressed memory, looking at what we know about memory and the way it works. Tracing the repression debate back to Sigmund Freud, Part 1 examines the different kinds of therapies used to help patients remember, including age-regression therapy, past-life therapy, and hypnosis.
Episode 8: Divided Memories Part 2
Air Date: April 11st, 1995
Summary: Part 2 looks at the effects that remembered abuse has had on the families involved and explores how we distinguish real memories from those which are not true. 'We know that sexual abuse is a real problem,' says Bikel. 'But when the memories are not real, what makes the 'victim' so ready to believe they are? What cultural forces have made the explanation of sexual abuse so easy to accept?'
Episode 9: The Homecoming
Air Date: April 25th, 1995
Summary: In February 1974, Nobel prize-winning author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his Soviet citizenship, and expelled from his country. Nearly twenty years after exiling himself in Vermont, FRONTLINE accompanies Solzhenitsyn on his emotional return to his homeland, journeying by train across Russia into his past even as his thoughts turn toward the current troubles plaguing Russia. Followed--and often frustrated by--leagues of journalists, photographers, and camera crews, Solzhenitsyn urges the factory workers, businessmen, and ordinary villagers he meets along the way to have courage.
Episode 10: When the Bough Breaks
Air Date: May 2nd, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE explores the bond between parents and children and the profound implications for children's behavior later in life if that attachment is hampered. These characteristics may include overly aggressive behavior, serious learning problems, and delinquency. The program uses surveillance cameras in the homes of three middle-class families who are struggling with troubled children between the ages of sixteen months and three years and observes the behavior and interactions of the children and their parents. 'Even before they can speak, children give out signals,' says producer Neil Docherty. 'What are those signals? And what happens when they are misread or missed entirely?'
Episode 11: The Vanishing Father
Air Date: May 16th, 1995
Summary: In less than two generations, a seismic shift has occurred in the makeup of the American family. Today,fatherlessness has become the norm for about forty percent of American children and, some experts believe, contributes to some of our most urgent social problems. FRONTLINE explores this dramatic change in the American family and the startling findings of sociologists that, despite economic status, children from single parent homes are twice as likely to drop out of high school, to become teen-age mothers, and to spend time in jail.
Episode 12: The Confessions of Rosalee
Air Date: May 23rd, 1995
Summary: The Washington Post ran a week-long series of front-page articles about one Washington, D.C., resident and her family. Reporting on the interrelationships of poverty, racism, crime, illiteracy, and drug use and their persistence over generations, reporter Leon Dash spent four years getting to know RosaLee Cunningham, a thief, former prostitute and drug addict, and the mother of eight children. Dash observed first-hand the poverty, drug use, and crime now cycling through a third generation of RosaLee's family. FRONTLINE examines the reaction and controversy Dash's powerful report had among policymakers and amidst the African-American community and reveals what happens when the reporter-as-objective-observer erases the boundary between himself and his subject.
Episode 13: Welcome to Happy Valley
Air Date: June 6th, 1995
Summary: Prozac is the most prescribed antidepressant drug in America. FRONTLINE travels to the prozac capital of the world, Wenatchee, Washington, and talks to the 'Pied Piper of Prozac,' Dr. Jim Goodwin, a clinical psychologist who says Prozac is 'probably less toxic than salt' and has had it prescribed for all his seven hundred patients. Psychiatrist Peter Breggin and members of the Prozac Survivors Support Group, however, question the use of the drug.
Episode 14: Currents of Fear
Air Date: June 13rd, 1995
Summary: Adrian Dedinger, who grew up across the street from an electric tower, became convinced of the dangers of electromagnetic fields after she and her family were diagnosed with multiple cancers and health disorders. She and other residents in Omaha, Nebraska, joined together when they discovered a high incidence of cancer in their neighborhood--all clustered close to power lines and an electric substation. Do the magnetic fields associated with electric power lines cause cancer? Are the cancers in Omaha due to the substation or simply to chance? FRONTLINE talks to people on both sides of the power line debate--concerned citizens and parents, journalists, physicists, biologists, and epidemiologists--examines the scientific data and explores the role politics plays in what information gains public attention and in funding studies on this issue.
Episode 15: Waco - The Inside Story
Air Date: October 17th, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE investigates the April 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas. With access to secret government documents, audio and videotapes, correspondent Peter Boyer of The New Yorker magazine probes the untold story of the fierce political infighting inside the FBI's Waco command center and in the corridors of power at the Justice Department in Washington.
Episode 16: The Search for Satan
Air Date: October 24th, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE untangles the mysterious web of satanic ritual abuse, psychiatric treatment, and insurance claims that escalated into millions of dollars. Were these professed victims of secret satanic cults really helped by the psychiatric care they received?
Episode 17: High Stakes in Cyberspace
Air Date: October 31st, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE boldly goes where no one has gone before--tracking the new land rush to stake claims in cyberspace and asking hard questions about the optimistic predictions for a cyber-revolution. Correspondent Robert Krulwich reports on the effects these changes will have on the individual and how they will alter society.
Episode 18: Who's Afraid of Rupert Murdoch?
Air Date: November 7th, 1995
Summary: In the last forty years, Rupert Murdoch has gone from publisher of a marginal newspaper in Adelaide, Australia, to chairman of one of the world's largest and wealthiest media empires. His business acumen combined with a gambling spirit has made him an enormously successful player in the communications industry. FRONTLINE correspondent Ken Auletta probes Murdoch's drive to establish the first global telecommunications network and examines how Murdoch's success has been dogged by controversy over journalistic standards and the use of political influence.
Episode 19: Natasha and the Wolf
Air Date: November 14th, 1995
Summary: FRONTLINE takes a riveting and intimate look at a notorious murder case--the story of Maduev, a cunning Russian gangster and killer known as 'The Wolf.' Maduev charmed and seduced all who crossed his path, including his state prosecutor, Natasha Voronstova, who smuggled him a gun to make his escape from prison. With exclusive access to the central characters, the trial, and to secret KGB tapes, this film reveals the heart of a killer's chilling story that has mesmerized Russia.
Episode 20: Living on the Edge
Air Date: December 12nd, 1995
Summary: Bill Moyers tells the story of several hardworking Milwaukee families struggling with low-paying jobs after previous employers downsized their operations. Filmed over a period of five years, these families were first featured in Moyers's 1992 documentary 'Minimum Wages - The New Economy.' FRONTLINE chronicles the families' emotional and financial strains, their search for better jobs and job retraining, and looks at Milwaukee's efforts to adapt to an ever-shrinking industrial sector.
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