Act V

#218 - 9 August 2002

We devote this entire episode to one story: Over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet.

Give It to Them

#217 - 2 August 2002

It's been two years since the Mideast peace process collapsed, two years in which each side has done terrible things to the other side. We wanted to understand what that has done to people living in Israel and the West Bank, and to see if anyone is feeling hope.

Give the People What They Want

#216 - 12 July 2002

Stories of people who go to great lengths to give people what they want, and how they're rewarded sometimes, misguided other times.

Ask An Expert

#215 - 14 June 2002

Stories about people who turned to the experts and got horrible advice. One story is about people who went to therapists who made them sicker. Another is about how the hosts of Car Talk inadvertently (or perhaps intentionally) destroyed a car belonging to one of their own employees.

Family Physics

#214 - 31 May 2002

We take the stately laws of physics—laws which mathematicians and scientists have spent centuries discovering and verifying—and apply them to the realm of human relationships, to see if they shed useful light on our daily lives.

Devil on My Shoulder

#213 - 24 May 2002

Stories of people who are trying to convince you that the Devil is there, whispering in your ear...and stories of people who try to deny he's there, against some very heavy evidence.

The Other Man

#212 - 10 May 2002

Stories about what happens when a new guy comes on the scene, and changes the way everyone who was already there relates to each other.

Naming Names

#211 - 3 May 2002

Stories about what happens when you name names. When you turn someone over to the authorities, it can set into motion lots of huge, unintended consequences. A reporter turns over an interviewee to the FBI. A group of teachers turn in their principal. A director turns in his Communist colleagues to the United States Congress.

Perfect Evidence

#210 - 19 April 2002

After a decade in which DNA evidence has freed over 100 people nationwide, it's become clear that DNA evidence isn't just proving wrongdoing by criminals, it's proving wrongdoing by police and prosecutors. In this show, we look at what DNA has revealed to us: how police get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit and how they get witnesses to pin crimes on innocent people.

Didn't Ask to Be Born

#209 - 29 March 2002

Two stories that are worst case scenarios for any parent. In each story, when you take apart what happened and how it happened, it's hard to see how anyone could've prevented things from going bad.