‘This American Life’ translates well to TV

Each edition of "This American Life" is hosted by Glass, who, after all these years as a distinctive but disembodied presence, is finally on view. Turns out, he is a nerdy-but-cool-looking, boyish chap of 48 who wears a pair of thick black plastic-frame glasses he's had just about as long as his show.

Introducing each segment, he sits at a desk stuck somewhere wildly out of place (a parking garage; Utah's Great Salt Plains), its location inspired by that episode's theme.

Fun fact: His imposing art-deco desk is a prop. It breaks down into pieces that can easily be shipped to remote shooting sites. But a let's-pretend desk was just one small part of this American life for Glass as he navigated TV's odd demands.

"The first season was a long process of figuring out: What is this show?" says Glass, seated at his real-life desk in his real-life New York office.

He's a lifelong radio guy who spent years as a reporter and producer for National Public Radio. While doing pieces for nearly all of NPR's news shows, he developed the storytelling ethos that imbues "This American Life," where listeners don't just listen, they join in the experience. But how to make that happen on TV?

Freedom to do their thing
It was a painstaking process, but Showtime allowed him, his staff and their production partners — Killer Films — to suss it out for themselves.

"A lot of times it came down to Showtime saying, ‘Look, if you guys REALLY want to do this...,' and we said, ‘We really want to do this,' and they would say, ‘OK.'"

As ever with "This American Life," words and narrative rule. Yet the TV rendition is strikingly visual.

"We said, ‘Let's use the pictures the way we use the music, the scoring, on the radio show: to intensify a feeling,'" Glass explains.

Largely because of production demands for the TV show, both it and the Peabody Award-winning radio series (which continues on 500 public radio outlets) are now based in Manhattan after years of "This American Life" having called Chicago home (the radio version is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International).

"I think the TV show does feel like the radio show," says Glass, taking stock after all this trial-and-error, "and that it doesn't feel like anything else on TV. The tone is just different."

Difference? He ponders TV's one-note brand of reality storytelling, often mocking or glorifying someone at arm's length.

"It's way more interesting for the viewer to see a story where you can imagine being that person, where you're invested in whatever it is they're invested in," Glass says. "The funny moments are funnier, the dark moments are darker. You can have hope, and disappointment, and feel every possible feeling."

All that, and pictures too.

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