Avoiding the State of the Union address

The new season of the only shows on the History Channel that doesn’t make me mad, Cities of the Underworld, starts tonight at 9:00 PM EST. It’s basically an urban spelunking program, in which some hip five o’clock shadow and jeans type gets a guided tour of cities beneath street level.

Under Edinburgh there’s a whole scary vault city. Even today, long empty of the literal underclass which once packed its rooms, it still reeks of illegal distilleries, destitution and communicable diseases. That was totally my favorite episode.

Tonight they’ll be exploring the urban underbelly of Jerusalem, which is bound to be a far cleaner experience than the nastiness all the other channels are offering.