New Woodworking Show.

[GarageWoodworks]

[joeljcarver]

he'll have to clean up his language a bit.

[Neil Brooks]

I wonder whether that will cause his untimely demise ;-)

[Doug Winterburn]

What happened to his nose - kickback?

[blueman]

He may be talented and an excellent craftsman but I find his (current) videos amatuerish, boorish, poor quality, and most importantly very difficult to follow.

Now I imagine that PBS will be able to improve the production quality. But I'm not sure they can do much to improve Tommy's instructional and explanatory capabilities.

His crude language is the least of his problems -- his real problem is his 4th grade command of the English language and his overall lazy and casual syntax. His sentences consist mostly of vague verbs and pronouns like "now do this, go here, and hit there" -- which is nearly impossible to follow unless you are already know how to do what he is teaching. He also seems to be rather immature, with his presentations consisting more of lame attempts at humor and irrelevant chatter than of instructional gems. The overall signal to noise ratio in his current videos is pathetically low -- perhaps 30 seconds of valuable lessons scattered across 10-15 minutes of street banter.

He doesn't shine a candle to the instructional abilities or overall fit & finish of other WGBH/PBS cast members like Norm Abrams. The reference youtube video alone showed what a shallow, awkward, and indeed boring TV presence he is. I would love for WGBH/PBS to introduce more home improvement and woodworking shows, but I would think that they could find better instructional talent than the crude street presence of Tommy McDonald.