" writes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWgL4Sqe7ks

Tommy McDonald is an enormously talented guy. Unfortunately, on PBS,
he'll have to clean up his language a bit.

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.