Calling it a chilling “you-are-almost-there primer on the Syrian uprising,” Newsday’s Verne Gay gives FRONTLINE’s two-part Syria special airing tonight an “A.”

In the first segment, Syria Undercover, reporter Ramita Navai breaks Syria’s ban on independent journalists to embed with some of Syria’s most wanted dissidents. Gay writes:

FRONTLINE strips away any sense that this will follow some sort of preset narrative, with the protesters prevailing and Syrian President Bashar Assad fleeing the country to spend his forced retirement in a Paris town house. What’s best — and most chilling — about this program is really just how clear-eyed it is. Navai’s almost preposterously gutsy reporting takes viewers right to the edge of the danger zone; one knock at the door, and you realize that her camera would stop rolling, and she would thereafter become another statistic on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ website.

Gay writes that the second segment, The Regime, captures the big picture of the Syrian uprising “with that inimitable ‘Frontline’ sobriety.”

Syria Undercover and The Regime air this evening. We hope you’ll watch.

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