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Series: Our America With Lisa Ling

"America. It can be inspiring and beautiful. It can also be dark and ugly. It's so many things... but it's ours. It's Our America."

— Lisa Ling, opening narration

Our America with Lisa Ling is a documentary series airing on OWN since the network's rebranding from Discovery Health in 2011. Each episode sees Ling travel to one or more locations around the United States (usually more, and in at least one case outside the United States) to cover a specific topic. The hallmark of the show is the slow, methodical pacing given to every topic, and the considerable effort Lisa makes in making sure that everyone at least gets heard and is given a reasonable chance to present their particular vantage point, regardless of the reputation they might have coming in. Not necessarily agreed with at the end of the show, but heard.

Which, if you've just come from any number of cable news shows, can be a bit of a shock to the system. Which is the whole idea.

Tropes:

Arranged Marriage: The topic of 'Holy Matrimonies'.
Crapsack World: With an episode title like 'The Lost American Dream', there's really not any getting around it. Not that Lisa doesn't try at one point.
Downer Ending: At the end of 'Heroin in the Heartland', an episode about heroin addiction, we're told that one of the subjects died in the time between production and airing. This gets explored further in an update episode, where we catch up with her distraught surviving husband.
Early Installment Weirdness: The show was originally to be called 'Inside with Lisa Ling'. In several of the Season 1 episodes, there are traces of this as Lisa says towards the start of the episode, "Let's go inside". She hasn't said the phrase since, after the title 'Our America' was implemented.
Heel Face Door Slam: In 'State of Sex Offenders'... well, really, the entire episode documents this trope as an overarching theme of an offender's post-sentence life, but in particular, one recently-released prisoner decided to go to the beach just to soak up the fact that he was out of prison. His ankle bracelet went off, because unbeknownst to both him and Lisa, the beach was not a place he was allowed to be. Nor was his parents' house, where he had also been. Lisa accompanied him to the police station to see what was up. He went in, she waited outside. He didn't come back out. Eventually Lisa went in to check on him, only to find he'd already been sent back to jail.
- Hit again in 'Labeled For Life'.
Gilligan Cut: In 'Sparkle Babies', an episode about toddler beauty pageants, one apprehensive dad says he will not allow his daughter to get a fake spray tan in advance of a pageant. Cut to the spray tan being applied, supervised by the mom, and Lisa and the dad looking on.
Lisa (to dad): So much for no tans, huh?
I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Sister Margaret in 'Brides of Christ', an episode about nuns.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Somehow manages to pull this off while still being an active show producing new episodes. The cable deal they have is... not great. As in, good luck finding the episodes online. Or on DVD. Or on OWN, unless you're watching the original airing. Reruns are scarce, despite it being one of OWN's highest-rated shows. Lisa's not happy about it either.
Mail Order Bride: Well, online brides, anyway. Lisa followed a group of ten bachelors down to Colombia to see how they made out. One ended up getting married. Another, in an online-only clip, claimed he'd found someone, but that fell apart as soon as Lisa asked him what the girl's last name was.
Off the Rails: Happened with the episode 'Pray The Gay Away?'. Lisa started out wanting to profile a summer camp in Minnesota for gay teenagers. Somewhere along the line, the final aired product became mostly about the ex-gay community, which believes prayer can turn a gay person straight, complete with episode title focusing on the latter. The summer camp didn't show up until late in the episode. The non-ex-gay community, which was under the impression that they'd thoroughly discredited the ex-gays by now, flipped their lid. It took Lisa quite a bit of time and energy, including an extra hour after the original airing devoted to discussing the episode they'd just aired, to mostly-but-still-not-entirely smooth things over.
Safe, Sane and Consensual: The primary image of BDSM in 'Shades Of Kink'.
Teen Pregnancy: The topic of 'Teen Mom Nation'.
Streetwalker: The subject of '3 AM Girls'. Though Lisa was adamant that they be considered straight-up Sex Slaves, and their pimps slave owners.
The Rez: 'Life On The Rez', of course; the political variety is featured, specifically Pine Ridge in South Dakota.
"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final episodes of seasons 1 and 2, recapping various subjects from throughout the season.