No one seems to be having much fun on television. We’ve managed to tread water by taking nothing too seriously, ready to puncture with our daily list of reality TV, Jerry Springer or "Cheaters." True artists have become inconsequential to us, no longer a part of the American fabric. This is idiotic on one level, yet makes a bizarre kind of sense once you consider that television itself has become one gigantic infomercial.

So, it’s always refreshing when you hear stories about "one of the good guys" - people like director/actor and producer Robert Townsend, who has been around a long time and has spent his entire career doing the right thing. Once again, Townsend has descended upon us, with a story line that makes you stop and think about what’s important – the life of the single mother.

How can we forget? Townsend was the guy who, 20 years ago, took his credit cards and risked it all on the film classic, "Hollywood Shuffle," a razor-sharp look at the frustrations of blacks in Hollywood. He was the one who brought the plight of five young men who dreamed the impossible of becoming trail blazers in the world of music with "The Five Heartbeats." Anyway you shake it out, Townsend has always shown us the reality of what it means to believe in yourself and follow your dreams. He truly is an American hero.

“I know it’s a tall order, and I’ve set the bar really high, but in order to reach the stars you must set your sights on the moon," Townsend once said.

Townsend's latest venture, an Internet show called "Diary of a Single Mom," on pic.tv (Public Internet Channel), shows just how far he has come, as he has conquered nearly every genre in entertainment: Movies, television, and now the Web. And he has brought some heavy hitters along with him. There’s Monica Calhoun, from "The Best Man" and "The Players Club;" Leon from "The Five Heartbeats," "The Temptations" and HBO’s "Oz," and Billy Dee Williams, who does not need a whole lot of introduction as the heartthrob of our parents' generation.

Single mothers work every day to put food on the table, get kids ready for school in the morning, help them with their homework in the evening, and try to find the balance between nurturer and disciplinarian - while still trying to maintain life as an adult. Not an easy task for the two-parent household, let alone one.

Townsend brings into our homes the frustrations that exist for these true champions of American society that we very seldom hear about. As divorce rates hover above the 50 percent mark - even higher amongst African-Americans - and black fathers become an endangered species, the life of a single mother has become a serious issue. 

The initial eight-segment "Diary" series focuses on three single moms from different cultural backgrounds: Calhoun is Ocean, 27, who tries to find a new job and get a GED while being consumed with her two children; Valery Ortiz (“South of Nowhere,” “10 Items or Less”) is 25-year-old Lupe, who struggles with being a young woman and a parent, and Janice Lynde (“Six Feet Under,” “General Hospital”) is Peggy, a white woman in her 50s who has never paid the bills but is forced to raise her 11-year-old grandson after her husband and daughter die in a car accident.

Each webisode lasts 12 minutes and will let viewers comment on the episode page or on the series’ page on MySpace. Townsend hopes the show can change people’s lives by enabling them to ask questions and find information on a .....

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