BY DAVID KRONKE >TV Critic

Ira Glass' "This American Life," whether on National Public Radio or Showtime, is the rare show that assumes its audience's intelligence and therefore doesn't feel the need to pander much to them.

Glass opens season two of his Showtime series – after a brief snapshot of truly urban cowboys, a group who ride their horses through the inner city of Philadelphia – with a remarkably poignant portrait of Mike Phillips, a young man stricken with spinal muscular atrophy and who by all accounts should be dead by now.

Mike can communicate essentially only via a computer voice generated, much like Stephen Hawking, by individual finger taps filtered into a computer program. But, at age 27, he's trying to rebel, seeking freedom from his mother, Karen, who sleeps on the floor by his bed at night to make sure his life support system doesn't falter.

Through Craigslist, he hired assistants to care for him and even found a girlfriend. He attained piercings, a tattoo and has his fingernails painted black. Though he yearns for an autonomy that may never come, he says, "All that matters is at the end of the day, I'm not miserable." He is the very definition of an ordinary guy struggling against extraordinary circumstances.

Next week, Glass follows a native Iraqi washed up on these shores who wants to understand why people support the war in his homeland, despite the devastation it has wrought. So he builds a booth with a sign reading "Ask an Iraqi" and tours the South.

Again, the result is fascinating and moving. Some – particularly a precocious 11-year-old girl and a soldier who fought there – are sympathetic to his country's plight. Others lecture him that whether he knows it or not, his country's better off now (of course, some of those dispensing this wisdom haven't actually been there).

In the two episodes made available for review, the weakest report is a brief, wry account of a transplanted Bulgarian who considers lawn care a symbol of abject conformity and his American wife who's not quite sure what to make of his attitude.

Still, Glass and his reporting team have an unerring eye for that which is resonant and that which is quirky in our country. In short, he has a keen sense of what makes America great.

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638

david.kronke@dailynews.com

www.insidesocal.com/tv/

review>

THIS AMERICAN LIFE

>What: Season two of Ira Glass' documentary series, originally developed for radio, offering resonant slice-of-life stories.

>Where: Showtime.

>When: 10 p.m. Sunday.

>In a nutshell: Smart, wry, poignant and exceedingly understated.