Documentary Channel airs 2 polygamy programs

On the second anniversary of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs being sentenced to prison, the Documentary Channel is airing a pair of programs about members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church.

(Neither is new, but neither has been seen in wide release.)

"Damned to Heaven" (Friday, 8 and 10 p.m.) is a 2007 documentary that's full of interviews with former members of the church, who have a variety of heartbreaking things to say.

"Banished: The Lost Boys of Polygamy" — directed by former KSL reporter Stacey Butler — follows at 7:45 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. It is, as you might expect, a look at the lives of the teenage boys and young men who were tossed out of the FLDS Church.

Local viewers aren't going to learn much they didn't already know. (Unless, maybe, they were living under a rock.) But both documentaries are more powerful because they are, in a way, smaller. They focus on individuals and individual stories.

And both "Damned to Heaven" and "Banished" do a decent job of distinguishing between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the polygamist FLDS Church. As always, there are moments that could be better. But it's decent.

If you don't have the Documentary Channel — and, unless you subscribe to Dish Network (Ch. 197), chances are you don't — you can still watch the documentaries online. Beginning Friday, they can be viewed in their entirety on the network's Sling.com channel (www.sling.com/network/189/The-Documentary-Channel).