Up front, I must confess that I no longer possess the famed GamePolitics Tivo which has spawned so many game-related program alerts over the last few years.

When I switched my service to Verizon's FIOS a few months back I found that my Tivo unit and the FIOS set-top box didn't play nicely together, so I've opted for the plain-vanilla DVR boxes FIOS offers. I thought about changing the title of articles like this one to "DVR Alert," but it just doesn't have the same ring, so...

The Rise of the Video Game, a new five-part documentary begins tonight on Discovery Channel. From the press release:

Long before the coming of "Halo 3," there was "Pong," and your parents really dug it.  is a five-part documentary series that traces the history of the medium from its crude beginnings to the mind-blowing, eye-popping phenomenon of today. 8 p.m., Discovery Channel.

This 5-part series is a comprehensive, pixel-by-pixel exploration of videogames and entertainment systems, from their beginning in the early 1970s to today. From Pong to Playstation 3, this series goes from evolution to revolution, playtime to primetime – following the amazing business that’s changing how entertainment is created, produced, marketed and distributed.

The games & systems featured in tonight's opening episode are enough to make an old-school gamer weep with nostalgia:

Tennis for Two, Spacewar!, Magnavox Odyssey, Pong, Space Invaders, Pac Man, Atari 2600, E.T. the game, Tetris...

We're not sure if this appears in the documentary, but the Discovery Channel PR rep alerted GP to this classic commercial: