THE RHINO WHO JOINED THE FAMILY

SUNDAY, AUGUST 24 @ 5:00PM

Rescued from flooding caused by the damming of the Zambezi River, Rupert, an orphaned black rhinoceros, was brought up in the suburban family home of wildlife vet Dr. John Condy. Rupert captured the hearts of the vet’s four young children before his eventual release into the wild. Fifty years later, the children are searching for clues to their childhood friend’s fate.

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AUSTRALIA’S FIRST 4 BILLION YEARS

MONSTERS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

“Monsters” begins Down Under at the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. Host Richard Smith comes face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia. NOVA resurrects the giants that stalked the Great Southern Land and discovers that some of these animals were among the largest ever to have walked the Earth. Others were some of the most dangerous. In the dry desert heart, scientists unearth an ancient inland ocean full of sea monsters. Opal fossils of some of these beasts paint a colorful picture of the exotic seascape, where long-necked plesiosaurs snacked on shelled creatures that grew as large as truck tires. The most fearsome was Kronosaurus, with a skull twice as long as T. rex. But reptiles didn’t have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their moment in the sun.

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 @ 9:00PM

Mark Twain was a lifelong creator and keeper of scrapbooks. He took them with him everywhere and filled them with souvenirs, pictures, and articles about his books and performances. But in time, he grew tired of the lost glue, rock-hard paste, and the swearing that resulted from the standard scrapbook process. So, he came up with the idea of printing thin strips of glue on the pages to make updates neat and easy to do. In 1872, he patented his “self-pasting” scrapbook, and by 1901, at least 57 different types of his albums were available. It would be his only invention that ever made money.

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FALLEN CITY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2 @ 8:00PM

In today’s go-go China, an old city completely destroyed by a devastating earthquake can be rebuilt — boasting new and improved civic amenities — in an astoundingly quick two years. But, as Fallen City reveals, the journey from the ruined old city of Beichuan to the new Beichuan nearby is long and heartbreaking for the survivors. Three families struggle with loss — most strikingly the loss of children and grandchildren — and feelings of loneliness, fear and dislocation that no amount of propaganda can disguise. First-time director Qi Zhao offers an intimate look at a country torn between tradition and modernity.

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POIROT SEASON 12

THE BIG FOUR

SUNDAY, JULY 27 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

David Suchet returns in his signature role as suave Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot to tantalize fans with two new cases, The Big Four (July 27) and Dead Man’s Folly (August 3), based on the novels by Agatha Christie. As the world stands on the brink of World War II in The Big Four, a grisly, ingeniously devised murder at an international peace reception reunites Hercule Poirot with old friends. In Dead Man’s Folly, famous mystery writer Ariadne Oliver creates a fiendishly complicated murder mystery weekend but calls in Poirot when it takes a a tragic turn.

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THE APE WHO WENT TO COLLEGE

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

This episode features Chantek, the orangutan raised as a human child on an American university campus during the 70s and 80s. Taught to speak in sign language, he is now living among his own kind at Zoo Atlanta, although he describes himself as an “orangutan person.”

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AUSTRALIA’S FIRST 4 BILLION

LIFE EXPLODES

SUNDAY, JUNE 28 @ 6:00PM

How did life storm the beaches and dominate planet Earth? Ancient Australian fossils offer clues in “Life Explodes.” Half a billion years ago, Australia was still part of the super-continent Gondwana. The oceans were teeming with weird and wonderful animals, but the world above the waves remained an almost lifeless wasteland. All that was about to change, though. Host Richard Smith introduces Earth’s forgotten pioneers: the scuttling arthropod armies that invaded the shores and the waves of green revolutionaries whose battle for the light pushed plant life across the face of a barren continent.

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