GROUND ZERO SUPERTOWER

SUNDAY, MARCH 2 @ 6:00pm

NOVA kicks off the fall season with a return to Ground Zero to witness the final chapter in an epic story of engineering, innovation, and the perseverance of the human spirit. “Ground Zero Supertower” examines the new skyscraper, One World Trade Center, rising up 104 stories and 1,776 feet from the site where the Twin Towers once stood. NOVA also goes underground to see another engineering marvel taking shape here: the construction of the National September 11 Memorial Museum that will house almost a thousand artifacts from that devastating day.

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BILLIE JEAN KING

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 @ 10:30PM

For the first time, American Masters profiles a sports figure: Billie Jean King, a determined woman who has been a major force in changing and democratizing the cultural landscape. American Masters Billie Jean King commemorates the 40th anniversaries of the Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs “The Battle of the Sexes” match on Sept. 20, 1973, and the founding of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) by King on June 20 of that year. This new documentary traces the incredible life of the single most important female athlete of the 20th century as her 70th birthday nears.

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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 @ 8:00PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Charlie Rose on Sunday that he is preparing for a U.S. strike, and that Syria and some of their allies would retaliate if one occurs. I spoke with Rose, host of the PBS program that bears his name, as he was boarding his flight back to the United States after interviewing Assad in Damascus, Syria, Sunday morning. It is the first interview the Syrian president has given to an American network in nearly two years.

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PING PONG

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 @ 11:00PM

Call this old age, extreme edition: Seven players with 620 years between them compete in the Over 80 World Table Tennis Championships in China’s Inner Mongolia. British players Terry, 81, who has been given a week to live, and Les, 91, a weightlifter and poet, are going for the gold. Inge, 89, from Germany, has used table tennis to paddle her way out of dementia. And Texan Lisa, 85, is playing for the first time. Ping Pong is a wonderfully unusual story of hope, regret, friendship, ambition, love — and sheer human tenacity in the face of aging and mortality.

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SILK

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Martha Costello’s prosecution of an attempted murderer should be a slam-dunk, but will justice be served? As Martha and Clive have their Silk interviews in competition for the QC appointment, the scales appear tipped. And as Martha and Clive oppose one another in a high-profile murder trial, Martha’s ambitions and fate hang in the balance.

Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones (Persuasion, The Thirty-Nine Steps) star as two barristers facing off in the competition of their professional lives, the prestigious appointment as Queen’s Counsel, while working high-stakes cases amidst the rivalry, tension, and intrigue on the front lines of criminal law.

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LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 @ 9:00PM

From award-winning writer Sally Wainwright comes this uplifiting comedy drama about romance and second chances. Full of zesty humor, great characters and glorious dialogue, it’s about timeless love in a very modern setting.

Childhood sweethearts Alan and Celia, both widowed and in their 70s, fall for each other all over again when they are reunited on the internet after nearly 60 years. As their lives collide for a second time, the couple lament over what might have been as they take us on a life-affirming journey of what can still happen.

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AMERICA’S BEST IDEA

THE MORNING OF CREATION (1946-1980)

THURSDAY, JULY 16 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Following World War II, the parks are overwhelmed as visitation reaches 62 million people a year. A new billion-dollar campaign – Mission 66 – is created to build facilities and infrastructure that can accommodate the flood of visitors. A biologist named Adolph Murie introduces the revolutionary notion that predatory animals, which are still hunted, deserve the same protection as other wildlife. In Florida, Lancelot Jones, the grandson of a slave, refuses to sell to developers his family’s property on a string of unspoiled islands in Biscayne Bay and instead sells it to the federal government to be protected as a national monument. In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter creates an uproar in Alaska when he sets aside 56 million acres of land for preservation – the largest expansion of protected land in history. In 1995, wolves are re-established in Yellowstone, making the world’s first national park a little more like what it once was.

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with GWEN IFILL

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

THIS WEEK: THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CASE FOR INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

The debate over U.S. intervention in Syria played out in Washington and on the global stage this week. There were hearings on Capitol Hill and President Obama presented his arguments for military involvement during an overseas news conference ahead of the G-20 meetings in Russia.

President Obama insists that the credibility of the United States, Congress and the international community is on the line over any response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

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AMERICA’S BEST IDEA

GREAT NATURE (1933-1945)

THURSDAY, JULY 9 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

To battle unemployment in the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the Civilian Conservation Corps, which spawns a “golden age” for the parks through major renovation projects. In a groundbreaking study, a young NPS biologist named George Melendez Wright discovers widespread abuses of animal habitats and pushes the service to reform its wildlife policies. Congress narrowly passes a bill to protect the Everglades in Florida as a national park – the first time a park has been created solely to preserve an ecosystem, as opposed to scenic beauty. As America becomes entrenched in World War II, Roosevelt is pressured to open the parks to mining, grazing and lumbering. The president also is subjected to a storm of criticism for expanding the Grand Teton National Parkin Wyoming by accepting a gift of land secretly purchased by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

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A NATURE SPECIAL PRESENTATION

NORTH AMERICA

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

What would it be like to see the world from a bird’s perspective? To experience riding on the backs of bald eagles and snow geese or flying alongside a flock of brown pelicans as they scan and dive for fish in the ocean below. State-of-the-art technology and sophisticated camera techniques have now made it possible to do just that and more as EARTHFLIGHT, A Nature Special Presentation takes viewers on a breathtaking aerial adventure over six continents.

Episode One: North America
Snow geese, pelicans, and bald eagles fly over the Great Plains, the Grand Canyon, Alaska, New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge as they encounter and engage with bears, dolphins, bison, and spawning fish.

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