RICKY JAY: DECEPTIVE PRACTICE

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 @ 6:00PM

Cartoonist and author Art Spiegelman (Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers) and sleight-of-hand magician Ricky Jay spoke in conversation at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on the occasion of the exhibition Extraordinary Exhibitions, featuring over 80 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century ephemeral advertising sheets known as broadsides, from Ricky Jay’s own collection. The magical attractions promoted in these broadsides include unusually talented animals and insects; gadgets that defy science; and conjurers with strange talents. The event Hammer Conversation with Ricky Jay and Art Spiegelman took place November 17, 2007.

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ST. LOUIS – CENTRAL LIBRARY

TUESDAY, JANUARY 20 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

The team of genealogist experts travel to the Gateway City in order to uncover fascinating stories from the residents of St. Louis. While at the downtown St. Louis Central Library, the experts meet with a mystery writer who discovers her mother has hidden a life changing secret. A woman seeks to find out if she is descended from the infamous pirate Blackbeard, and a young man seeks connection to the Mali tribe in Africa.

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THE KILL TEAM/CONFUSION THROUGH SAND

MONDAY, JANUARY 19 @ 8:00PM

The Kill Team goes behind closed doors to tell the harrowing story of Specialist Adam Winfield, a 21-year-old infantryman in Afghanistan who — with the help of his father Chris — attempted to alert the military to heinous war crimes being committed by his platoon. Tragically, his father’s pleas for help went unheeded. Once Adam’s fellow soldiers got wind of what he’d done, they threatened to silence him — permanently.

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DOWNTON ABBEY SEASON 5

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18 @ 10:00PM

EPISODE 3: Mary checks in to a hotel and checks out a potential mate. The specter of Green is revived when the police come to Downton. And a secret from Violet’s past is revealed.

Downton Abbey returns for an epic fifth season of intimately interlaced stories centered on an English country estate—a deliciously entertaining formula that has made it the highest-rated drama in PBS history.

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GRANTCHESTER

SUNDAY, MARCH 13

EPISODE 1 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

Set in the English countryside’s most idyllic village, Grantchester follows two unlikely allies as they solve a series of cases that reveal the dark side of early 1950s England.  It looks like suicide, but Reverend Sidney Chambers suspects murder. His biggest challenge is to enlist police in the hunt for the killer.

EPISODE 2 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

Sidney’s former flame throws an engagement party that leads to murder. To crack the case, Sidney and Geordie must break a code of silence.

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AT THE MET

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

Mozart’s elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre, is the season nine premiere of Great Performances at the Met on Friday, January 16 at 9 pm on PBS.

Eyre’s staging of the opera, in which the romantic bonds of two couples are tested over the course of one eventful day, is set in a stately manor in 1930s Seville. Ildar Abdrazakov, star of Prince Igor (also seen on Great Performances at the Met) and an acclaimed Figaro at the Met in the past, sings the title role. The cast also includes Marlis Petersen as Figaro’s quick-witted bride-to-be, Susanna; Peter Mattei in one of his most acclaimed roles as Count Almaviva; Amanda Majeski in her Met debut as Almaviva’s wife, the long-suffering Countess; and Isabel Leonard as the boisterous page Cherubino. Eyre’s Met credits include the 2009 hit production of Carmen and last season’s Werther, both broadcast on Great Performances at the Met.

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WITH GWEN IFILL

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 @ 9:00PM

This Week on Washington Week: Lessons from Paris; State of the Union Preview; GOP’s 2016 Contenders; U.S.-Cuba Relations

Just one week after the terror attacks in Paris, another terror plot has been foiled in Belgium. On Thursday counter-terrorism officials prevented jihadists from attacking a police station in the town of Verviers.

Historically, presidents have used the State of the Union address as an opportunity to speak to the nation and outline policy proposals for the coming year. That may not be the case for President Obama this year. Instead of waiting until next Tuesday’s televised address, the president has been on the road for more than two weeks talking about a number of legislative priorities from free community college to expanding paid sick leave for employees.

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

With permission from Her Majesty the Queen, this documentary reveals a year in Buckingham Palace Gardens, exploring the history and the natural history of this remarkable hidden royal treasure in the center of London. This film uncovers a wonderland with a five century history, an urban oasis of wildlife where the Queen has lived with her family and a ‘living museum’ where almost every plant (and many of the animals!) have a royal story to tell.

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BIG BANG MACHINE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 @ 10:00PM

On July 4, 2012, scientists at the giant atom smashing facility at CERN announced the discovery of a subatomic particle that seems like a tantalizingly close match to the elusive Higgs Boson, thought to be responsible for giving all the stuff in the universe its mass. Since it was first proposed nearly fifty years ago, the Higgs has been the holy grail of particle physicists: in finding it they validate the “standard model” that underlies all of modern physics and open the door to new discoveries when CERN’s giant collider switches on at higher power in 2015.

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DOGS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

(PART 1) – THE RISE OF THE DOG

This film explores how the domestication of dogs might have taken place, including the theory of biologist Raymond Coppinger that it was the animals themselves — and human trash — that inspired the transformation. The genetic analysis of Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has placed the origins of domesticated dogs — and those of the first dog — in East Asia.

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