with GWEN IFILL

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 @ 9:00PM

THIS WEEK: AN EVOLVING SOLUTION FOR SYRIA

It has been a whirlwind week for developments surrounding President Obama’s attempts to take action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for alleged chemical weapons attacks in that 2-year civil war. What looked like a potential military strike at the beginning of the week now seems to have turned into a diplomatic dance involving Syria, Russia, the US and the United Nations. All this comes after a full court press by President Obama to garner support for military action; Assad’s hour-long interview on PBS; and Russia President Vladimir Putin chastising the US in a New York Times Op-Ed.

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AT THE WHITE HOUSE

FIESTA LATINA

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 @ 6:00PM

“In Performance at the White House: Fiesta Latina” is a concert hosted by the President and Mrs. Obama on the South Lawn of the White House that will be broadcast by PBS. The program, part of the will include Marc Anthony, Jimmy Smits, Pete Escovedo, Gloria Estefan, José Feliciano, George Lopez, Thalía, Tito “El Bambino”, the Bachata music group Aventura, and the Chicano rock band Los Lobos, with Sheila E. leading the house band.

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with ALAN ALDA

DETERMINING GUILT

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 @ 11:00PM

Using a fictional crime — a convenience store robbery that goes horribly wrong — this two-part program builds a gripping courtroom drama. The program probes the brains of the major participants —defendant, witnesses, jurors, judge — while Alan Alda visits neuroscientists who explore how brains work when they become entangled with the law.

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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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