AUSTRALIA’S FIRST 4 BILLION YEARS

MONSTERS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 @ 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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THE RETIREMENT GAMBLE

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18 @ 11:00PM

For most Americans, traditional retirement is now a pipe dream: Six in 10 people believe they’ll have to delay retirement, just 14 percent are very confident they’ll be able to live comfortably once they stop working, and 17 percent believe they’ll never retire at all.

The Retirement Gamble, airing tonight on MCPTV 26.2 is an eye-opening investigation of a financial services industry that may be draining your retirement savings with every passing year.

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THE ISLAND PRESIDENT

MONDAY, APRIL 22 @ 8:00PM

Jon Shenk’s The Island Presidenttells the story of former president Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, a man confronting a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced—the survival of his country and everyone in it. After bringing democracy to the Maldives after thirty years of despotic rule, Nasheed is now faced with an even greater challenge: As one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable.

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MR. SELFRIDGE

SUNDAY, MAY 5 @ 10:00AM

EPISODE 6

In Episode 6 of Mr. Selfridge, two dead relatives show up at a store séance prompted by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Agnes gets moved to fashion and develops a closer relationship to Henri.

Jeremy Piven (Entourage) stars in Mr. Selfridge as a wheeling-dealing American who shows early 1900s Londoners how to shop. Based on the life of colorful retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, the new eight-part series is created by Emmy® Award-winning writer Andrew Davies(Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House). Also starring are Frances O’Connor (Madame Bovary), Aisling Loftus (Page Eight), Zoe Tapper (Zen), Amanda Abbington (Case Histories), and Samuel West (Any Human Heart).

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SUNDAY, MAY 5 @ 6:00PM & 12:00AM

EPISODE 3

See where the killer’s obsession with Susan — and her determination to find him — leads.

With an extraordinary flair for code breaking and razor-sharp intelligence skills, four seemingly ordinary women become the unlikely investigators of a string of grisly murders in this original thriller, set against the backdrop of post-war London.

It’s 1951 and Susan, played by two-time BAFTA award-winner Anna Maxwell Martin, Millie (Rachael Stirling, Women in Love), Lucy (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Sophie Rundle) and Jean (Julie Graham, William & Mary, Survivors) have returned to post-war domesticity, modestly setting aside the part they played in the Allied victory. Their brilliant work at top security HQ Bletchley Park helped crack the codes used by the German military, producing crucial intelligence that shortened the war.

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CELEBRATION: STEPHANIE BLYTHE MEETS KATE SMITH

SATURDAY, APRIL 20 @ 10:00PM

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe pays personal tribute to the songs made famous by Kate Smith, the popular music icon whose stirring voice helped the country find its way out of the Great Depression and World War II.

For those of us of a certain age, the hour of 12 Noon evokes memories of Ted Collins on CBS radio introducing a 15-minute program in which the national icon, Kate Smith, along with Mr. Collins, dispensed homespun comment and advice. Who was Kate Smith?

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THE MYSTERY OF EELS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 @ 9:00PM

Eels have been a source of fascination to writer, artist and conservationist James Prosek since childhood. His introduction to the slimy, muscular fish occurred when fishing as a boy in the ponds and rivers of Connecticut. He would catch them by accident when fishing for something else. But when an old game warden explained that they were born thousands of miles away in the Sargasso Sea, somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, Prosek became hooked and determined to learn as much he could about the mysterious creatures.

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WITH MICHAEL MOSLEY

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17 @ 8:00PM

What’s really going on inside your stomach? In this one off special for BBC4 Michael Mosley offers up his own guts to find out. Spending the day as an exhibit at the Science Museum in London he swallows a tiny camera and uses the latest in imaging technology to get a unique view of his innards digesting his food. He discovers pools of concentrated acid and meters of writhing tubing which is home to its own ecosystem. Michael Mosley lays bare the mysteries of the digestive system – and reveals a complexity and intelligence in the human gut that science is only just beginning to uncover.

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AT THE WHITE HOUSE

MEMPHIS SOUL

THURSDAY, APRIL 17 @ 7:00PM

“In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul” will honor the memorable soul sounds from the mid- to late-1960s that came from Memphis, Tennessee and legendary labels like Stax-Volt Records, that featured artists such as Al Green, Mavis Staples, Ben Harper, Alabama Shakes and many more. The evening pays homage to Memphis, a segregated city in the 1960s where many whites and blacks nonetheless came together to make soulful music, a mix of gospel and potent rhythmic grooves – known today as “Memphis Soul.” Airs on MCPTV 26.1 tonight!

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6 @ 9:00PM

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case, for the first time from the perspective of these five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.

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