THE CITY DARK

THURSDAY, JULY 6 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

The town in rural Maine where Ian Cheney spent much of his childhood has about 4,000 residents. Waldoboro had electric lights, but on a cloudless and moonless night, it was impossible not to be struck by the incredible array of stars visible above. Cheney became deeply curious about the stars, as humans have been for millennia. He followed his passion into amateur astronomy, fashioning his own homemade telescope, and then into astrophotography to capture the wondrous scenes that revealed themselves at night.

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 4 @ 6:00PM, 7:30PM,

11:00PM & 12:30AM

America’s favorite Independence Day celebration will feature unrivaled performances from some of the country’s best-known musical artists, topped off by the greatest display of fireworks anywhere in the nation. Twenty television cameras will be stationed around Washington, D.C. to capture the sights and sounds of the concert, making at-home viewers feel like they are front and center for the show.

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MICHAEL WOOD’S STORY OF ENGLAND

ROMANS TO NORMANS

PEASANTS’ REVOLT AND THE BLACK DEATH

TUESDAY, JULY 3 @ 6:00PM & 9:00PM

In this groundbreaking series Michael Wood tells the story of one place – the village of Kibworth, Leicestershire – throughout the whole of English history. Located in the very heart of England, Kibworth has lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War II.

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THE ROYAL FAMILY AT WORK

EPISODE 5 ~ THE QUEEN AND US

SATURDAY, JULY 7 @ 8:00PM

“The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by Her Majesty to invite you to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace,” reads the hand-lettered invitation sent to 40,000 guests each year by the palace Garden Party Ladies. “The Queen and Us” tells the story of four party guests as they savor each moment of this once-in-a-lifetime occasion. At the party, only a select few guests will be presented to the Queen. Attendants calm the jittery nerves of the lucky ones with a crash course in royal protocol.

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ENDEAVOUR

SUNDAY, JULY 1 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

It’s 1965, and outside of a posh estate, a sinister man conducts surveillance, while within, black-tied gentlemen make high-stakes wagers. But as dawn breaks, it stirs a dissipated scene of older men and teenage girls, awakening entangled. And the next day, fifteen-year-old Oxford schoolgirl Mary Tremlett is reported missing, presumed dead. Last seen waiting at a bus stop in the rain in the early hours of Sunday morning, she left behind few clues and many secrets.

Endeavour Morse, a rookie Detective Constable who only the day before was writing his letter of resignation from the force, now finds himself en route to Oxford to assist in the search for Mary. He returns not as a student but as a rookie cop, to the very university he’d abruptly left just a few years earlier. And the welcome he receives from his contemptuous DS, Arthur Lott, emphasizes his position of utter subordination.

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PBS ARTS

FRIDAY, JUNE 6 @ 8:00PM

Mariachi High presents a year in the life of the champion mariachi ensemble at Zapata High School on the Rio Grande in South Texas. As they compete and perform with musical virtuosity, these teens and the music they make will inspire, surprise, and bring you to your feet. High school never sounded so good.

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DOLLARS AND DENTISTS

TUESDAY, JUNE 26 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

Dental care can be a matter of life and death. Yet millions of Americans can’t afford a visit to the dentist. An investigation by FRONTLINE and the Center for Public Integrity reveals the shocking consequences of a broken safety net. Poor children, entitled by law to dental care, often cannot find a dentist willing to see them. Others kids receive excessive care billed to Medicaid, or major surgery for preventable tooth infections. For adults with dental disease, the situation can be as dire — and bankrupting. While millions of Americans use emergency rooms for dental care, at a cost of more than half a billion dollars, corporate dental chains are filling the gaps in care, in some cases allegedly overcharging patients or loading them with high priced credit card debt. Correspondent Miles O’Brien investigates the flaws in our dental system and nascent proposals to fix them.

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THE ROYAL FAMILY AT WORK

EPISODE 4 ~ HEAD OF STATE

SATURDAY, JUNE 30 @ 8:00PM

For the dramatic ritual that opens Parliament, the Queen’s coachmen don full livery and her horse-drawn carriages parade through the streets. One holds the Queen, while another carries the crown jewels. “Head of State” follows the Queen as she conducts her official duties as the head of Britain’s constitutional monarchy.

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JUDY GARLAND: BY MYSELF

SATURDAY, MARCH 21 @ 6:00PM

It’s been just thirty-five years since Judy Garland gave her last performance — and almost eighty since (at age thirty months) she gave her first. In the decades between those two events, she amassed a body of work astounding in its range, amazing in its power, and timeless in its ability to exult, enthrall, and excite cross-generational audiences. In each medium, her legacy encompassed unsurpassed artistic and popular successes.

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SUPERFISH

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20 @ 6:00PM & 9:00PM

Marine biologist and award-winning filmmaker Rick Rosenthal set out to capture on film the biggest, fastest, most dangerous gamefish in the sea — the ancient creatures known as billfish.

The largest of all billfish is the marlin. They top speeds of 60 miles an hour on migrations that can span 9,000 miles. The largest, always female, weigh in at over 1,000 pounds, and are known as “granders.” Ernest Hemingway immortalized the grander in The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an elderly fisherman locked in a life and death struggle with this apex predator. To Hemingway’s great disappointment, he himself never landed a grander, although his novella captures the impact of this huge and graceful creature.

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