JAPAN’S KILLER QUAKE

SATURDAY, MARCH 21  @ 11:00PM

In its worst crisis since World War II, Japan faces disaster on an epic scale: a death toll likely in the tens of thousands, massive destruction of homes and businesses, shortages of water and power, and the specter of nuclear meltdown. With exclusive footage, NOVA captures the unfolding human drama and offers a clear-headed investigation of what triggered the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis. Can science and technology ever prevent devastation in the face of overwhelmingly powerful forces of nature?

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THE 39 STEPS

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 @ 7:30PM & 11:30PM

Newly returned to England on the eve of World War I, Richard Hannay’s (Rupert Penry-Jones, Persuasion) listless London life is about to spiral out of control. When a neighbor bursts in with a top-secret notebook full of cryptic codes and a frantic story of an impending assassination, unlikely patriot Hannay is soon on the run to save himself and his country.

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NO TOMORROW

FRIDAY, MARCH 25 @ 12:30 AM

No Tomorrow investigates the murder of Risa Bejarano, the principle subject of our recent PBS documentary, Aging Out, about teenagers leaving foster care. No Tomorrow explores how our film about Risa’s last year of life unexpectedly became the centerpiece of a chilling death penalty trial. This unusual documentary covers the trial’s most dramatic moments in Judge Lance Ito’s courtroom in Los Angeles, including a heated debate over the prosecutor’s presentation of Aging Out to foster sympathy for the victim and hatred for the defendant.

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TAKING ROOT: THE VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI

TUESDAY, MARCH 22 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai tells the story of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization encouraging rural women and families to plant trees in community groups, and follows Maathai, the movement’s founder and the first environmentalist and African woman to win the Nobel Prize. Maathai discovered her life’s work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. They told her they were walking long distances for firewood, and that clean water was scarce. The soil was disappearing from their fields and their children were suffering from malnutrition. “Well, why not plant trees?” she suggested.

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CRASH: A TALE OF TWO SPECIES

SUNDAY, MARCH 20 @ 6:00PM & 10:00PM

With its armored shell, ancient anatomy, and 350-million-year lineage, the horseshoe crab almost seems too inconspicuous to stir up controversy. Yet this humble creature is at the very center of a collision between three completely different species.

For many decades, humans have harvested the horseshoe crab for use as fishing bait. Since the 1970s, we have also used horseshoe crab blood for medical purposes. But we may have gone too far. Horseshoe crab numbers have declined significantly since the early 1990’s. And, naturally, so did their egg numbers.

This is especially important to a small shorebird that is a global traveler of the most impressive kind. The red knot makes one of the longest migrations of any animal — a journey that takes it from one end of the earth to the other. To accomplish this feat, it relies on the eggs of the horseshoe crab. Without these eggs, the red knot is in danger.

In the film Crash: A Tale of Two Species, filmmaker Allison Argo tells the story of nature’s amazing ability to create fragile connections among the most unexpected creatures, and of our potential as humans to destroy those connections — or restore them.
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ART & COPY

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 @ 7:30PM

Meet the real Mad Men (and women!) in Art & Copy, an intimate glimpse at the people behind the curtain of modern consumer culture. They brought you “Just Do It,” “I ♥ NY,” “Where’s the Beef?” “Got Milk?” and “Think Different.” Love them or loathe them, they have mastered the art of persuasion.

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SILENCE OF THE BEES

FRIDAY, MARCH 18 @ 7:30PM & 12:30AM

In the winter of 2006, a strange phenomenon fell upon honeybee hives across the country. Without a trace, millions of bees vanished from their hives. A precious pollinator of fruits and vegetables, the disappearing bees left billions of dollars of crops at risk and threatened our food supply. The epidemic set researchers scrambling to discover why honeybees were dying in record numbers — and to stop the epidemic in its tracks before it spread further.
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DRAKENSBERG: BARRIER OF SPEARS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 @ 6:00PM & 11:00PM

Rising sharply from the South African landscape, cliffs like spines of a dragon form the majestic Drakensberg Mountains (their name actually means “Dragon’s Mountain”). Born of Jurassic molten lava, they span more than 600 miles and tower more than 10,000 feet. Despite the impossible terrain and unpredictable weather, the Drakensberg is home to a fascinating array of animals, including crab-hunting frogs, bone-devouring vultures, cliff-dwelling baboons, and furry ice rats.

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THE DARK TRADE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

The world is under threat from a new kind of international crime wave: illicit trade in everything from knock-off Prada bags to bogus medicines, from dangerous weapons to humans themselves. While smuggling is nothing new, globalization has made it larger and far more ominous. The global value of this “dark trade” is estimated to reach a phenomenal ten percent of the world’s trade. Since the 1990s it has been growing seven times faster than legal trade—and it’s having profound consequences for the world’s economy and for politics everywhere.

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TROUBADOURS: CAROLE KING / JAMES TAYLOR

& THE RISE OF THE SINGER-SONGWRITER

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 @ 6:00PM & 9:00PM

The narrative begins in the ’60s, when Carole King and Gerry Goffin were writing their now-iconic songs at Manhattan’s 1650 Broadway hit factory, and James Taylor was emerging as a folksinger/songwriter. The location then shifts westward to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, the breeding ground for the burgeoning singer-songwriter community, and to Doug Weston’s Troubadour, where the King/Taylor partnership begins to blossom and a close-knit crew of future legends — including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, and Elton John—performs on the small stage and holds court in the bar, the epicenter of the action.

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