COLLEGE, INC.

FRIDAY, MAY 7 @ 7:30PM & 10:30PM

Even in lean times, the $400 billion business of higher education is booming. Nowhere is this more true than in one of the fastest-growing — and most controversial — sectors of the industry: for-profit colleges and universities that cater to non-traditional students, often confer degrees over the Internet, and, along the way, successfully capture billions of federal financial aid dollars.

In College, Inc., correspondent Martin Smith investigates the promise and explosive growth of the for-profit higher education industry. Through interviews with school executives, government officials, admissions counselors, former students and industry observers, this film explores the tension between the industry –which says it’s helping an underserved student population obtain a quality education and marketable job skills — and critics who charge the for-profits with churning out worthless degrees that leave students with a mountain of debt.
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JAPANESE SUPER SUB

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29  @ 8:00PM &11:00PM

Spring, 1946. Ten months after the end of World War II, an explosion rocks the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii. America has just destroyed one of Japan’s most advanced weapons systems – the I-401 aircraft carrier submarine. The supersub combined the stealth and tactical advantages of sea and sky and was invented to execute air strikes on land from the sea. But why did America sink one of its most prized military captures? Bound by an agreement to share any intelligence with the Soviets but feeling the pressure of the looming Cold War, it was a calculated decision to keep the technology out of Soviet hands. Six decades later, a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii located the submarine’s remains. The discovery of the sunken sub sparks a new examination of its forgotten place in military history.

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Mt. St. Helens Back From the Dead

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 @ 10:00PM

One of the most violent natural disasters of our time, the colossal eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 blasted away an entire mountainside. Over 200 square miles of pristine forest were buried under millions of tons of lava, ash, mud, and avalanche debris. How could life ever return to this barren moonscape? A lone ecologist, Charlie Crisafulli, spent months in the blast zone and was astonished and puzzled by how quickly plants and animals colonized the wasteland. In this program, stunning cinematography and time-lapse photography trace the dramatic story of how Crisafulli witnessed life’s return and figured out the puzzle.

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Roads to Memphis

MONDAY, MAY 3 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

On April 4, 1968, escaped convict James Earl Ray shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King while he lingered on a motel balcony. Roads to Memphis is the fateful narrative of this killer and his prey, set against the seething, turbulent forces in American society at that time.

James Earl Ray, a career criminal with a history of small-scale robberies and scattered stints in jail, grew up in a poor section of Illinois. Ray dropped out of school at the age of 15 and served only two years in the army before he was dismissed for “ineptness and lack of adaptability”. While in the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1966, Ray followed Martin Luther King’s growing popularity and power, nursing his own hatred of the civil rights leader and his gnawing desire to escape from prison. In April 1967 Ray smuggled himself out of the penitentiary by hiding in a bakery cart. Hoping his escape would inspire a widely publicized manhunt, Ray was disappointed in the police’s lackluster response, and he began searching even more desperately for something to make him infamous.
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FOYLE’S WAR

THE RUSSIAN HOUSE

SUNDAY, MAY 2 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Now that the war is over in Europe, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) finds he still has more battles to win in three gripping new 90-minute episodes. Tracking murderers, escapees and traitors, Foyle is joined by his former driver, Samantha “Sam” Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), and his old sergeant, Paul Milner (Anthony Howell), recently promoted to detective inspector in nearby Brighton.

Episodes of Foyle’s War: Series VI
The Russian House
In the war’s aftermath, Hastings is a transit point for Russian POWs who changed sides to fight for the Nazis and now face an uncertain future. The War Office assigns Foyle to track down one escapee, and the reason for his flight becomes shockingly clear.

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 THE VACCINE WAR

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 @ 8:00PM

Public health scientists and clinicians tout vaccines as one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. But for many ordinary Americans vaccines have become controversial. Young parents are concerned at the sheer number of shots–some 26 inoculations for 14 different diseases by age 6–and follow alternative vaccination schedules advocated by gurus like Dr. Robert Sears. Other parents go further. In communities like Ashland, Oregon, up to one-third of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids at all. And some advocacy groups, like Generation Rescue, argue that vaccines are no longer a public health miracle but a scourge; they view vaccines as responsible for alarming rises in certain disorders, including ADHD and autism.

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HAMLET

THURSDAY, APRIL 29 @ 12:00AM

Shakespeare’s immortal “To be, or not to be” takes on a whole new meaning (and medium) as classical stage and screen actors David Tennant and (recently-knighted) Sir Patrick Stewart reprise their roles for a modern-dress, film-for-television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) 2008 stage production of Hamlet. The production will be presented on PBS by the Great Performances series tonight!

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MY LAI

MONDAY, APRIL 26 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

What drove a company of American soldiers — ordinary young men from around the country — to commit the worst atrocity in American military history? Were they “just following orders” as some later declared? Or, did they break under the pressure of a vicious war in which the line between enemy soldier and civilian had been intentionally blurred? AMERICAN EXPERIENCE focuses on the 1968 My Lai massacre, its subsequent cover-up, and the heroic efforts of the soldiers who broke ranks to try to halt the atrocities, and then bring them to light.

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Small Island

SUNDAY, APRIL 25 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Born into a broken home and an impoverished life in Jamaica, Hortense (Naomie Harris) longs for a fulfilling life in England; one with a fine house and a doorbell. The door of opportunity swings open, and Hortense is married and on her way to the promised land of post-war Britain. Steadfast dreams are soon tested by hard realities as Hortense and her husband Gilbert (David Oyelowo) face racism and poverty. In the small-minded country, their only saving grace is Queenie (Ruth Wilson, Jane Eyre).

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FRIDAY, APRIL 23 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

There is no single way to build green. Green Builders takes a wide-ranging look at a variety of approaches and levels of commitment and at the individuals who have helped turn green building theory into reality. These individuals are not just builders and designers; they’re teachers and homeowners, corporate leaders and academic specialists, leaders of institutions and universities as well as renegade inventors. From The Willow School to PNC Bank to the first solar-hydrogen home called The Hopewell Project, people talk about why they made the move to go green, what the challenges were, and how their project has fared. In most cases, one finds that a green building project has more to do with smart planning and a mindset change about energy use than expensive technologies or consumer sacrifice. Innovation helps, and there are plenty of innovations included in Green Builders that are making green technology effective and affordable. Geothermal storage, wind farms and extensive solar array systems are examined in the program. As the stories in the documentary demonstrate, it is crucial for us to change our perspective on how we build, recognizing the wasteful impacts of the traditional mode of building and operating our structures, and realizing the environmental and economic benefits of building green. Only then will the green building movement be successful.

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