Thursday, February 28, 2013

She was inspired by Yo-Yo Ma on Mister Rogers...

This year's Grammy winner for best jazz vocal album went to bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding. Blessed with uncanny instrumental chops, a multi-lingual voice that is part angel and part siren, and a natural beauty that borders on the hypnotic, the prodigy-turned-pro might well be the hope for the future of jazz and instrumental music. Catch her tonight on AUSTIN CITY LIMITS...7pm

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Why do we love elephants?

Is it that family is so important to them? That they take care of their young? That they play? Or is it that they are simply so big, smart and powerful? Whatever the allure, elephants are popular. And yet, in 2012, the world witnessed the greatest slaughter of elephants since an international ban on the ivory trade was first put in place in 1989. According to some sources, as many as 50,000 elephants were killed across Africa for their tusks. Who is perpetrating the wholesale slaughter of elephants? What's driving the decimation of elephant herds and why is it happening now? What happened to the ban on the trade? Now, National Geographic follows five people, each of whom is waging a battle for the elephant. Their stories reveal that this is an epic tale of supply and demand, of passion and profit, of love and loss...tonight on NATURE...7pm


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Trying to make sense of the senseless...

What makes a person walk into a theater or a church or a classroom full of students and open fire? What combination of circumstances compels a human being to commit the most inhuman of crimes? NOVA correspondent Miles O'Brien separates fact from fiction, investigating new theories that the most destructive rampage killers are driven most of all, not by the urge to kill, but the wish to die. Could suicide and the desire to go out in a media-fueled blaze of glory be the main motivation?
In a week-long series of specials, PBS attempts to find the answers.
NOVA: MIND OF A RAMPAGE KILLER...8pm, followed by
PATH TO VIOLENCE...9pm


Monday, February 18, 2013

Between a lot of rocks and a very hard place...

Unique among black leaders, he took the fight directly to the powerful white elite, gaining allies in business and government, including three presidents. Whitney M. Young Jr. was one of the most celebrated -- and controversial -- leaders of the civil rights era. This documentary follows his journey from segregated Kentucky to head of the National Urban League. Young had the difficult tasks of calming the fears of white allies, relieving the doubts of fellow civil rights leaders and responding to attacks from the militant Black Power movement. INDEPENDENT LENS:
THE POWERBROKER...WHITNEY YOUNG'S FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS...9pm

Friday, February 15, 2013

Start spreadin' the news...

Broadway icon Joel Grey helps introduce numbers like "All That Jazz," "Mister Cellophane," "Wilkommen," "A Quiet Thing," "Maybe This Time" and the incomparable "New York, New York"... just some of the dozens of songs written by John Kander and Fred Ebb over the course of their creative collaboration. They are honored tonight in the LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER: RING THEM BELLS! ROB FISHER CELEBRATES KANDER & EBB...Friday at 8pm

ACL presents modern blues and soul with Gary Clark, Jr. and Alabama Shakes. Austin guitarist Clark showcases his major label debut, while Alabama's Shakes spotlight their critically acclaimed Boys & Girls...Saturday 10pm

And Sunday brings to an end Season 3 of Downton Abbey, Masterpiece Classic's runaway hit, with promises of a season 4 later in the year. Don't miss it, everyone but you will know what happened!
MASTERPIECE CLASSIC: DOWNTON ABBEY EPISODE 7...8pm

Thursday, February 14, 2013

From O.J. Simpson to Elian Gonzalez & Martha Stewart...


Jeffrey Toobin has been at the forefront of legal journalism since the early 90's...and has the Emmys' to prove it. After graduating from Harvard - magna cum laude - he delved right into reporting high profile legal cases as a writer for the New Yorker as a broadcaster for ABC. On the heels of his book "THE OATH: THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE VS. THE SUPREME COURT, Mr. Toobin sits down with Evan Smith to discuss his career. OVERHEARD WITH EVAN SMITH...8pm

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Our living, breathing planet...as you've never seen it!

It's difficult not to go for the dramatic. Earth from Space is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced by NASA and NOVA...satellites around the globe let viewers witness how dust blown from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon; how a vast submarine "waterfall" off Antarctica helps drive ocean currents around the world; and how the sun's heating up of the southern Atlantic gives birth to a colossally powerful hurricane. Everything is connected, and it's spectacular...NOVA: EARTH FROM SPACE...8pm

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Don't worry...there'll be more CLIFFHANGERS to come...

FRONTLINE investigates the inside history of how Washington has failed to solve the country's problems of debt and deficit. Drawing on interviews with key players in Congress and the White House, FRONTLINE goes behind the scenes to show how a clash of politics and personalities has taken the nation's economy to the edge of the "fiscal cliff," and now to a second round of standoffs over the debt ceiling and sequestration FRONTLINE SPECIAL TIME...7pm

Monday, February 11, 2013

When Clooney speaks, folks listen...

Introduced by George Clooney, and traveling with intrepid reporter Nicholas Kristof and celebrity advocates (America Ferrera, Diane Lane,Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union and Olivia Wilde), HALF THE SKY presents women and girls who are living under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable -- and fighting bravely to change them. Filmed in 10 countries, from Cambodia to Kenya, from Vietnam to the U.S....Their intimate, dramatic and immediate stories of struggle are worth telling, and hearing. HALF THE SKY: TURNING OPPRESSION INTO OPPORTUNITY...9pm

Thursday, February 7, 2013

First rule of writing..."Go There"!

David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist who's written five bestselling books, including a biography of Bill Clinton and a history of the 1960 Rome Olympics. His latest book is Barack Obama: The Story, which uses hundreds of interviews to chronicle the President's family history and his life before he entered politics. Maraniss takes us through 2 generations before Obama's birth and follows him down the road to the presidency. What is particularly amazing is how difficult that path became. "No life could have been more the product of randomness than that of Barack Obama," writes Mr. Maraniss...and tonight he shares some of that insight with Evan Smith.
OVERHEARD with EVAN SMITH...8pm

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

and remember - no talking on your cell phone...

In this film, a team of archaeologists, engineers, woodworkers and horse trainers join forces to build and test two highly accurate replicas of Egyptian royal chariots. They discover astonishingly advanced features, including spoked wheels, springs, shock absorbers, anti-roll bars and even a convex shaped rear mirror, leading one of them to compare the level of design to the engineering standards of 1930's-era Buicks! Take a test drive of a 3600 year old design in the desert around Cairo...and be sure to fasten your seat belt. NOVA: BUILDING PHARAOH'S CHARIOT...8pm 

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The future was invented in his garage...

In 1957 Robert Noyce was one of the young founders of a new semiconductor company in Santa Clara California, and credited with perfecting the integrated circuit. Noyce's innovation, though originally intended for the Apollo Space program, would have huge impact over the way Americans live, making possible smart phones and digital video recorders, pacemakers and microwaves. In telling the story of Noyce and the integrated circuit, this film looks at the monumental impact the microchip had on modern life and reveals the pivotal role Noyce played in transforming a fertile farmland into one of the most creative places on earth -- the hub of technological ingenuity we now know as Silicon Valley. SILICON VALLEY: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE...8pm 


Monday, February 4, 2013

Small town America with Big, Big Troubles...


Tonight INDEPENDENT LENS looks at the impact of the economic crisis on the people of Janesville, Wisconsin...focusing on two years in the lives of laid-off workers, business leaders and elected officials all trying to reinvent their lives and their midwestern town amid the closure of their GM plant and America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
INDEPENDENT LENS: AS GOES JANESVILLE...9pm

Friday, February 1, 2013

A little of this, a little of that...

This series on Shakespeare has been fascinating...tonight Jeremy Irons uncovers the enduring appeal of Shakespeare's "history plays," from the facts of English history to the father-son drama that Shakespeare created. He discloses what Shakespeare's sources were - and how he distorted them. He invites the viewer behind the scenes at the filming of some of the most important sequences in the new GREAT PERFORMANCES adaptations of both plays...SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED...9PM

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS features Tim McGraw Saturday night at 10pm

In 2010, new FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT homeowners set out to restore the 100 year old Boynton House in Rochester NY to its original splendor, following Wright's design concepts and architectural philosophy. They guide cameras through every phase of the transformation, including the restoration of art glass panels and cantilevered front porch, the replacement of the roof, the addition of a three-car garage and back porch, and more...FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S BOYNTON HOUSE: THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS Sunday at 3pm

And of course...DOWNTON ABBEY, beginning at 7pm Sunday