The Public Broadcasting Service will try to recreate the magic it conjured up last season with "The Civil War" by going back even further in history.
The four-night, seven-hour "Columbus and the Age of Discovery," set for October, will kick off the 500th anniversary celebration of the explorer's first trip to America.Filming took three years and was done in 27 countries. Segments will focus on the Europe Columbus sailed from in 1492, the voyage, what he found when he landed in the New World, how that discovery affected both the New World and the Old, and the current controversy over whether Columbus was a great explorer or a monster who ruined the New World.
Just one hour has been made available to critics so far, the segment dealing with a recreation of the voyage. And, unfortunately, that hour seemed almost as long as the voyage itself. We can only hope it was the series low-point.
Other new programming from PBS includes:
Childhood, an ambitions seven-parter scheduled for October that looks at the development of children in various parts of the world.
Edge, an eclectic magazine show hosted by CBS and National Public Radio Correspondent Robert Krulwich. Non-journalists (like Buck Henry and Harry Shearer) will cover stories from rather unique points of view in this monthly series.
Land of the Eagle, an eight-hour, four-nighter about wildlife in America.
Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is a kids' game show based on a video game. It's designed to help teach geography, but it's also fun and entertaining.
Returning series include:
American Experience presents a four-hour special about Lyndon Johnson.
American Playhouse returns in October with the controversial AIDS film "Longtime Companion."
Frontline kicks off the year with "My Doctor, My Lover" - the case of a psychiatrist who entered into an unethical affair with a patient.
Great Performances returns with "Everybody Dance Now," which features Madonna, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul and M.C. Hammer, among others. And at Christmastime, a star-filled presentation of "La Pastorela."
Infinite Voyage learns "Secrets From a Frozen World" by traveling to the Antarctic.
Masterpiece Theatre returns in October with a two-part John le Carre mystery titled "A Murder of Quality."
Mystery! kicks off the season a new Commander Adam Dalgliesh adventure, "Devices and Desires."
Nova includes an installment on baldness title "Sex, Lies and Toupee Tape."
Nature returns with an installment titled "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning" - a look at the Kogi, a tribe of pre-Columbian people in the jungles of Colombia who have issued a "final warning" to the modern world.
Sesame Street will teach children about race relations, in part by traveling to a Crow reservation in Montana.
And George Carlin replaces Ringo Starr as the host of Shining Time Station.
PBS also plans several specials throughout the season, including:
Aspen is filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's look at the Colorado resort.
Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey allows the star an opportunity to reflect on her career.
A retrospective, Bill Moyers/20 Years of Listening to America. Moyers will also host Facing Hate with Elie Wiesel.
Garrison Keillor returns with a special titled "Home."
And a musical special, Michael Feinstein & Friends, in which the pianist is joined by Rosemary Clooney and Mercer Ellington.Utah's two PBS stations will take even more divergent roads than usual this season. KBYU-Ch. 11, under terms of a "limited use discount" arrangement, must air less than 50 percent of Public Broadcasting Service's national programming - meaning more PBS shows than in the past will appear only on KUED-Ch. 7.
Programs appearing exclusively on Ch. 7 are: "Alive From Off-Center," "American Experience," "American Playhouse," the Bill Moyers specials, DeGrassi High," "Frontline," the Mark Russell specials, "Masterpiece Theatre," "Nova," "P.O.V." and "Smithsonian World."