Television Highlights

Doctor Who: Christmas Invasion The new special falls between the end of the 900 series and the start of the 1000 series, providing an important bridge between seasons and an introduction to the series’ second Doctor (David Tennant).	Need to Know: Already Out In January WXXI partnered with ImageOut and the Gay Alliance of Rochester to launch a nine-month outreach initiative designed to generate community conversations around the issues a family faces when a child is gay. The campaign centers on the PBS documentary Anyone and Everyone, a film about the journey of understanding a gay child. As part of the outreach initiative, Need to Know will present a 30-minute special that moves beyond the “coming out” stories in the documentary to the “living it” stories of area teenagers who are gay or lesbian.

Rochester International Jazz Festival, Season 2 From WXXI Public Broadcasting in Rochester, New York comes more exciting sounds and scenes from the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Reaching an audience of more than three million people, the first season of the Rochester International Jazz Festival offered viewers an unsurpassed look into one of the most popular and most respected jazz festivals in the country.	Dream Destinations: New York's Contemporary Canals Opened to the public with great ceremony in 1825, the 524-mile infamous “Clinton’s Ditch” was considered an engineering marvel and a significant contributor to the formation of the American nation. With little technical knowledge or precedents to guide them, workers surveyed, blasted and dug across the State, constructing 83 locks to carry vessels through variations in water height -- one set rising as high as Niagara Falls.

Masterpiece Classic: Cranford A sleepy 1840s English village comes to life with gossip, parties, romances, sudden death, bankruptcy and the drama of an encroaching railway on Cranford, based on the beloved Victorian-era writings of Elizabeth Gaskell.	Great Performances at the Met: Peter Grimes Opera’s ultimate outsider, Peter Grimes, comes heart-achingly alive in high definition and 5.1 digital surround sound. As personified by American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, in Tony Award-winner John Doyle’s new production, Benjamin Britten’s brutal haunted hero takes on fresh urgency and meaning. Did the fisherman abuse — even cause the deaths of — the boy apprentices in his care? Most of the inhabitants of the setting’s coastal English village think so, yet it is they whom Britten finally implicates in this classic examination of guilt and judgment.

American Experience: George H.W. Bush When George H.W. Bush left the Oval Office in 1992, rejected after one tumultuous presidential term, his 30-year career in public service came to an abrupt and unexpected end. Despite soaring approval ratings following military victory in the Persian Gulf, his years as president after the war were marked by almost unrelieved decline.By the end of his term, many observers dismissed him as an artifact of an irrelevant Cold War past.	Independent Lens: A Dream in Doubt A story of immigrant survival, focused on Sikh Americans living in Phoenix, Arizona in a close-knit community of families who experienced a wave of frightening hate crimes in the aftermath of 9/11. Rana Singh Sodhi, a 36-year-old Indian immigrant, finds his life forever altered by the 9/11 terror attacks, not because he knew any victims of the attack, but because his turban and beard became symbols of the terrorists who attacked America.

The Human Face In The Human Face, actor and comedian John Cleese sets out on an odyssey to discover the mysteries of communication, identity, perception and sexuality hidden behind the mask of the human face. Looking at the practical effects of beauty, the nature of fame and the face's ability to give away emotion, this series combines technology and human-interest stories to uncover some surprising secrets.	Depression: Out of the Shadows A 90-minute documentary about clinical depression followed by a half-hour panel discussion hosted by Jane Pauley. The documentary tells the dramatic stories of people of different ages, from diverse backgrounds, who live with various forms of clinical depression — and explores its causes and treatments.

Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold Recent headlines revealing illegal performance-enhancing drug use among celebrity athletes have flooded the press and mired the court system. While these athletes’ public downfall may be their own undoing, imagine if they faced the consequences of these drugs without ever knowing they took them. Imagine if these individuals were unknowingly involved in a government-sponsored secret doping program, leaving them with tarnished honors, broken bodies and damaged psyches.	Germans In America Many people don’t realize that over 42 million Americans have German roots. As America’s largest ethnic group, Germans have made a significant mark on America’s cultural, financial, and public lives for the last 400 years.

American Masters presents Marvin Gaye: What's Going On His standing among the most enduring 20th-century American musical artists is without question, yet his story is rarely told beyond the tragic circumstances of his death. Enormously talented and equally complicated, Gaye created an intimate style — full of honesty, integrity, vulnerability — and, essentially, gave the world his autobiography in lyrics and melody.	Oak Hill: A Great Walk Celebrated With more than 90 private and public golf courses in Monroe County, it’s clear that Rochester has a love affair with golf. One of the most beautiful and historic courses in the Rochester community was ranked the tenth greatest golf course in the United States by Golf Digest. Oak Hill is the subject of WXXI’s documentary.

Rosemary and Thyme III Beautiful locations, gripping stories and strong performances combine to make Rosemary and Thyme III, a critical and commercial hit. The series features two women gardeners who dabble in detective work. Pam Ferris (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Matilda) plays Laura Thyme, a former police officer whose husband has left her for a younger woman. Felicity Kendal (The Good Life, The Camomile Lawn) is Rosemary Boxer, a plant biology lecturer whose career is on the line.	Phoenix Mars Mission: Ashes to Ice It’s a question that both intrigues and excites us … what if? Since our forebears first looked to the heavens, we’ve asked ourselves if there’s life “out there” — on any of the other planets in our galaxy or beyond. The University of Arizona’s Lunar & Planetary Laboratory has teamed with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the Canadian Space Agency and other scientific organizations from around the world to attempt to answer that age-old question.

Doctor Who 1000 Series Acclaimed actor David Tennant (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Jude, Posh Nosh) steps into the famous phone booth in the Doctor Who 1000 Series. Hailed as “the single best piece of family-oriented entertainment BBC has broadcast in its entire history” by The Guardian, the first season of Doctor Who became a phenomenal success with critics and viewers in England and America.	National Memorial Day Concert (2008) Honoring the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, their families at home and all of those who have given their lives for our country, the event is co-hosted for the third year by Gary Sinise (CSI: New York) and Tony Award-winner Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds). These two acclaimed actors have dedicated themselves to veterans’ causes and supporting the troops in active service. The top-rated show airs live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol before an estimated audience of 300,000 on site and millions more at home, and will be broadcast to the troops serving around the world on the American Forces Radio and Television Network.

Nature: Prince of the Alps From the moment he’s born, a red deer calf faces a life-long struggle to survive in his new home — the mountain wilderness of the Austrian Alps. His first six weeks are filled with exploration and discovery of his world, under the watchful eye of his mother. When he’s ready, he and his mother join the other red deer mothers and calves as they journey along age-old migration paths from the meadows into the high mountains.	WordGirl Marathon Word Up...new vocabulary villains are on the loose, wreaking even more roguery, rascality, and definition depravity in The City! Fortunately, WordGirl is expanding to Monday-Friday beginning with a four-episode, mayhem-fighting marathon on Memorial Day 2008.

Frontline: Storm Over Everest In May 1996, world-renowned climber and filmmaker David Breashears was making his third ascent up Mount Everest, leading an IMAX film team, when a swift and ferocious storm unexpectedly hit the mountain, trapping three exhausted climbing teams near the top of the world’s highest peak.	Independent Lens: New Year Baby What would you do if everything you knew about your life was turned upside down? If your sisters weren’t really your sisters and your mother was married to someone else before your father? In her personal and moving film New Year Baby, Socheata Poeuv finds that long-held secrets hide not only painful memories, but also love forged under inhuman conditions.

The Adirondacks Sprawled across six million acres in upstate New York, Adirondack Park is by far the largest park in the lower 48 states. Yet it is the only one on the continent in which large human populations live and whose land is divided almost evenly between protected wilderness and privately owned tracts. This patchwork pattern of land ownership has created an utterly unique place that maintains, at its very heart, a delicate and dynamic relationship between progress and preservation.	Great Performances presents Maestro: A Portrait of Valery Gergiev Russian dynamo Valery Gergiev — municipal administrator, promoter of his nation’s rich musical heritage, friend of Vladimir Putin (he is godfather to one of the outgoing president’s children) and, of course, world-famous conductor — sits for his Great Performances portrait. Constantly in motion with a schedule that would daunt most celebrity conductors, he is definitively captured by Oscar-winner Allan Miller (The Bolero).

Globe Trekker: Kenya & Niger Host Megan McCormick starts her visit to Kenya traveling by camel with the nomadic Samburu people. Next she travels to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to track the endangered rhino, then it's off to climb Mount Kenya, one of Africa's most majestic mountains.

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