Explore TV Series

PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

TV's original home-improvement show, following one whole-house renovation over several episodes.

20/20 is an American television newsmagazine that has been broadcast on ABC since June 6, 1978. Created by ABC News executive Roone Arledge, the show was designed similarly to CBS's 60 Minutes but focuses more on human interest stories than international and political subjects. The program's name derives from the "20/20" measurement of visual acuity. The hour-long program has been a staple on Friday evenings for much of the time since it moved to that timeslot from Thursdays in September 1987, though special editions of the program occasionally air on other nights.

Now the longest-running music series in American television history, ACL showcases popular music legends and innovators from every genre.

Les Cent Livres des Hommes (ORTF, 1969-1973) was a series of literary programs created by Claude Santelli and Françoise Verny, and produced notably by Santelli, Jean Archimbaud, and Serge Moati. Planned for one hundred episodes but completed at thirty-nine, the series aimed to introduce great literary works, 'chefs-d’œuvre', to a younger audience through a mix of dramatization, reading, and documentary techniques. It marked a transfer of cultural legitimacy from writers and critics to a generation of television producers, offering a new model of educational and creative literary broadcasting - 'télévision d’auteur'.

Weekly anthology series of original dramas, often with period settings.

In Search of... is a TV series that was broadcast weekly from 1977 to 1982, devoted to mysterious phenomena. It was created after the success of three one-hour TV documentaries produced by creator Alan Landsburg: In Search of Ancient Astronauts in 1973, In Search of Ancient Mysteries and The Outer Space Connection, both in 1975. All three featured narration by Rod Serling, who was the initial choice to host the spin-off show. After Serling's death, Leonard Nimoy was selected to be the host.

The Essential Lectures of Alan Watts video series was recorded in 1971 above Muir Woods, California, and in 1972 aboard the ferryboat the SS Vallejo in Sausalito. Produced by his son Mark and directed by long-time archivist Henry Jacobs, the series explores core philosophical themes that spawned over Watts' career.

James Earl Jones hosts an interview and performance series exclusively for African-American musicians, comedians, and performers.

Children's television icon Fred Rogers interviews various well-known figures in this series aimed at older audiences.

Originally intended as a chronicle of the daily life of the Louds, a Santa Barbara upper-middle-class family, the groundbreaking program documented the breakup of the family via the separation and subsequent divorce of parents Bill and Pat Loud.

A series of ten one-hour documentaries which explores Arab history, culture and society from within through the lives and opinions of Arabs today.

The show featured guests who played significant roles in world history. Guests would interact with each other and host Steve Allen, discussing philosophy, religion, history, science, and many other topics. As nearly as was possible, the actual words of the historical figures were used. The show was fully scripted, yet the scripts were carefully crafted to give the appearance of spontaneous discussion among historic figures. Typically, each episode would be split into two parts, broadcast separately, with most or all of the guests introduced over the course of the first part, and the discussions continuing into the second part. A total of 24 episodes were produced.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually ancient or medieval) and traces a path from that event through a series of connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world.

A documentary television series of the Nazi-Soviet War, edited from over 3.5 million feet of film taken by Soviet camera crews from the first day of the war, 22 June 1941, to the Soviet entry into Berlin in May 1945.

Acclaimed profiles of eight great American film directors. Produced and directed by Richard Schickel and narrated by Cliff Robertson, with solid interviews and film clips, the series reviews the careers of Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, George Cukor, William A. Wellman, Alfred Hitchcock and Vincente Minnelli.

This classic series follows the events that sparked the greatest conflict of the century, capturing the drama, the excitement and the ideological juxtapositions of these crucial years. Former CBS News correspondent and commentator Eric Sevareid, one of the world's most respected figures in journalism, presents this extraordinary series featuring stunning original newsreels, soundtracks, and rare archival footage.

Renowned composer, conductor, and pianist Andre Previn welcomes one or more musical guests for conversation and performance, either accompanied by Mr. Previn on piano or in concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Produced by WQED and syndicated nationally on PBS, the series was notable among musical performance programs for its deft camera work and editing. The episode The Music That Made the Movies was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Music Direction.

Hot Dog is a Saturday morning documentary series for children, seen on NBC from September 12, 1970 to September 4, 1971. Created by Frank Buxton and co-produced by Buxton and Lee Mendelson, the program was notable for its hosts -- Jo Anne Worley, comedian Jonathan Winters and writer and actor Woody Allen. The pilot was televised on NBC March 28, 1970, which starred Worley, Allen and Tom Smothers, who was replaced with Winters when the show became a series. Based on Buxton's travels as a comedian, which took him on tours to various factories, Hot Dog explained, in a humorous manner, how we do things and how things were made. Seventy topics were covered during the course of this series, which lasted thirteen episodes and rerun the rest of the season. NBC won a Peabody award for the series in 1970. Some of the music in this series was performed by The Youngbloods.

A 17-part television documentary series on the history of modern pop music covering some of the many different genres that have fallen under the label of "popular music" between the mid-19th century and 1976, including folk, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville and music hall, musical theatre, country, swing, jazz, blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll and others.

In these humorous and affectionate television poems, humorist Jean Shepherd celebrates America in all its richness and diversity -- from cars to candy, baseball to beer, motels to money. Each week a different aspect of our national psyche is explored as Shepherd travels to the Okefenokee Swamp, Death Valley, Milwaukee, the Old South, and other far-flung locations -- using the PCP-90 portable camera.

In the 1970s, the U.S. faced an energy crisis so severe that President Jimmy Carter declared it “the moral equivalent of war.” Seeking to curb the country’s dependence on foreign oil, Carter kicked off a legislative melee with the divisive Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 at its center. This epic look at the inner workings of government chronicles the arduous efforts of lobbyists, senators, cabinet members, and the president himself to reach a compromise amid a deeply divided Congress. Directed by legendary documentary filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell as a three-part PBS special, THE ENERGY WAR is a riveting immersion into the high-stakes world of DC dealmaking as well as a timely account of the messy realities of lawmaking in a fractious political environment.

The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey includes all 12 episodes of the 1978 television series featuring the research adventures of Cousteau, a celebrated documentarian and public conscience of mankind's stewardship of our oceans. Alongside his son Philippe Cousteau, Jacques's adventures begin with an ambitious expedition (on Cousteau's famous Calypso ship and a seaplane called the Catalina) following the course of the Nile River from Central Africa to the Mediterranean.

Time Was... is a documentary television series that premiered on Home Box Office on November 11, 1979. It was hosted by Dick Cavett with each program looking at one decade from the past starting from the 1920s up to the 1970s. The historical program looked at the lifestyles and society during the various periods of time. The series was followed up with two other HBO documentary series hosted by Cavett, Remember When and Yesteryear.

An exploration of the world's music. Yehudi Menuhin has created this expansive survey of musical traditions from five continents. With panoramic vision and infectious enthusiasm, he takes us from primeval rhythms of Africa to the symphonies of Beethoven, from plainsong to jazz, from Swiss yodeling to Irish jig, from steel drum to electronic synthesizer. The Music of Man was a series of eight hour-long specials with host Yehudi Menuhin, following the development of music from its beginnings at the dawn of history to the electronic experiments, jazz and rock of our own time. Menuhin, the renowned violinist, conductor and humanist, participated both as violin soloist and conductor throughout the series, and was also co-writer.

Lifeline is a documentary television program broadcast on the National Broadcasting Company television network between September 1978 and early 1979. It documented the daily routines of the most successful doctors of the time and its constantly considered as one of the first reality shows, despite the fact that the show was very different from modern realities.

Six documentaries that portray American family life.

Star Gazers is a five-minute astronomy show on American public television previously hosted by Jack Foley Horkheimer, executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium. After his death in 2010 from a respiratory illness from which he'd suffered since childhood, a series of guest astronomers hosted until 2011, when Dean Regas, James Albury and Marlene Hidalgo became permanent co-hosts. On the weekly program, the host informs the viewer of significant astronomical events for the upcoming week, including key constellations, stars and planets, lunar eclipses and conjunctions, as well as historical and scientific information about these events. The program is available free to all Public Broadcasting Service public television stations, educational institutions and astronomy clubs. A month of episodes can be recorded from a satellite feed which occurs approximately two weeks before the official broadcast dates.

In 1975, the composer Robert Ashley embarked on an ambitious work titled Music With Roots in the Aether. He called it an opera (or piece of theater, depending on the case) for television. The work is comprised of seven two-hour sections. Each episode is dedicated to investigations, interviews, and performances of one of his peers – David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley, respectively, with the final reserved for himself.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer's series on the rise and decline of Western culture from a Christian perspective.

Documentary series written by Cyril Aldred exploring the mysterious and remote culture during the time of Tutankhamun, Egypt's boy king.

In 1976 Peter Adam took Lawrence Durrell author of several Greek Island books, back to Greece. Their journey took them to Corfu, Rhodes, Crete and Hydra. Durrell has often said that words alone cannot express the true nature of Greek landscape and village life. In this film he pushes aside the debris of the present and guides us through the Greece of his youth. In a sequel to the Greek Spirit of Place, Peter Adam takes Lawrence Durrell back to the setting of his four famous novels. The journey starts in Alexandria and follows the Nile to Upper Egypt, to Aswan and Abu Simbel. Durrell revisits the Coptic monasteries of Wadi Natrun, the oasis of Fayum, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. He talks about his beliefs, his craft and his experiences as a writer, and evokes Egypt's two landscapes - the desert and the great river.

Two years in the making, this powerful documentary by San Francisco-based producer Evan White compares the American with the European approach to dealing with persons of advanced age and in so doing, showed the world of neglect, poverty and fear in which many of our elderly find themselves.

Public affairs program on Twin Cities PBS (Minnesota)

A historical exploration of black American Blues music

A five part series in which writers of Science Fiction talk about their work - the imaginative futures that are becoming the characteristic literature of our technological age.