FOR IMMEDIATE MEDIA RELEASE
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Highlights this Month Include:
• “Inside” (Thursdays 7/2-30, 10pm)
• “A Capital Fourth” (7/4, 8pm)
• “Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple, Series IV” (Sundays, 7/5-26, 9pm)
• “Time Team America” (Wednesdays, 7/8-29, 8pm)
• “Diabetes: The Constant Shadow” (7/23, 8pm)

More details on these and other programs follow below.

Wednesday, July 1
8:00pm, “American Masters: Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes”
Lake Wobegon - where the women are strong, the men are good looking and all the children are above average - has become America’s collective hometown, visited weekly for the past 40 years on a fictional radio program that creates bona fide nostalgia. With his “Prairie Home Companion,” Keillor became our national philosopher, filling the empty shoes of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, through his running commentary about the human condition and the social politic. With biting wit, a quirky perspective and an uncanny ability to hone in on the pulse of America, Keillor’s themes and characters are somehow familiar to us all. For more than a year, AMERICAN MASTERS followed this great raconteur - and his motley crew of actors, musicians and technical staff - as he criss-crossed the country, broadcasting, recording and revealing himself.

9:30pm, “PBS Previews: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”
PBS presents a preview of the new Ken Burns film THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA. The 12-hour, six-part documentary series, directed by Burns and co-produced with his longtime colleague, Dayton Duncan, who also wrote the script, is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.

Thursday, July 2
10:00pm, “Inside”
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to perform in front of one million people ... drive a car at 400 miles per hour ... or blast into outer space? Find out firsthand as PBS deconstructs some of the most logistically difficult events on earth. Gaining special - and sometimes exclusive - access, INSIDE investigates the science, action and behind-the-scenes challenges of mega-events.

“Hong Kong’s Big Bang” (7/2, 10pm): Pyrotechnicians, parade organizers and multinational performers gather for the Chinese New Year.

“Rolling Stones in Rio” (7/9, 10pm): Crew members face extreme challenges as they set up one of the biggest concerts in history.

“Battle of the Wines” (7/16, 10pm): The who’s who of the wine trade gathers in London to find out who has won “Wine Maker of the Year.”

“Tut’s Treasure Tour” (7/23, 10pm): A look at the unseen world of one of the greatest museum shows of all time as it travels on tour.

“Space Launch” (7/30, 10pm): Go behind the scenes of a manned space launch from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Saturday, July 4
8:00pm, “A Capital Fourth” (repeats: 7/5, 2:30pm)
On July 4th, there’s no place like the nation’s capital for America’s biggest birthday party broadcast. Featuring the most spectacular fireworks display anywhere in the nation, the 29th annual broadcast of A CAPITOL FOURTH airs live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The star-spangled party features special performances by some of the country’s best-known and award-winning musical artists in performance with the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of top pops conductor Erich Kunzel.

Sunday, July 5
9:00pm, “Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple, Series IV: A Pocket Full of Rye”
When Miss Marple learns of the deaths of businessman Rex Fortescue (Kennetth Cranham), his young wife, Adele, and their housemaid, Gladys, the circumstances vividly recall the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” Since Miss Marple had trained Gladys herself, she has a personal reason to investigate. Will her reasoning and deduction make sense of the rhyme and at last reveal the culprit?

Tuesday, July 7
10:00pm, “Walking the Great Divide: A Journey along the Continental Divide Trail”
The Continental Divide Trail provides a 3,100-mile scenic backdrop - from the mountain lakes and grizzly bears of Glacier National Park to the crimson sunsets and lava flows of El Malpais National Monument. Award-winning filmmaker Mark Flagler embarks on a six-month journey to traverse the primitive backcountry trail that stretches from Mexico to Canada. The film captures Flagler’s trials and triumphs as he braves high-altitude trekking, intense desert heat, cross-country navigation and deep canyons in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Continues with Part 2 on Tuesday, July 14 at 10pm.

Wednesday, July 8
8:00pm, “Time Team America”
This series puts viewers in the trenches to experience archaeology as it happens. Each episode unleashes a group of archaeologists, landscape specialists, scientists, historians and other experts onto an American archeological dig site. For three days, viewers follow the team as they work to solve the mysteries of the site with state of the art technology, visualization techniques and good old-fashioned archaeology. Viewers eavesdrop on conversations between experts, see artifacts emerge from the ground and watch over the shoulders of archaeologists to experience the thrill of archaeology without ever having to pick up a trowel.

“Fort Raleigh, North Carolina” (7/8, 8pm): Untangle the mystery of the first English settlement in America, where 116 settlers vanished.

“Topper, South Carolina” (7/15, 8pm): Wade in alligator swamps in South Carolina to search for evidence of North America’s first humans.

“New Philadelphia, Illinois” (7/22, 8pm): Walk the streets of the first American town founded by former slaves and search for the schoolhouse.

“Range Creek, Utah” (7/29, 8pm): Explore remote red-rock canyons where Fremont Indians lived 1,000 years ago in a rugged landscape.

Sunday, July 12
9:00pm, “Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple, Series IV: Murder is Easy”
During a chance encounter with a fellow passenger on a train, Miss Marple hears about a string of murders in a peaceful village town. When she learns that the passenger is involved in a tragic accident before making her report to the police, Miss Marple decides to investigate further to track down the killer, unearthing secrets about the village and its inhabitants.

Tuesday, July 14
9:00pm, “NOVA scienceNOW: Series 4, Episode 3”
Two drugs that may aid kids with muscular dystrophy; demise of the dinosaurs; profile of Franklin Chang-Diaz; northern lights.

Wednesday, July 15
10:00pm, “Wide Angle: Heart of Jenin”
When a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli soldiers who mistook his toy gun for the real thing, something extraordinary happened that turned Ahmed Khatib’s tragic 2005 death into a gift of hope for six Israeli children whose lives were on the line: while overwhelmed with grief, Ahmed’s parents consented to donating their son’s organs.

Sunday, July 19
4:00pm, “Great Performances at the Met: La Sonnambula”
Sleep and wakefulness are the dominant themes in Mary Zimmerman’s production that sets Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece in a contemporary rehearsal room. Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez, back from their success in last season’s La Fille du Regiment, reunite for this production, which is conducted by Evelino Pido.

9:00pm, “Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple, Series IV: They Do It with Mirrors”
Miss Marple is asked to help her old friend Carrie-Louise (Penelope Wilton, Pride & Prejudice), who has been slowly poisoned by an unknown hand. Together with Carrie’s husband, Lewis Serrocold (Brian Cox, Troy), and sister Ruth van Rydock (Joan Collins, Dynasty), Miss Marple must race to find the culprit and save her friend from a mysterious menace.

Tuesday, July 21
9:00pm, “NOVA scienceNOW: Series 4, Episode 4”
Rockets to the moon; the oldest known organic molecules on earth; neuronal processes that lead to producing sound; profile of Lonnie Thompson.

Wednesday, July 22
10:00pm, “Wide Angle: The Market Maker”
An Ethiopian economist seeks a market-based solution to end hunger in her famine-plagued country, but a world financial crisis is getting in the way.

Thursday, July 23
8:00pm, “Diabetes: The Constant Shadow” (repeats: 7/26, 5pm & 10:30pm, and 7/27, 7:30pm)
Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. with nearly 24 million Americans—both children and adults—afflicted with this severe, chronic disease. Follow the stories of local adults and children who cope daily with the “constant shadow” in this WVIZ/PBS production.

8:30pm, “Health Sense: Diabetes” (repeats: 7/26, 5:30pm)
This episode takes a look at this often-undiagnosed condition that affects more than 17 million Americans. Experts discuss diagnosing and treating this condition. Diabetics offer insight into living and dealing with this disease on a daily basis, including the tragic deaths of friends that could have been avoided.

Sunday, July 26
9:00pm, “Masterpiece Mystery! Miss Marple, Series IV: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?”
As the sole witness to a dying man’s enigmatic last words, a young adventurer seeks to solve the riddle they pose by forming an unlikely alliance with Miss Marple and a beautiful socialite. Together, they must navigate a hotbed of stifled emotion, murder, treachery and poisonous deceit to reveal the devastating truth.

Tuesday, July 28
9:00pm, “NOVA scienceNOW: Series 4, Episode 5”
The science behind our sense of taste; a product that may fulfill the dream of creating an artificial tree that can absorb carbon dioxide directly from the air; shedding light on the evolutionary roots of human language through studies of walrus and sea lion vocal and intellectual abilities; and a profile of medical engineer Sangeeta Bhatia.

Wednesday, July 29
10:00pm, “Wide Angle: Birth of a Surgeon”
In sub-Saharan Africa, where doctors are in short supply, a woman’s chances of dying in childbirth are a shocking 1 in 22. But in Mozambique, a midwife named Emilia Cumbane is doing something radical to stem the trend. She is part of an extraordinary grassroots initiative in which midwives, otherwise untrained in conventional medicine, are learning to perform advanced life-saving surgery. Among the first of its kind in the world, Cumbane’s program may offer a working alternative to the life-threatening lack of doctors in other developing countries. In this 2009 update, WIDE ANGLE host Aaron Brown travels to a rural hospital in Mozambique to meet with Cumbane to see how both she and the program are faring.