Sunday, February 26 at 9:00pm

A teenage girl and her grandfather lose everything to a maniacal moneylender and flee his relentless pursuit. The saga of Little Nell, Grandfather and their tormentor, Daniel Quilp, is one of Charles Dickens’ most heartrending tales.

Derek Jacobi (“I, Claudius”) stars as Grandfather, with Sophie Vavasseur (“Northanger Abbey”) as Nell and Toby Jones (Frost/Nixon) as Quilp. The Dickensian cast also includes Gina McKee (“The Forsyte Saga”) as the brains behind Quilp’s shady law firm.

Visit the Masterpiece website at pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/

Saturdays at 9:30pm

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS continues its longstanding tradition of showcasing the best of original American music. Musical styles range from contemporary and traditional pop to rock, country, blues, bluegrass, Latin, folk, roots and more. All find a home on the AUSTIN CITY LIMITS stage.

February, 4 – “Florence + The Machine/Lykke Li”
Experimental modern rock rules with Florence + The Machine and Lykke Li. Bluesy singer Florence showcases her LP Lungs, while Swedish chanteuse Li highlights her LP Wounded Rhymes.

February 11 –“Wilco”
Modern rock band Wilco returns to AUSTIN CITY LIMITS with tunes from its LP The Whole Love. 

February 18 – “Jimmy Cliff”
Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff performs his greatest hits and songs from his LP Existence.

February 25 – Steve Martin & Sarah Jarosz”
Bluegrass is the order of the night with Steve Martin (shown at left) and Sarah Jarosz. Comedian Martin picks up his banjo with the Steep Canyon Rangers for new tunes in the old tradition. Young Texan Jarosz rewrites the bluegrass rules with her original songs and style.

Wednesdays at 8:00pm & Sundays at 7:00pm

NATURE has been the benchmark of natural history programs on television, capturing the splendors of the natural world from the African plains to the Antarctic ice. The series has won more than 600 honors from the television industry, parent groups, the international wildlife film community and environmental organizations, including 10 Emmys, three Peabodys and the first award given to a television program by the Sierra Club. Find out more about NATURE at  pbs.org/wnet/nature/ 

Wednesday, February 1 - “Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom”
Its name stirs images of the savage, the untamable. Legend paints it as a solitary, blood-thirsty killer that roams the icy heart of the frozen north, taking down prey as large as moose, crushing bones to powder with its powerful jaws. But there is another image of the wolverine that is just beginning to emerge, one that is far more complex than its reputation suggests. This film takes viewers into the secretive world of the largest and least-known member of the weasel family to reveal who this dynamic little devil truly is. Hard-wired to endure an environment of scarcity, the wolverine is one of the most efficient and resourceful carnivores on Earth.

Sunday, February 5 – “A Murder of Crows”
Crows do not have the best of reputations. They are generally dismissed as spooky — Hitchcock used them quite successfully to frighten moviegoers — or as a general nuisance; scarecrows were, after all, invented to scare crows away from crops. But their image is about to take a turn. New research has shown that they are among the most intelligent animals in the world, able to use tools as only elephants and chimpanzees do, able to recognize each other’s voices and 250 distinct calls. They are social, mate for life and raise their young for as long as five years. They’re able to recognize individual humans and pick them out of a crowd up to two years later. Crow experts from around the world sing their praises and present the viewer with captivating new footage of crows as they’ve never been seen before. 

Wednesday, February 8 - “Raccoon Nation”
Are human beings, in an effort to outwit raccoons, actually making them smarter and unwittingly contributing to their evolutionary success? Are the ever more complex obstacles that our fast-paced urban world throws at them actually pushing the development of raccoon brains? In this film, scientists from around the world share their thoughts and work to explore this scientific theory. Attempting to do something that has never been done before, they closely follow a family of urban raccoons as they navigate the complex world of a big city.

Wednesday, February 15 - “The Himalayas”
The Himalayan mountain system is the planet’s highest and home to the world’s tallest peaks. NATURE explores the diversity of wildlife and habitats of this mountain chain starring the mysterious snow leopard.

Wednesday, February 22 – “Ocean Giants”
     a whole evening of Nature with 3 episodes back to back!
Whales and dolphins remain a constant source of fascination. But how much do we really know about them? Whales and dolphins, known as cetaceans, may appear to be totally alien to us — but with their mental ability, group communication and the recent discovery that dolphins have individual names, they are closer to us than we ever imagined. This series provides new insights into the lives of whales and dolphins in a visually powerful, engaging and entertaining format. Two of the world’s top underwater cameramen — Doug Allan (“Planet Earth”’s polar specialist) and Didier Noirot (Cousteau’s front-line cameraman) — film breathtaking encounters. Teams of intrepid scientists equipped with the latest technology are making extraordinary breakthroughs in their understanding of these intelligent life forms — breakthroughs that may safeguard their survival.

• 8:00 pm  - ”Giant Lives”
  The great whales – such as the blue and the bowhead – are the largest animals that have ever lived on our planet. Yet these mighty leviathans feed on tiny shrimp and sardines. “Giant Lives” discovers why size matters in the world of whales.
• 9:00 pm - “Deep Thinkers”
  In some respects the brains of whales and dolphins are more complex than ours. Whales and dolphins work co-operatively, show empathy and are self-aware. “Deep Thinkers” finds out how clever — and how much like us — whales and dolphins might be.
• 10:00-pm - “Voices of the Sea”
  Humpback whales’ songs carry thousands of miles, while a sperm whale scans the ocean depths with a sonar laser beam louder than a thunderclap. “Voices of the Sea” reveals a surprising underwater world where sound takes the place of sight.

Wednesday, February 29 - “Echo – An Elephant to Remember”
Echo, the elephant matriarch, was the subject of many films and the leader of a carefully studied herd of elephants in Africa. Last year, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers who cared for and studied this amazing herd.

Tuesdays at 8:00pm

Television's most-watched history series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE has been hailed as "peerless" (Wall Street Journal), "the most consistently enriching program on television" (Chicago Tribune) and "a beacon of intelligence and purpose" (Houston Chronicle). On air and online, the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America's past and present. In January, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE explores the West. 

Visit the companion website at pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/

February 7 – “Freedom Riders”
In 1961, segregation seemed to have an overwhelming grip on American society. Many states violently enforced the policy, while the federal government, under the Kennedy administration, remained indifferent, preoccupied with matters abroad. That is, until an integrated band of college students — many of whom were the first in their families to attend a university — decided, en masse, to risk everything and buy a ticket on a Greyhound bus bound for the Deep South. They called themselves the Freedom Riders, and they managed to bring the president and the entire American public face-to-face with the challenge of correcting civil-rights inequities that plagued the nation. 

February  14 – “Tupperware!”
In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn thousands — even millions — of dollars from bowls that burped. “Tupperware ladies” fanned out across the nation’s living rooms, selling efficiency and convenience to their friends and neighbors through home parties. Bowl by bowl, they built an empire that now spans the globe. This documentary, narrated by Kathy Bates, reveals the secret behind Tupperware’s success: the women of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds who discovered they could move up in the world without leaving the house. TUPPERWARE! charts the origins of the small plastics company that unpredictably became a cultural phenomenon. 

Monday & Tuesday, February 21 & 22 – “Clinton, parts one and two”
From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. In CLINTON, the latest installment in the critically acclaimed and successful series of presidential biographies, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE explores the fascinating story of an American president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. It recounts a career full of accomplishment and rife with scandal, a marriage that would make history and create controversy and a presidency that would define the crucial and transformative period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. It follows Clinton across his two terms as he confronted some of the key forces that would shape the future, including partisan political warfare and domestic and international terrorism, and struggled, with uneven success, to define the role of American power in a post-Cold War world. Most memorably, it explores how Clinton’s conflicted character made history, even as it enraged his enemies and confounded his friends. The program features unprecedented access to scores of Clinton insiders including White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, as well as interviews with foreign leaders, members of the Republican opposition, childhood friends, staffers from Clinton’s years as governor of Arkansas, biographers and journalists. 

February 28 – “The Amish”
THE AMISH answers many questions Americans have about this insistently insular religious community, whose intense faith and adherence to 500-year-old traditions have by turns captivated and repelled, awed and irritated, inspired and confused for more than a century. With unprecedented access, built on patience and hard-won trust, the film is the first to penetrate deeply and explore this attention-averse group. In doing so, THE AMISH paints an intimate portrait of contemporary Amish faith and life. It questions why and how the Amish, an insistently closed and communal culture, have thrived within one of the most open, individualistic societies on earth; explores how, despite their ingrained submissiveness, the Amish have successfully asserted themselves in resisting the encroachments of modern society and government; asks what Americans’ attraction to the Amish says about deep American values; and looks at what the future holds for a community whose existence is so rooted in the past.