Friday, June 19, 8-10:30 p.m.
GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET “The Merry Widow” Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman makes her Met debut with a lavish new English translation of Franz Lehár’s sparkling operetta, with star soprano Renée Fleming as Hanna, the wealthy widow, Nathan Gunn as her lover Danilo, Broadway star and native Oklahoman Kelli O’Hara as the coquettish Valencienne and more. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato hosts.
Sundays, June 21-July 26, 8-9 p.m. and August 2, 8-10 p.m.
POLDARK ON MASTERPIECE Ross Poldark rides again in a swashbuckling new adaptation of the hit series that helped launch MASTERPIECE in the 1970s. Aidan Turner (The Hobbit) stars as Captain Poldark, a redcoat who returns to Cornwall after the American Revolution and finds that his fighting days are far from over. Robin Ellis, who played Poldark in the 1970s PBS adaptation, appears in the role of Reverend Halse. Eleanor Tomlinson (MASTERPIECE “Death Comes to Pemberley”) plays the spunky Cornish miner’s daughter taken in by the gallant captain.
Wednesdays, June 24-July 1, 8-10 p.m. and July 8, 8-9 p.m.
FIRST PEOPLES See how the mixing of ancient human genes helped us survive and thrive around the globe. Developments in genetics, archaeology and anthropology cast new light on 200,000 years of history, detailing how Homo sapiens came to be the dominant human species.
Sundays, June 21-July 26, 9 p.m.
THE CRIMSON FIELD Oona Chaplin (“Game of Thrones,” “The Hour”) stars in a drama about WWI’s frontline medics — their hopes, fears, triumphs and tragedies. In a tented field hospital on the coast of France, a team of doctors, nurses and women volunteers works together to heal the bodies and souls of men wounded in the trenches. The hospital is a frontier: between the battlefield and home front, but also between the old rules, hierarchies and a new way of thinking. Each of the six episodes follows the lives of volunteer nurses Kitty Trevelyan (Chaplin) and Sister Joan Livesey (Suranne Jones) as they tend to British soldiers, troops from all over the world and even local civilians. Also starring Hermione Norris, Kevin Doyle, Kerry Fox and Marianne Oldham.
Mondays, June 15-July 27, 7 p.m.
ANTIQUES ROADSHOW In new “Vintage” episodes, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW looks at memorable objects originally appraised 15 years ago to disclose their current value and how the market has changed. The “Vintage” episodes include St. Louis, Sacramento, Denver, Tulsa, Las Vegas, Madison and Charleston. Mark L. Walberg hosts.
Tuesday, June 30, 8 p.m.
1913: SEEDS OF CONFLICT Explore the seeds of today’s Middle East conflict, sown in pre-World War I Ottoman Palestine. By weaving together Arab and Jewish histories, the film dispels old myths and provides fresh insights into dramatic events that presaged a century of unrest.