PBS Documentaries

Otters are so proficient at capturing the fish they live on that they have lots of time left over for play. And they seem to play with reckless abandon, sliding down steep canyons in deep snow and swimming under the ice in Yellowstone Lake. They submerge us into the lake to find strange underwater spires only recently discovered by man. Other creatures sometimes survive bitter winter seasons by stealing fish from the otter. Actually, they're pretty good at defending themselves, and this program catches some astonishing action between them and coyotes, eagles, beaver, and even an occasional grizzly bear.

Over 500 Scots fought in the Spanish Civil War which devastated Spain 70 years ago. Emotions and memories of this extraordinary conflict are still alive and poignant. This two-part documentary series, narrated by actor David Hayman, remembers the major conflict through unseen, unique archive interviews with Scots who joined the International Brigade, or Brigaders as they are known.

Over 500 Scots fought in the Spanish Civil War which devastated Spain 70 years ago. Emotions and memories of this extraordinary conflict are still alive and poignant. This two-part documentary series, narrated by actor David Hayman, remembers the major conflict through unseen, unique archive interviews with Scots who joined the International Brigade, or Brigaders as they are known.

Based on Michael Pollan's book of the same name, "The Botany of Desire," looks at the ways in which plants have advanced their agenda, metaphorically speaking, by making themselves attractive to humans. There is a lot of speaking in metaphors in the two-hour documentary, much of it by Pollan himself, who regularly takes pains to remind us that he is, in fact, speaking metaphorically, because we have no words to describe the psychology of species beside our own. Besides, a little anthropomorphizing can be a useful thing when you're telling a story, especially when the moral is that we are all in this together, plants and people and every living thing, and so mutually dependent that it's impossible to tell the user from the used.