Les Misérables on Masterpiece
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Trusted. Valued. Essential. APRIL 2019 Les Misérables on Masterpiece Vegas PBS A Message from the Management Team General Manager General Manager Tom Axtell, Vegas PBS Educational Media Services Director Niki Bates Production Services Director Kareem Hatcher Business Manager Brandon Merrill Content Director Cyndy Robbins Workforce Training & Economic Development Director Debra Solt Corporate Partnerships Director Earth Day Bruce Spotleson Engineering, IT and Emergency Response Director he 1969 fire on the polluted Cuyahoga River in Ohio horrified the nation. John Turner The first Earth Day followed in 1970 and reflected increasing public con- SOUTHERN NEVADA PUBLIC TELEVISION BOARD OF DIRECTORS cern about air quality, polluted water,toxic chemicals and habitat threats to Executive Director people, fish and wildlife. PBS programs of the era like The National Tom Axtell, Vegas PBS Geographic Specials, The Cousteau Odyssey and NOVA provided viewers President Twith many insights on environmental issues and impacts. Within two years of the first Tom Warden, The Howard Hughes Corporation Earth Day, reform legislation created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Secretary Air Act, lead-based paint restrictions, the ban on DDT, vehicle fuel economy standards Clark Dumont, M.S., APR, Dumont Communications, LLC and the Clean Water Act with notable bipartisan support. Chair, Community Council Earth Day is now an international event intended to honor the Earth. 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This magazine is printed on Tom Axtell recycled paper APRIL 2019 5 April 2019 Contents Cover Story 8 Les Misérables on Masterpiece A blockbuster novel for over 150 years comes vividly to life in award-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies’ multi-layered retelling of “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo. Departments 5 Message to Our Members Letter from General Manager Tom Axtell 14 Upcoming Member Events 22 A Message from the Vegas PBS Planned Giving Council Members Deborah A. Erdmann and Scott W. Taylor, CPA Features 10 Special In Celebration of Earth Day 12 Science & Nature Think Wednesday 15 How-To Mexico: One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless 8 17 Spotlight Our Personal Stories 18 Arts Friday Art Scene 19 Sundays in April 20 History Stories From America 23 Spotlight Reconstruction: America After the Civil War 32 Call the Midwife Season 7 Marathon 33 In Remembrance of the Holocaust 34 Celebrating Passover 35 Rick Steves’ Europe Specials 10 18 37 Vegas PBS Rewind/Worldview/Jackpot! Program Menu 23 Weekdays/Children’s Lineup 24 Primetime Programming 32 Weekend Daytime Programming 36 Vegas PBS Create Programming 36 Vegas PBS Channels 38 Vegas PBS Sponsors 20 33 APRIL 2019 7 COVER STORY Lily Collins One of the longest and most engaging novels ever written, the story was challenging to con- dense. But in a triumph of scripting, veteran screenwriter Davies preserves Hugo’s intricate plotting, striking historical vignettes, powerful themes and evocative characterizations, pro- ducing an epic television experience that is worthy of the original novel. The story opens after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, which saw Napoleon’s final defeat by the English and their allies, a quarter of a cen- tury after the French Revolution. With Napoleon’s downfall, the French monarchy is restored — and the thwarted ideals of the Dominic West and David Oyelowo republic go underground. For most of that quarter century, Valjean has been serving a sentence of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread. On his release the same year as Waterloo, he immediately resorts to petty Les Misérables crime, risking re-arrest and a life sentence — a fate deemed a virtual certainty by his former on Masterpiece jailer Javert. After this unpromising start, Valjean begins Sponsored by: his difficult journey to redemption. Sundays at 9 p.m. beginning April 14 Monterey & Dr. Jeff Brookman Establishing himself under a new name in a provincial town, Valjean seems safe at last. He A blockbuster novel for over 150 years comes vividly to life in award-winning prospers as a businessman and is eventually appointed mayor. One day, he gives work to a screenwriter Andrew Davies’ multi-layered retelling of “Les Misérables” by needy young woman, Fantine, who hides the fact that she is the unwed mother of a child Victor Hugo. This enthralling six-part television event (not a musical) stars named Cosette. As the plot unfolds, the stories Dominic West (“The Affair,” “The Wire”) as Jean Valjean, the most famous of mother and daughter become inextricably entwined with that of the fugitive. But always fugitive in literature. David Oyelowo (“Selma”) appears as his relentless pur- lurking in the background is Javert, determined suer, Javert, and Lily Collins (“Rules Don’t Apply”) is the tragic seamstress, to bring him to justice. With a striking intensity and relevance to us Fantine. Ellie Bamber and Josh O'Connor costar as the young lovers Cosette today, the themes of love, death and the strug- and Marius. gle for social justice are featured in this beau- tifully faithful retelling of one of the world’s most beloved stories. 8 VEGAS PBS SOURCE Sunday Evenings are more. Valerie deals with an unexpected and shocking case, while the other midwives must Made for Drama handle a complicated multiple birth. Mrs. Wilson on Sponsored by: Miss Marple: The Body in Lee and Benson Riseman the Library Masterpiece Sundays, March 31 and April 7 at 9 p.m. Sundays, April 7-21 at 7 p.m. At the outset of World War II, Alison When the body of a mysterious young blond McKelvie took a secretarial job with the Secret is found strangled in the Bantry’s library at Intelligence Service.There, she fell in love with Gossington Hall, Dolly Bantry calls on the help an older man—Major Alexander Wilson, a of Miss Marple to investigate and clear her popular author of spy novels, then doing real husband’s name. The blond is soon discovered intelligence work for the war effort. When he to have been in line to inherit a fortune, and the dies two decades later, his real story begins to investigation takes a different turn. emerge. Little did Alison know, but she was Unforgotten Season 3 Miss Marple: The Moving entering a plot as tangled as one of the major’s on Masterpiece Finger mind-bending fictions. Ruth Wilson (“Luther”) a 16-year-old girl who went missing on the eve Sundays, April 28 and May 5 at 7 p.m. stars as her own grandmother Alison in the of the millennium.