The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

last updated 8 January 2015

None of the Above

Remember that budding science geek in you? The one who made the Diet Coke–and-Mentos rocket or wreaked havoc with a beginner’s chemistry set? Engineer Tim Shaw is that geek in maturity. In this new show, Shaw conducts crazed experiments—like hooking a butchered pig to a Tesla coil—then asks viewers to predict outcomes. In the immortal phrase of pop singer Thomas Dolby: “Science!” Monday, March 24, at 9 p.m., National Geographic

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Yes, numbers are scary, but understanding them is power. Data scientist Jake Porway opens his enlightening new numbers-based series with some inspiring statistics on how to become a hero. Aspiring saints take note: One in five people will do something heroic in his or her lifetime, and volunteering increases the chances of doing so by 33 percent. Monday, March 24, at 9:30 p.m., National Geographic

Our presumption of David Livingstone may have been wrong. The 19th-century Scottish doctor and missionary is remembered as a bold anti-slavery crusader. But forensic scientists working on Livingstone’s African diaries have uncovered a series of lost passages that shed shocking new light on a massacre he witnessed and suggest that Livingstone doctored the truth about his relationship with the natives. Wednesday, March 26, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

Selfridge’s is again open for business. Jeremy Piven returns for a second season as the swaggering American retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, whose London department store was a grand cabinet of curiosities in the early decades of the 20th century. As the new season begins, Selfridge’s estranged wife has returned from America, and store employees are rattled by rumors of a coming war in Europe. Sunday, March 30, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings

They’re back, again. In this show’s premiere episode, a boy who drowned 30 years ago was found alive and reunited with his now graying Missouri parents. A second loved one from the past has miraculously returned from the dead for episode two, deepening the mystery for both the family and their town. Resurrection can’t match The Returned, a French series built upon a similar premise and airing on Sundance, but it might just bloom into a must-watch. Sunday, March 30, at 9 p.m., ABC

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