Fairly Legal
Willfully overlooking the fact that she was fired in last season’s final episode, lawyer-turned-mediator Kate Reed returns to work and literally stumbles into a case that’s right up her alley: a plaintiff who is ambivalent about suing his employer for giving him cancer. Sarah Shahi is Reed, and her vivacity and charm buoy this legal drama. Friday, March 16, at 9 p.m., USA
Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Saving Healthcare
Seeking solutions to America’s health-care dilemmas, Fareed Zakaria examines successes in Taiwan, the U.K., and Switzerland. He also interviews Camden, N.J.–based physician and innovator Jeffrey Brenner, surgeon and New Yorker medical writer Atul Gawande, and authors T.R. Reid (The Healing of America) and David Goldhill (“How American Health Care Killed My Father”). Sunday, March 18, at 8 p.m., CNN
Frozen Planet
Filmed over four years, this spectacular seven-part series explores the fierce worlds of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Highlights include a stunning scene of a Greenland glacier as it spawns icebergs the size of skyscrapers, and footage of killer whales that hunt seals by swimming in unison to create waves that wash their quarry off ice floes. Alec Baldwin narrates. Sunday, March 18, at 8 p.m., Discovery
Finding the Lost Da Vinci
Some 450 years ago, a celebrated Leonard da Vinci mural vanished. The Battle of Anghiari, which depicted a 1440 clash between Milan and a league allied against it, has never been seen since. Maurizio Seracini, an engineering professor, believes it still exists—hidden behind the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence under a fragile 16th-century mural by Giorgio Vasari. Cameras follow as Seracini, armed with thermal scans and years of research, drills through the Vasari to prove his case. Sunday, March 18, at 9 p.m., National Geographic Channel
House of Lies
In this week’s episode, Don Cheadle’s Marty Kaan begins mediation sessions to work out a custody dispute with his ex-wife while his management-consultant team heads to Spokane to rescue a megachurch. Kaan’s cynicism gives the series a satirical veneer, but Cheadle’s performance uncovers a core of sorrow beneath all the sexual and business shenanigans. With Kristen Bell, Griffin Dunne, and Peggy Lipton. Sunday, March 18, at 10 p.m., Showtime
Other highlights
Beginnings
This series of short films profiles such iconic Parisians as actress/musician Charlotte Gainsbourg and footwear designer Christian Louboutin. Tuesday, March 13, at 8 p.m., Sundance Channel
South Park
Colorado’s potty-mouthed tykes return for a 16th season of acerbic satire. Wednesday, March 14, at 10 p.m., Comedy Central
30 Rock
Dean Winters, currently best-known for personifying “Mayhem” in a series of Allstate ads, guest-stars as a loutish ex-boyfriend who shows up just in time to ruin Liz Lemon’s St. Patrick’s Day. Tina Fey stars. Thursday, March 15, at 8:30 p.m., NBC
