The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

The best programs on TV this week

American Masters: Cab Calloway—Sketches

The electric singer, dancer, and bandleader—whose exuberant “hi de ho” scatting broke down color barriers in the American music industry—roars back to life in this energetic documentary. Two of Calloway’s daughters and a handful of band members help retell the performer’s story, from his debut at Harlem’s Cotton Club through his immortalization as a character in the Gershwin brothers’ Porgy and Bess. Monday, Feb. 27, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

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American Experience: The Amish

“We want to be separate from the world but friends with the world,” says one of the subjects in this rare inside look at the religious sect known for its rejection of post-19th-century technologies. The elegiac film explores how unwritten rules govern everything from clothing to marriage practices among the 250,000 Amish faithful in America, and highlights the community’s unusual readiness to forgive after a gunman killed five Amish schoolgirls in 2006. Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m., PBS; check local listings

Frontline: Inside Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown

Eyewitness accounts re-create the tense early hours and days at the Fukushima nuclear plant after an earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns last March. Interviewees include Japan’s prime minister, executives at the Japanese power company TEPCO, and plant workers who were forced to make desperate decisions inside the plant’s pitch-dark reactor buildings. Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

GCB

In this new satirical soap, a young widow reluctantly returns to her hometown, Dallas, where classmates she tormented in high school are hungry for vengeance. Based on the novel Good Christian Bitches, this spoof of religious hypocrisy and Texas excess is too broad to offend, but lively enough to attract viewers of Desperate Housewives. With Leslie Bibb, Annie Potts, and Kristin Chenoweth as a Scripture-quoting queen bee. Sunday, March 4, at 10 p.m., ABC

Other highlights

Prophets of Science Fiction: Robert Heinlein

Blade Runner director Ridley Scott looks at one of the pioneers of science fiction, highlighting Heinlein’s interest in self-reliance and his sometimes controversial politics. Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 10 p.m., Science

Psych

James Roday returns for the second half of his sixth season as a bogus psychic who helps a police department solve crimes. Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 10 p.m., USA

Breakout Kings

This brisk action series is back for a second season of following a group of convicts who team with federal marshals to pursue fugitives. Sunday, March 4, at 10 p.m., A&E