The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

last updated 8 January 2015

Will Ferrell: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize

The comedy star is honored in an event taped recently in Washington, D.C. Among the friends and colleagues who celebrated his career were fellow Saturday Night Live alumni Maya Rudolph and Molly Shannon, as well as Jack Black, Conan O’Brien, John C. Reilly, and the rock band Green Day. Monday, Oct. 31, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings

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Space is far from empty, the first episode of this engaging four-week NOVA series reveals: It seethes with mysterious energy whose secrets scientists are striving to uncover. With imaginative use of graphics and lucid metaphors, physicist Brian Greene makes such arcane subjects as quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and the nature of time compelling and even fun. Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings

Born in an Indian slum and sold at age 3, Budhia Singh was rescued from a life of destitution by a judo coach who discovered that the boy had an extraordinary gift for distance running. By age 4, he had run 48 marathons and become a national celebrity—but his fame attracted the disapproval of government officials, leading to a startling turn of events. Filmed over five years, this fascinating documentary chronicles the boy’s tumultuous saga. Thursday, Nov. 3, at 8 p.m., HBO

This vibrant documentary follows a deaf teen as she gains mastery in using American Sign Language to create a poetry in which rhymes are resemblances between hand gestures and meter is measured in movement. Cameras follow her as she performs with spoken-word poets in New York City poetry slams, eventually establishing a fruitful and unlikely collaboration with a hearing poet. Thursday, Nov. 3, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

This new series is a revisionist Western with echoes of Deadwood and the films of Sergio Leone. Anson Mount portrays a former Confederate soldier whose participation on a railroad-building crew masks his true purpose: vengeance for the death of his wife. The show is as intelligently written as it is handsomely produced, touching on such issues as government corruption and the exploitation of marginal populations. Sunday, Nov. 6, at 10 p.m., AMC

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