The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

last updated 8 January 2015

Independent Lens: The Parking Lot Movie

Independent Lens heads to the college town of Charlottesville, Va., for an amusing look at a parking lot staffed by an overqualified collection of grad students, philosophers, and slacker intellectuals. Class collisions provide most of the entertainment as the attendants manage customers, bosses, and their own ennui with varying degrees of humor and grace. Tuesday, Oct. 19, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

This thought-provoking news special drives home a thought expressed by Baptist pastor DeForest Soaries: For today’s black Americans, “debt is a bigger problem than racism.” Various members of Soaries’ New Jersey congregation share their financial struggles as host Soledad O’Brien makes the argument that a centuries-old wealth gap between black and white America has made the recession particularly hard for African-Americans. A town hall discussion follows. Thursday, Oct. 21, at 9 p.m., CNN

If Sherlock Holmes were around today, what would he be like? This witty new Mystery! series proposes that he’d have his own website, forgo his pipe for nicotine patches, and encounter people who assume that he and Watson are a couple. Purists may protest, but Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes and Martin Freeman’s Watson hew true to the spirit of the original partnership. Sunday, Oct. 24, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings