The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

Tina Barney: Social Studies

Photographer Tina Barney has won acclaim for painterly but subversive portraits of the beau monde. This documentary, kicking off five nights of films about noted photographers, shows her at work and traces connections between her privileged upbringing and her creative process. Other 7 p.m. profiles include Henri Cartier-Bresson (March 5) and Peter Beard (March 6). Monday, March 3, at 7 p.m., Sundance Channel

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Author John Heilemann (Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era) hosts this two-week, four-part series in which the founders of eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Netscape, and Google give firsthand accounts of the rise of Silicon Valley and the growth of the Internet. Episode 1 is “Browser Wars.” Monday, March 3, at 8 p.m., Science Channel

Deliver Me

This new documentary series goes inside a Los Angeles OB/GYN clinic to chronicle the professional and personal lives of its partners—three impressive women who are mothers and best friends as well as doctors. Real-life drama ensues almost at once, in the form of three threatened pregnancies. The show does not flinch from showing medical realities in detail. Tuesday, March 4, at 10 p.m., Discovery Health

Terminal City

An intriguing crossbreed of character-driven drama and mordant satire, this award-winning series from Canada concerns a woman whose struggle with cancer becomes the focus of an exploitative medical-reality show, turning her into a media celebrity even as she battles terminal illness. Maria del Mar and Gil Bellows lead a strong ensemble. Thursday, March 6, at 9 p.m., Sundance Channel

Breaking Bad

As Terminal City begins, Season 1 ends for another quirky, quality show whose protagonist has terminal cancer. In “A No-Rough Stuff Type Deal,” once-mousy Walter White continues his transition from put-upon high school chemistry teacher to meth-dealing desperado. Bryan Cranston stars. Sunday, March 9, at 10 p.m., AMC

Other highlights

Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern

Food writer Zimmern begins his second season of searching the world for outré delicacies. Tuesday, March 5, at 10 p.m., Travel Channel

The Essentials

Actress Rose McGowan joins co-host Robert Osborne to introduce pivotal films, starting with Billy Wilder’s The Apartment. Saturday, March 8, at 8 p.m., Turner Classic Movies

Ax Men

This new documentary series follows four logging crews in northwest Oregon through a hazardous season. Sunday, March 9, at 10 p.m., History Channel

All listings are Eastern time.

Show of the week

The Wire

As one of television’s darkest, finest dramas reaches the end of its fifth and final season, the web of lies engulfing Baltimore’s police department and newspaper grows. The truth about certain murders of homeless men finally reaches the mayor’s office—but a savage ironic twist brings surprises for everyone involved in the cover-up, even as they scramble to survive, advance, or salvage some slender shred of integrity from the debacle. The episode, “30,” fittingly brings to a close The Wire creator David Simon’s bleak dissection of contemporary America’s urban, political, and media landscapes. Sunday, March 9, at 9 p.m., HBO

Movies on TV this week

Monday, March 3

My Brilliant Career (1979)

Director Gillian Armstrong

and star Judy Davis won acclaim for this tale of an independent young woman in 19th-century Australia. With Sam Neill. 9 p.m., IFC

Tuesday

Deadline USA (1952)

A crusading editor strives to expose a mob boss in this entertaining crime drama, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Kim Hunter. 10 a.m., FMC

Wednesday

A Dry White Season (1989)

Marlon Brando earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for this drama set in apartheid-era South Africa. Donald Sutherland stars.

4 p.m., Flix

Thursday

Startup.com (2001)

This documentary encapsulates the chaos of the dot-com bubble as it follows the rise and fall of a start-up launched by two friends. 10:30 a.m., TMC

Saturday

Hot Fuzz (2007)

For making his peers look bad in comparison, a by-the-book London cop is

banished to a sleepy village in this zany spoof by the makers of Shaun of the Dead. 10 p.m., Cinemax

Sunday

The Kid (1921)

Star and director Charlie Chaplin blends slapstick and pathos in this silent

classic about a tramp raising a foundling. With Jackie Coogan. Midnight, TCM

New on DVD

Into the Wild (2007)

Sean Penn directed this critically acclaimed adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction best-seller about a young man whose search for meaning takes him to the Alaskan wilderness, with tragic results. With Emile Hirsch. (R, $30)