The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

last updated 8 January 2015

American Experience: Grand Central

Both an architectural masterpiece and an engineering marvel, New York’s Grand Central Station came into being through the actions of larger-than-life personalities—and not without casualties. Through archival footage and interviews with historians and experts, American Experience traces its colorful history. Monday, Feb. 4, at 9 p.m., PBS

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Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. guides noteworthy African-Americans through their own genealogies in this two-week, four-part series. The first episode’s subjects include author Bliss Broyard, whose father, New York Times critic Anatole Broyard, was a light-skinned black man who chose to “pass” as white. Other series participants include Chris Rock, Maya Angelou, and Morgan Freeman. Wednesdays, Feb. 6 and 13,

British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb perform sketches of Monty Pythonesque absurdity in this hilarious new series. Debut segments include “Numberwang,” an incomprehensible game show; “Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit,” heroes with highly disproportionate abilities; and “Sir Digby Chicken Caesar,” a drunken vagrant who thinks he’s fighting evil. Friday, Feb. 8, at 9:20 p.m., BBC America

According to this high-def documentary, a shift in average global temperature of only 6 degrees Celsius (less than 11 degrees Fahrenheit) could have catastrophic consequences. Six Degrees Could Change the World dramatizes these degree by degree, points to symptoms of global warming that are already apparent, and recommends strategies against climate change. Sunday, Feb. 10, at 8 p.m., National Geographic Channel

Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes are both first-rate in this speculative dramatization of the relationship between multimillionaire Doris Duke and Bernard Lafferty, the butler she left in control of her fortune after her death. As the decadent Duke, Sarandon is at once likable and disagreeable, pitiful and funny, a woman who has everything except meaningful relationships. Fiennes gives an equally nuanced performance as a repressed, gay alcoholic whose true character—both good and bad—emerges as his bond with Duke becomes far more intimate than that of servant and mistress. Saturday, Feb. 9, at 8 p.m., HBO