The Week's guide to what's worth watching

last updated 8 January 2015

In Treatment

Based on an Israeli hit, this nine-week series features Gabriel Byrne as a psychotherapist whose emotional issues parallel those of his patients, spurring him to seek treatment himself. Each half-hour episode consists solely of a therapy session with a different patient. Within these unique strictures, the show delivers admirably compelling drama. With Dianne Wiest. Monday–Friday at 9:30 p.m., beginning Jan. 28, HBO

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A pinnacle of the achievements of classical Athens, the Parthenon has suffered the ravages of man and the elements for millennia. NOVA reports on current efforts to restore the hilltop structure, exposing such remarkable features as its illusory symmetry and the tools and “blueprints” that enabled the ancient Greeks to erect it in an amazingly brief eight or nine years. Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 8 p.m., PBS; check local listings

This intriguing documentary, as idiosyncratic as its title, is both a rueful self-portrait by a young Chinese screenwriter and an enactment of the story he is struggling to write. Rao Hui wants to tell of a man’s odyssey to a mythical village far north, and ends up offering a revealing look into both the creative process and contemporary China. Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings

Spectacular photography of such colorful creatures as elephant seals, Magellanic penguins, and guanacos abounds in this National Geographic special, which focuses on the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile, one of the world’s last great wildernesses. It points to Karukinka, a 700,000-acre nature preserve on Tierra del Fuego, as a model for conservation efforts. Wednesday, Jan. 30, at 9 p.m., PBS

Graphic and dramatic footage marks this look inside the emergency room of Al-Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad, which shows the devastating effects of war on Iraq’s people. Iraqi citizens grievously injured in the ongoing sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis endure substandard hospital conditions, as in the case of a 6-year-old shrapnel victim who must be treated without anesthetic because supplies have run out. Because the hospital was deemed too dangerous for an American crew to enter, this film was shot with hand-held cameras by an Iraqi doctor who, until now,

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