The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
Better Things
If you have time for only one dysfunctional mom in your viewing life, it should be Pamela Adlon. For two seasons, the comedy series she hatched with her friend Louis C.K. has created rolling hilarity out of the chaos of parenting while single, middle-aged, and working. For Season 3, her writing partner is gone, but not missed, because Adlon plays Sam Fox as a 52-year-old even closer to collapse—battling her three daughters, monitoring a mother of declining mental capacities, putting on weight…. As Sam says, “It’s a lot.” Thursday, Feb. 28, at 10 p.m., FX
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
With famine spreading across Malawi, one 14-year-old dreamed up a way to save his village. In a pedestrian but uplifting feature film directed by actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, that true story comes to life. Maxwell Simba plays William Kamkwamba, who borrowed books from a school library and scavenged scrapyard parts to build a windmill that brought electricity and water to a community that was losing hope. Available for streaming Friday, March 1, Netflix
The Widow
Don’t pity Georgia Wells. As played by Kate Beckinsale, in the film star’s first featured TV role, this widow is a 40-something British action hero, pushing aside doubters who claim her husband couldn’t have survived a plane crash three years earlier, flying to Congo to chase clues, and slinging around an assault rifle when the trail leads her inside a vast conspiracy. Available for streaming Friday, March 1, Amazon
The Bush Years: Family, Duty, Power
When Connecticut blue blood Prescott Bush won election to the U.S. Senate in 1952, he couldn’t have known he was laying the cornerstone of a Texas-based political dynasty. This six-part documentary charts the family’s political rise and long run as a prominent force in Republican and national politics, helped by interviews with allies and friends such as Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair. Ed Harris narrates. Sunday, March 3, at 9 p.m., CNN
Independent Lens: People’s Republic of Desire
Think you spend too much time online? Hao Wu’s award-winning documentary checks in on China, where live-streaming has gone next-level and young people who call themselves the “loser” generation spend hours watching their online idols—often ordinary folks who’ve attracted hundreds of millions of viewers and can earn $150,000 a month sharing their lives. The film focuses on two such stars: a comedian and a nurse now known for her singing. Monday, Feb. 25, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listings
Other highlights
The Enemy Within
Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter stars in a new thriller series as a notorious CIA traitor called upon to help track down a terrorist. Monday, Feb. 25, at 10 p.m., NBC
The Green Book: Guide to Freedom
Learn the real history of The Green Book, the guide that black travelers used during the Jim Crow era to find safe havens while traveling America’s roads and highways. Monday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m., Smithsonian
Gone
Chris Noth returns to his Law & Order roots playing the leader of an FBI task force that specializes in abduction cases. Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 9 p.m., WGN America ■
