MONDAY, 11 a.m.

Big Sky Bears

Animal Planet Acclaimed nature filmmaker Phil Savoie shot this 50-minute documentary about two endearing black bear cubs that grow up in the spectacular Rocky Mountains of America’s “Big Sky Country,” the state of Montana.

MONDAY, 9 p.m.

American Experience: New York Underground

PBS New York City’s huge subway system opened in 1904 and today carries a billion passengers a year on its 700 miles of track. Politicians blocked the first subway tunnel, built in 1868, but the blizzard of 1888 prompted new public demand. This documentary explains the engineering challenges of the subway and salutes the workers, many of them immigrants, who toiled on the dangerous project. A re-air from 1997.

MONDAYS, THURSDAYS

Total Consecration

Familyland TV Starting now, tune in on Mondays at 9 p.m. or Thursdays at 10 a.m. as Fathers Frederick Miller and Roger Charest explain how to make or renew Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, in union with St. Joseph, following the method of St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716).

TUESDAY, 8 p.m.

Nova: America’s Stone Age Explorers

PBS Recent archaeological discoveries are causing some scholars to suggest that Stone Age man first came from Asia to North and South America not around 10,000 B.C. as previously thought but several millennia earlier, and not overland but by boat. A re-air from 2004.

WEDNESDAY, 11 a.m., 9 p.m.

Ash Wednesday Mass From Rome

EWTN As Lent begins, this TV Mass is a good chance to firm up our resolutions for repentance, making reparation and seeking to become ever closer to Jesus Christ.

THURSDAY, 2:30 p.m.

EWTN’s on Vocation: Mount St. Mary’s Seminary

EWTN Vocations expert Father James Gould takes us on a tour of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., interviews seminarians and professors there and analyzes everything that goes into the formation of future priests.

FRIDAY, 8 p.m.

Combat Garage

History Channel Experts rebuild the Ford V-8 engine of an M4A3 Sherman tank and salute the Army mechanics who kept our Shermans going in World War II. Advisory: TV-PG.

FRIDAYS, SATURDAYS

Defending Life

EWTN Every Friday at 10 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 a.m., Father Frank Pavone, founder of the new community Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, and of Priests for Life, tells how we can fulfill our duty to help build the Culture of Life.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.