PBS will air the Dr. Anthony Fauci documentary Tony–A Year in the Life of Dr. Anthony Fauci in spring 2023, the network shared during its remote TCA press tour session. Fauci is chief medical advisor to the president, and a prominent figure in our nation’s battles with Covid.
The film is an American Masters production and Mark Mannucci directs.
PBS previously aired the hour-long documentary Fauci: The Virus Hunter.
Author Zora Neale Hurston also gets a close-up, when documentary Zora Neale Hurston premieres on PBS early in 2023. Tracy Heather Strain directs. PBS said Hurston’s work challenges “assumptions about race, gender and cultural superiority that had long defined the field in the 19th century.”
Hurston’s books include Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Also coming up for PBS is The U.S. and the Holocaust, a three-part series from Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein. The series “tells the story of how the American people grappled with one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 20th century,” according to PBS, “and how this struggle tested the ideals of our democracy.”
That premieres September 18. Paula Kerger, PBS president and CEO, noted that the project is “even more relevant as we look at the crisis in Ukraine.”
Sticking with the Ukraine theme, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra plays the Kennedy Center Concert Hall August 20, and the performance is on PBS in September.
The Television Critics’ Association’s summer press tour went remote as Covid continues to be an issue.
Season two of Native America will premiere on PBS in 2023. The season will tell the stories of “Native Americans who are carrying forward Indigenous values to transform our 21st century world,” said Kerger.
Southern Storytellers, a three-episode series from PBS, Arkansas PBS and Craig Renaud, details contemporary southern creators doing standout work in literature, music, theater, TV and film. That premieres next summer.
Making Black America: Through the Grapevine has four parts and comes from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Making Black America takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcases Black people's ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself,” according to PBS. That premieres October 4.
For children, Work It Out Wombats!, a new animated series for kids 3-6, and starring a playful trio of marsupial siblings, starts in February. The show “will introduce computational thinking concepts that will help young viewers solve meaningful problems, learn flexible thinking and how to express themselves—all while using the practices and processes at the core of computer science,” according to PBS.
Kerger noted a couple anniversaries, with PBS Digital Studios and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood both turning ten.
Asked about the PBS news operation, Kerger said these trying times have brought out the best in the PBS news gatherers. “I’m hugely proud of the work of NewsHour and Frontline,” she said, noting the significance of true journalism amidst “this period when people are hungering for information they can trust.”
Kerger was asked about government funding, which was a precarious matter during the Trump administration’s run. “Always in the back of my mind, I worry about government funding,” she said. “I never make the assumption that this isn’t something we continually need to work at to make our case.”
She added that “we seem to be in reasonably good shape,” stressing that “we” is the PBS stations.
“All of us together,” Kerger added, “the onus is on us to make sure we are very clear on the services we provide.” ■
