FRIDAY, JULY 25
Call It Karma
Vision, 10 p.m.
Under instructions from his Buddhist master, young spiritualist Gyalten Rinpoche walked from his remote Tibetan monastery through the Himalayas to Nepal and then on to India, a trek of 1,600 kilometres. Filmmaker Geoff Browne recreates Rinpoche's treacherous trek.
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Allan Gregg in Conversation!
TVO, 10 p.m.
Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe, describes the iconic genius as "a great visual mathematician" and explains how Einstein's brilliance stemmed from the very non-conformity and deep imaginings that made him a mediocre student.
Henrietta Walmark
SATURDAY, JULY 26
Philadelphia Story (1940)
TVO, 8 p.m.
Here it is, the classic of romantic comedy's golden era in the 1930s and 40s, the movie that marked Katharine Hepburn's triumphant comeback after a series of flops and won Jimmy Stewart his only Oscar (until his lifetime achievement award). Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a Philadelphia socialite whose wedding to a stuffy nouveau riche financier is interrupted by her charming ex-husband (that's Cary Grant) and the fast-talking tabloid reporter assigned to the story (that's Stewart).
SUNDAY, JULY 27
Antarctic Mission: A Window on a Changing Climate
CBC, 6 p.m.
The Nature of Things gets down to the nitty-gritty of climate change as its series on the Antarctic continues with this episode about the immediate effects of the melting ice. The program follows international researchers as they measure the melt, which is occurring much faster than was first predicted in the 1980s and 1990s. The footage of the awakening of what was mistakenly labelled a slumbering giant is spectacular as bergs float by and ice crashes into the sea, but the message is sobering. The cute little Adélie penguin, whose life cycle and habitat are explored at length, plays canary in the coal mine here: Adélie populations have declined 80 per cent on one island, as the runoff from late spring snowfalls caused by rising humidity levels drown their chicks, and higher water temperatures force them to go further afield to find the krill on which they feed.
Kate Taylor
