TV program notes -- week of Jan. 20

NEW YORK (CNS) - Here are some television program notes for the week of Jan. 20 with their TV Parental Guidelines ratings if available. They have not been reviewed and therefore are not necessarily recommended by the Office for Film & Broadcasting.

Sunday, Jan. 20, 5-6 p.m. EST (EWTN) "Love Is a Choice." This documentary looks at the life of St. Gianna Beretta Molla through interviews with those who knew her and letters she exchanged with her husband.

Sunday, Jan. 20, 10-11 p.m. EST (EWTN) "Walsingham: England's Nazareth." A look at the history of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, England, a place of pilgrimage since medieval times that is now England's Catholic shrine to Mary.

Sunday, Jan. 20, 9-10:30 p.m. EST (PBS) "Northanger Abbey." In Jane Austen's gentle parody of Gothic fiction, Felicity Jones plays romance addict Catherine Morland. Invited to a medieval country house that appeals to her most lurid fantasies, she forms a close friendship with the younger son on the estate, Henry Tilney (JJ Field), but their budding romance is mysteriously cut short. A presentation of "Masterpiece" (TV-PG -- parental guidance suggested).

Monday, Jan. 21, 8-9 p.m. EST (National Geographic) "The Pirate Code." With little direction aside from a survivor's testimony and a cryptic clue, salvage expert Barry Clifford embarks on the search of a lifetime to uncover the nearly 300-year-old wreck site of the Whydah Galley and its estimated 9,000 pounds of treasure. The special follows one man's quest to resurrect pirate Black Sam Bellamy's ship from its watery grave and examines a pirate ship excavation from bottom to top, while experts shed light on findings ranging from the mundane to the unexpected and on the lives of the pirates themselves.

Monday, Jan. 21, 9-10 p.m. EST (PBS) "The Lobotomist." The lobotomy was hailed by The New York Times as a "surgery of the soul" and "history-making," a groundbreaking medical procedure that promised hope to the most distressed families and desolate mentally ill patients. Championed by a young and ambitious neurologist named Walter J. Freeman, what began as an operation of last resort was soon being performed at some 50 state asylums, often with devastating results. Only a decade after his rise to fame, Freeman was decried as a moral monster and the lobotomy as one of the most barbaric mistakes of modern medicine. Through interviews with medical historians, psychiatrists who worked with Freeman and the desperate families who sought his help, this "American Experience" program tells the tale of medical intervention gone awry. Campbell Scott narrates (TV-14 -- parents strongly cautioned).

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 10-10:30 p.m. EST (PBS) "A Son's Sacrifice." Imran, a young Muslim American, must confront his mixed heritage and gain acceptance from his father's conservative community as he struggles to take over the family business. An "Independent Lens" film by Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed (TV-PG -- parental guidance suggested).

Friday, Jan. 25, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. EST (EWTN) "Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul: Celebration of Vespers, Live." Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to preside over the vesper service celebrating the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle, from the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.

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