Category Archives: TV

Learn how King Henry VIII got ahead in marriage . . . six times!

And you thought the Mormons had it tough.

The 16th--century legend of King Henry VIII is turned on its crowned head as the dramatic stories of his six tumultuous marriages are told from the wives’ perspectives in Secrets of the Six Wives (PBS Distribution). The fascinating documentary will be available on DVD March 14; the program will also be available for digital download.

With extraordinary attention to detail–including actual first-person accounts pulled from historical records and secrets and stories from the women who surrounded each Queen–the program offers an ambitious approach to the oft-told tales.

Led by UK author and historian Lucy Worsley, who moves seamlessly from the present to the past and appears throughout the series as an observer and commenter on the happenings at court, the program gives history a new point of view. Worsley is the Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, and a face familiar to British audiences as a regular historical contributor to BBC, whose best-selling books bring new angles on centuries of British history.

The series’ three episodes follows the trajectory of a well-known British nursery rhyme used to teach children the order of the six wives, “Divorced, Beheaded, Died; Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.” Additional information about each of the episodes included on this DVD are below:

Episode 1
Young Henry is smitten with Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, who became his first wife, until her “inability” to deliver a suitable heir destroyed their marriage. Henry’s wandering eye leads him to Mary Boleyn then to her sister, the infamous Anne Boleyn, as he begins divorcing his first wife.

Episode 2
Viewers learn that Anne Boleyn was not necessarily the “harlot” described by history, but instead a strong and intelligent woman.  After Anne’s famous beheading, King Henry marries his professed “true love” Jane Seymour, who bore the King’s only son but died soon after the child’s birth.

Episode 3
Taking place in Henry’s later years and traces the failed marriages he had with Anne of Cleves, whom he divorced, but who got a very good settlement and ended up as one of the richest women in England, and Catherine Howard, a teenager who Lucy discovers was exploited by older men from a young age. She was also beheaded. Henry remained married to his sixth wife, Katherine Parr, until his death.

Whether as witness to, participant in, or wry commentator on the marital dramas as they unfold, Worsley shines an empathetic light on the featured women and, in doing so, delivers a new take on the legend of King Henry VIII.

Murray says the cast of Secrets of the Six Wives features mostly new faces from the U.K., helping to bring the story a contemporary feel. Starring as the six wives are Paola Bontempi (Katherine of Aragon); Claire Cooper (Anne Boleyn); Elly Condron (Jane Seymour); Rebecca Dyson Smith (Anne of Cleves); Lauren McQueen (Catherine Howard); and Alice Patten (Katherine Parr). Notable veteran actor Richard Ridings (who voices the character of Daddy in the popular children’s show Peppa Pig) appears as the older King Henry VIII in episode 3. Scott Arthur plays Young King Henry VIII in episodes 1 and 2.

 

PBS goes into the bowels of Boston for a fascinating documentary on subway history

Petula Clark made it very clear: Don’t sleep in the subways, darling.

But learning about the underground travel system is a whole different trip. In the late 19th century, as America’s teeming cities grew increasingly congested, the time had come to replace the nostalgic horse-drawn trolleys with a faster, cleaner, safer, and more efficient form of transportation. Ultimately, it was Boston—a city of so many firsts—that overcame a litany of engineering challenges, the greed-driven interests of businessmen, and the great fears of its citizenry to construct America’s first subway. Based in part on Doug Most’s acclaimed non-fiction book of the same name, The Race Underground tells the dramatic story of an invention that changed the lives of millions.

PBS Distribution releases American Experience: The Race Underground on DVD on February 28. The program will also be available for digital download.

In the late 1800s, Boston reigned as America’s most crowded city, with nearly 400,000 people packed into a downtown of less than one square mile. With more than 8,000 horses pulling the trolleys, the city was filthy and noisy, reeking of manure and packed with humanity.

In 1890, Edison General Electric Company, which manufactured much of Sprague’s equipment, purchased and absorbed the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company

But a young American inventor named Frank Sprague had a revolutionary idea. Inspired by his visits to the London Underground, Sprague envisioned a subway system that would trade London’s soot-spewing coal-powered steam engine with a motor run on the latest technology—electricity. After an early job with his idol Thomas Edison, Sprague launched his own venture, the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company.

Sprague

Seeking investors, he first struck out with financier Jay Gould after almost setting the mogul on fire during a demonstration.  He soon found backing with the wealthy capitalist Henry Whitney, who owned a fortune in suburban Boston real estate and quickly saw the financial upside of connecting his desirable residential neighborhoods with the city’s economic center. Whitney also proposed the consolidation of Boston’s seven existing streetcar companies—all under his control. When the Massachusetts General Court granted Whitney the monopoly, he announced an unprecedented plan: To build the nation’s first subway. Powered by Sprague’s technology and enthusiastically supported by Boston Mayor Nathan Matthews, the project threw the city into a voluble debate.

“The Boston subway was not a foregone conclusion, not by a long shot. There was a petition at one point where 12,000 businessmen opposed the subway,” says historian Stephen Puleo. “There were going to be streets torn up, sewer systems affected, water lines affected, electrical lines affected. Secondly, folks felt like traveling underground was very close to the netherworld, that you were getting closer to the devil, that you were taking this great risk in God’s eyes by traveling on a subway.”

The debate raged on, but the Mayor finally convinced the city that the new subway would provide much-needed jobs and not infringe on the city’s beloved Boston Common. After two years of construction, Boston’s new subway made its first trip on September 1, 1897. Despite lingering fears, more than 250,000 Bostonians rode the underground rails on its first day. In its first year of operation, 50 million passengers would ride the Boston system, and within ten years, New York and Philadelphia opened subways, with more American cities to follow.

 

Cheesy, cheap and a true cult classic: Olive Films brings “Panther Girl of the Kongo ” to Blu-ray and DVD

Patty, Maxene and LaVerne promised that bongo, bongo, bongo, I don’t want to leave the Congo, oh no no no no no/Bingo, bangle, bungle, I’m so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go.

Spelling aside, we can’t wait to spend 12 chapters with Panther Girl of the Kongo that, at a cost  of $179,341, was the most expensive Republic serial of 1955.

When we say this is cheesy and cheap and oh-so-cultable, we mean it. The series was the penultimate ( 65 of 66) Republic serial, and was filmed in about two weeks. In order to make it possible to use significant stock footage from the earlier serial Jungle Girl, and cheaply pad out Panther Girl of the Kongo, a duplicate costume was used; as a result, Republic’s last female lead wore the same costume as its first!

The plot was a meld of serial fodder. Dr. Morgan is a mad scientist who is trying to nab sole access to secret African diamond mines (by way of the Republic backlot). In order to accomplish this he breeds giant “claw monsters to scare away any other inhabitants. Jean Evans, the Panther Girl, and her friend Larry Sanders encounter this plot while on a photo safari in the region.The star was Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane in the first season of the television series Adventures of Superman. Dr. Morgan was played by Arthur Space, best known as veterinarian Doc Weaver in 39 episodes of the TV series Lassie.

Olive Films releases release Panther Girl of the Kongo to Blu-ray and DVD.  Even audiences unfamiliar with serials can find plenty to enjoy. You may just not want to leave the Congo . . .

Who offers great TV shows on DVD? BBC has just what the doctor ordered

Who continues to churn out great shows on must-have Blu-rays and DVDs? BBC America does, offering just what the doctor offers. Catch up on Doctor Who’s latest adventure with Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio, working its way onto Blu-ray and DVD on February 21. And, yes, there’s some nifty bonus content.

In Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio, join the Time Lord, played by Peter Capaldi, as he teams up with an investigative journalist, played by, and a superhero to save New York from a deadly alien threat. Written by Steven Moffat, the special stars Justin Chatwin as Grant, along with Matt Lucas, Charity Wakefield, Adetomiwa Edun, Aleksandar Jovanovic and Logan Hoffman.

The bonus content? There’s A New Kind of Superhero, in which we ask what it is about the Doctor that makes him so heroic; a special Christmas Doctor Who Extra (which stars Peter Capaldi and Matt Lucas); and many other extra features giving fans a special inside look at the making of The Return of Doctor Mysterio.

Mercy me! PBS Distribution is leading fans of great TV to “Mercy Street: Season 2”

Mercy me! PBS Distribution is leading fans of great TV to Mercy Street: Season 2, available on Blu-ray and DVD (and as a valentine) on February 14. The program will also be available for digital download.

What a small-screen saga! The critically-acclaimed Civil War-era drama takes place in the occupied city of Alexandria, Virginia, where allegiances blur, loyalties shift and the drama intensifies as the scope of the war pushes beyond Mansion House, the former hotel commandeered by northern troops to serve as a Union hospital.

The series follows the doctors, nurses and soldiers, as well as free, enslaved and contraband African Americans and other residents of the war-torn city, as they navigate the new world emerging from the most cataclysmic event in our country’s history.

Just how hot is the series? The first season of Mercy Street, that premiered in January 2016, reached a total audience of 14 million people. It is the second highest rated drama for the year to date on PBS, after Downton Abbey.

The second season picks up directly from the dramatic events at the end of the first season finale, continuing to explore life in the chaotic city of Alexandria, the complicated interpersonal dynamics of Dr. Foster, Nurse Mary and the Mansion House staff, the increasingly precarious position of the Green family and the changing world of the burgeoning black population. The second season will introduce a number of new elements, taking the viewer closer to the war and into the halls of Confederate power, all set against the intensifying war, starting with the Seven Days’ Battle and culminating with Antietam.

The new season also delves deeper into the lives of newly freed African Americans, exploring–among other areas–life in a contraband camp, where formerly enslaved African Americans are forced to confront horrific living conditions and disease, but also get a glimpse of freedom.

New actors and guest stars introduced in Mercy Street: Season 2 include:

· Patina Miller as Charlotte Jenkins, an educated contraband abolitionist activist who arrives in the first episode. A former slave who escaped to freedom years before through the Underground Railroad, Charlotte (a composite of numerous historical figures, most prominently Harriet Jacobs) offers education to other former slaves and helps with the sick who have contracted smallpox, which was epidemic during the Civil War.

· Brian F. O’Byrne as Allan Pinkerton, head of the Union Intelligence Service. The character is based on the real Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish emigrant and abolitionist who founded America’s first detective agency and successfully brought down some of the country’s most ruthless criminals.

·Bryce Pinkham as Major Clayton McBurney III, the new hospital chief.

· Lyne Renee as Lisette Beaufort, a stylish and bold Parisian who has a past with Dr. Foster and creates a stir in the hospital when she accepts a commission with the Union Army in medical visual documentation.

·Chris Wood as Captain Lance Van Der Berg, a handsome young Union captain lodging at the Green home when he strikes up a budding romance with Alice Green, who has ulterior motives for the courtship.

· William Mark McCullough as Larkin, a Confederate sympathizer in league with Jimmy Green, who helps formulate a plan to provide rebel fighters with munitions.

· Nyambi Nyambi as Caleb, a contraband who arrives at Mansion House Hospital searching for a particular woman.

Hungry for great dishes and great TV? Feast on “Moveable Feast with Fine Cooking: Season 4”

Public Media Distribution continues dishing out tasty dishes. And DVDs. Now available: Moveable Feast with Fine Cooking: Season 4.

Nominated for an Emmy and James Beard Award, and winner of both Telly and TASTE Awards, the set is hosted by Pete Evans, Australia’s top celebrity chef. Follow Pete on a culinary journey across America as he teams up with the country’s most innovative chefs to source the finest regional ingredients and create a multi-course feast for friends.

In the two-disc Season 4, learn cooking tips and techniques from talented chefs, including Curtis Stone, Sean Brock, Andrea Reusing and Brian MaLarkay, and how you can interpret their flavorful dishes in your own kitchen. Watch as diners sit down to enjoy these spectacular meals hosted in unique places, from a majestic redwood grove and river oyster farm to a stunning ranch in the foothills of Montana and the deck of the USS Midway. You’ll want a seat at the table!

The episode descriptions are below:

Los Angeles, California–Curtis Stone & Francis Derby
Chefs Curtis Stone of Maude restaurant and Francis Derby of The Cannibal restaurant join host Pete Evans to explore the culinary mecca of Los Angeles. From browsing the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market to Logan’s Gardens, the three collect their ingredients to prepare for an extravagant pig roast. Curtis makes a fresh peach mustard for his fennel-rubbed pig, which is paired with Francis’ spread of mixed charcuterie, raw vegetables and duck rillettes. It’s a picture perfect feast for a beautiful location in Silverlake, California.

Bozeman, Montana–Melissa Harrison & Eduardo Garcia
Big Sky meets lamb in Bozeman, where chefs Melissa Harrison and Eduardo Garcia create dishes with rustic flair. Our host Pete Evans joins the chefs in the beautiful Montana terrain for trout fly-fishing and the three channel their wild side as they forage for natural and fresh ingredients. This Moveable Feast takes Chef Evans to the spectacular Willow Spring Farm in Montana, where Chefs Harrison and Garcia serve a mouthwatering whole roasted lamb on a spit.

Charleston, South Carolina–Mike Lata and Jason Stanhope
Explore the culinary wonders of Charleston as you head toward the shore. Chefs Mike Lata and Jason Stanhope join the team as they venture into the water for shrimp and other seafood delicacies that make for a mouth-watering dinner. With oysters as an appetizer and Lata’s fish stew served with Stanhope’s rice and vegetables dishes, this meal will be one for the books.

San Francisco–David Barzelay and Brandon Jew
Host Pete Evans takes us to Golden Gate Park with fellow chefs David Barzelay of San Francisco’s Lazy Bear and Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s. Our team will forage today, first for seaweed off Bodega Bay, then redwood bark for our cocktail. For their meal, they prepare steamed halibut and bone marrow and aged cheddar cheese with crudite. Their cross-cultural meal meets a rustic setting as they eat a beautiful dinner inside a Redwood grove.

Baltimore, Maryland–Duff Goldman & Bryan Voltaggio
Pete takes on blue crab country when he joins chefs Goldman and Voltaggio. After gathering crabs from JM Clayton Seafood Company, the oldest crab-picking house in the U.S., the group visits the small specialty store of Hex Ferments to purchase the best sauerkraut in the area. Pete starts the feast with Thai-style deviled eggs with crab mayo and kraut, while Brian serves a true Maryland blue crab feast and the Ace of Cakes aces it with the classic Smith Island Cake for dessert. Get ready for the crab and cake feast of your dreams.

San Diego, California–Brian MaLarkey & Javier Plascencia
Explore the culinary style of San Diego, where chefs MaLarkey and Plascencia create dishes with Mexican-Cali flair. Our host chef Pete Evans joins the chefs for visits to a Californian coffee roaster and the shores of San Diego to find perfect ingredients. We also embark on a trip to Catalina Offshore, one of the region’s premier seafood purveyors. Chef MaLarkey prepares a fantastic salad with grilled local sardines while Chef Plascencia impresses diners with a fantastic mole.

Davidson, North Carolina–Joe & Katy Kindred
Pete heads to  North Carolina to meet with the owners of the famous Kindred restaurant, chef Kindred and his wife Katy. The three visit the award-winning Noda Brewing Company–home of the Hop, Drop ‘n Roll IPA–and the family-run Newtown Farm for organic vegetables. Together, they make a beautiful lakeside feast, featuring classics like a crispy North Carolina oyster and shrimp roll, as well as pasta and clams. And, of course, no southern meal would be complete without a sweet dish like Katy’s strawberry shortcake spin.

Charleston, South Carolina – Sean Brock & Benjamin Dennis
The program returns to Charleston, where chefs Brock and  Dennis create some classic local dishes with all the Southern charm. Our host Pete Evans joins the chefs for visits to a South Carolina plantation, which produces some of the finest vegetables and rye in the area. We also embark on a trip to an innovative farm looking to feed and train the people of tomorrow and teach them to grow sustainable foods. Chef Dennis prepares a fantastic short rib and conch stew with classic southern grits, while Chef Brock roasts a pig with heritage greens and vegetables.

Topping, Virginia – Ryan & Travis Vroxton & Chef Dylan Fultineer
Pete welcomes us to Virginia, where we meet skilled oystermen Ryan and Travi, as well as Fultineer. Dylan brings Pete to Sub Rosa, a bakery specializing in traditional breadmaking. Later, Ryan and Travis have the chance to show Pete the secrets to their trade as they head onto the water and harvest one of the tastiest oysters in the world. Together, they design a meal that combines southern barbeque with the sea in the Croxtons’ BBQ Oyster Fest, and Dylan cooks up a special lamb and oyster stew.

Outstanding in the Field–Chef Oliver Ridgeway
Join our host Chef Pete Evans for Moveable Feast’s biggest feast of the season–an outstanding meal in the beautiful fields outside Sacramento, California. Our host visits Outstanding in the Field, a visiting chef-based, farm-to-table dinner experience, with Chef Ridgeway, who works with local farmers to create a delicious, fresh Moveable Feast.

Greenough, Montana–Chef Ben Jones & Rory Schepisi
The program goes to a chuck wagon dinner in Greenough, Montana. Our host chef Pete Evans joins chef  Jones, of Paws Up, and grilling master Schepisi, to experience a classic Montana barbecue. Chefs Jones and Schepisi take Evans on a tour of local farms to harvest honey and see how real Montana angus beef is raised. The chefs prepare a delicious meal featuring Montana beef in this quintessential Chuck Wagon dinner. This Moveable Feast even has our host on the move… on horseback!

Durham, North Carolina–Andrea & Brendan Reusing
From rooftop to rain in North Carolina, host Pete Evans is joined by the Lantern restaurant co-founders and siblings Andrea and Brendan to create an amazing local feast. Our team visits the small Chapel Hill Creamery, known for its award-winning cheeses, and the sustainability-driven EcoFarm for its fresh, organic produce. With the ingredients they’ve gathered, they prepare grilled country pork ribs with a rhubarb relish; a warm kale salad with radishes, eggs, and a bacon dressing; and an appetizer of grilled Bibb lettuce with mozzarella and preserved lemon and spring onion dressing.

Washington, D.C.–Mike Isabella & Jennifer Carroll
Go Greek in the U.S. capital with chefs Mike Isabella and Jennifer Carroll. Our host Chef Pete Evans joins the chefs in Washington, D.C. for a seafood extravaganza and to taste and learn about different varieties of smoked fish. We hit the original fish wholesaler to find high-quality seafood that is not only tasty, but good for the ecosystem! Chef Isabella wows with a simple and smoked mixed fish platter while Chef Carroll combines smoked salmon and blue catfish with marinated spring vegetables. It’s a feast fit for Zeus in Washington, D.C.

Jane Fonda goes evil! She lends her voice to Disney’s animated adventure “Elena and the Secret of Avalor”

Jane Fonda evil? Never, unless you ask those Vietnam vets. The 79-year-old actress lends her voice to the ever-youthful evil sorceress Shuriki in the small-screen Disney animated adventure Elena and the Secret of Avalor.

If you’ve been addicted to Fonda’s comedy-drama web television series Gracie and Frankie (co-starring her 9 to 5 co-star Lily Tomlin), you can see how the Avalor fuss began in the flick. And you can discover the secret behind the legend of Disney’s new Crown Princess.

Frozen in time and trapped inside the Amulet of Avalor for more than 40 years, Elena has finally found the one, brave princess who can set her free: Sofia of Enchancia.  With help from magical flying Jaquins, spirit animal Zuzo and young wizard-in-training Mateo, Princess Elena must unite her people and battle Shuriki as she tries to reclaim her throne.

You will recognize many voices, especially Aimee Carrero as Princess Elena and Ariel Winter as Sofia. This DVD is packed with laughs, new characters to cherish and heart, as well as four extra episodes, a music video and an exclusive Flying Jaquin mobile. What were you expecting, a Barbarella poster?

PBS offers the fascinating “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,” on TV and on DVD

She has been distinctly referred to as “a redwood tree, with deep roots in American culture.” She is a woman who has gone out on many limbs to make the world a better, safer and more living place.

Dr. Maya Angelou led a prolific life. As a singer, dancer, activist, poet and writer, she inspired generations with lyrical modern African-American thought that pushed boundaries. Best known for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she gave people the freedom to think about their history in a way they never had before.

Her story is told in the marvelous American Masters: Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, making its national broadcast premiere on Tuesday, February 21 at 8 p.m. on PBS as a continuing celebration of part of Black History. The DVD of the documentary will also be available (from PBS Distribution) that same done, and will include bonus features. The program will also be available for digital download.

With unprecedented access, filmmakers Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack trace Dr. Angelou’s incredible journey, shedding light on the untold aspects of her life through never-before-seen footage, rare archival photographs and videos and her own words. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South and her early performing career (1957’s Miss Calypso album and Calypso Heat Wave film, Jean Genet’s 1961 play The Blacks) to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana and her many writing successes, including her inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton, American Masters: Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise reveals hidden facets of her life during some of America’s most defining moments.

The film also features exclusive interviews with Dr. Angelou, her friends and family, including Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Common, Alfre Woodard, Cicely Tyson, Quincy Jones, Hillary Clinton, Louis Gossett, Jr., John Singleton, Diahann Carroll, Valerie Simpson, Random House editor Bob Loomis and Dr. Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson.

American Masters: Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise premiered to critical acclaim at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Audience Award at AFI Docs and was featured at notable film festivals worldwide, including Full Frame, Sheffield, IDFA and Seattle, winning 17 awards on three continents, and has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

The show’s title comes from an Angelou poem:

“Out of the huts of history’s shame / I rise / Up from a past that’s rooted in pain / I rise / I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, / Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. / Leaving behind nights of terror and fear / I rise / Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear / I rise.”

“American Experience: Battle of Chosin” recounts the epic, historical conflict

On Thanksgiving Day 1950, American-led United Nations troops were on the march in North Korea. U.S. Marine and Air Force pilots distributed holiday meals, even to those on the front lines. Hopes were high that everyone would be home by Christmas. But soon after that peaceful celebration, American military leaders, including General Douglas MacArthur, were caught off guard by the entrance of the People’s Republic of China, led by Mao Zedong, into the five-month-old Korean War.

Twelve thousand men of the First Marine Division, along with a few thousand Army soldiers, suddenly found themselves surrounded, outnumbered and at risk of annihilation at the Chosin Reservoir, high in the mountains of North Korea. The two-week battle that followed, fought in brutally cold temperatures, is one of the most celebrated in Marine Corps annals and helped set the course of American foreign policy in the Cold War and beyond. Incorporating interviews with more than 20 veterans of the campaign, American Experience: Battle of Chosin recounts this epic conflict through the heroic stories of the men who fought it.

The PBS Distribution documentary will be available on DVD on January 24; the program will also be available for digital download.

The events that led to the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir started five months earlier when Korea unexpectedly became the battleground for the first hot conflict of the Cold War. Split across the middle at the 38th parallel in the political settlement that followed World War II, the Korean peninsula had solidified into separate states by 1950.

The two new governments symbolized the rising struggle between the world’s dominant political ideologies: democracy and communism. The Soviet Union and Mao Zedong’s new Communist China supported North Korea while South Korea had the backing of the United States and other Western democracies. This balance of power held until June 25, 1950, when North Korea led a surprise attack against South Korea and quickly overran most of the Korean peninsula.

The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution to end the hostilities in Korea and authorized the United States military to lead a multi-national force against North Korea. President Harry Truman told the world that the United States would take “whatever steps were necessary” to contain Communist expansion in Korea. This included the possibility of unleashing nuclear weapons on China. Fears of World War III filled the news.

Under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, American-led forces had turned back North Korea’s aggression. MacArthur then set his sights on quickly pushing north to the Chinese border and reuniting the country under democratic rule. On the eve of MacArthur’s final offensive, the First Marine Division was strung out on a single 78-mile-long supply route leading to the Chosin Reservoir.

Mao Zedong had won a long and deadly civil war a year earlier and united China under the communist flag. When MacArthur’s UN forces threatened his border in the fall of 1950, Mao decided to act. By late November 1950, tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers had quietly infiltrated North Korea and surrounded MacArthur’s forces. On the night of November 27, Mao sprung his trap at the Chosin Reservoir.

The worst of the Chinese onslaught landed on the forces encamped in the hills around the Chosin Reservoir—the First Marine Division, under the command of General Oliver P. Smith, and a small, attached Army unit. Night after night, Mao’s army swept down from the hills and attacked the vastly outnumbered American troops.

The only hope for the surrounded men was to fight their way back to the coast, a perilous journey into the teeth of a subarctic winter, through tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers waiting in the high ground above the single road out. For the next two weeks, General Smith’s men fought brutal battles against the Chinese in some of the harshest conditions American forces had ever experienced. Dead bodies, frozen in grotesque and contorted shapes, littered the battlefield. Finally, 14,000 surviving troops made their way back to safety.

The carefully staged withdrawal succeeded and also inflicted devastating losses on the enemy. Two Chinese divisions were entirely destroyed, and an estimated 40,000 Chinese soldiers were killed.

Thousands of North Korean refugees were also fleeing south, many trailing the column of Marines. Nearly 100,000 refugees were part of the massive evacuation of American and UN troops out of North Korea.

Ever wonder how certain animals survive when it’s 50 below zero? Turn to “Snowbound: Animals of Winter”

It’s certainly a hot topic: The coldest and snowiest places on earth pose a challenge to anyone visiting such locations as the Arctic Circle or Antarctica, but what about the year-round animal population? How do they cope for many months with life in these frozen wonderlands where temperatures can plummet to as low as minus 50 degrees?

In Nature: Snowbound: Animals of Winter (PBS Distribution), Gordon Buchanan, a wildlife cameraman used to filming in frigid lands around the globe, explains how creatures like the wolf, Arctic fox, bison, reindeer, lynx, weasel, polar bear, penguin, Weddell seal and woolly bear caterpillar adapt to their surroundings or employ clever tactics to survive in these extreme climates. The documentary will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on February 7; the program will also be available for digital download.

In the opening segment, Buchanan is seen calmly stroking the thick coat of a wolf in Norway’s Polar Park where wolves have grown up with humans. He shows how the wolf’s fine hairs provide much needed insulation, while its longer, outer hairs repel snow and water. Also helping to reduce a wolf’s heat loss, despite its paws being in constant contact with ice and snow, is an ingenious adaptation: An image displayed on a thermal camera illustrates that as a wolf’s warm blood flows down its leg, it cools down. This means only cold blood stays within the paws and all the warm blood can remain within the body.

The Arctic fox however has a different solution to keeping warm during the winter months: its thin brown summer coat undergoes an amazing transformation to one that is white, very fluffy and 200 percent thicker, the warmest coat of all arctic mammals.

The film also cites hibernation as another cold weather strategy practiced by several animals including the brown bear, ground squirrel, and polar bear. Buchanan explains that even though a female polar bear’s heart rate drops dramatically in hibernation and she doesn’t eat or drink and relies solely on fat reserves, she can still give birth during this time. The cubs are kept warm by her body heat and grow quickly due to their mother’s extremely fatty milk. The wildlife cameraman is on hand as tiny twin cubs crawl out of their winter den to explore the outside world.

Possessing super senses gives other animals an edge when it comes to successfully hunting prey during the big freeze. Buchanan describes how a lynx can use its keen vision to spot a mouse 80 yards away or the benefits a reindeer has with ultra violet vision. He also remarks on how the great grey owl employs its super sensitive hearing to detect the movement of mice or voles beneath two feet of snow. Similarly, a young Arctic fox can pick up the faint sound of lemmings under the snow. To nab its unseen victim, the fox performs a special pouncing technique known as mousing. Buchanan says foxes align their pounce to the earth’s magnetic field in order to pinpoint the right spot for the kill. The film concludes with the remarkable metamorphosis of the Arctic woolly bear caterpillar that spends most of its life frozen stiff during the winter months and miraculously thaws itself in the spring, as if rising from the dead.

Whether it’s undergoing a physical adaptation, using super senses, employing clever tactics to gain the advantage, or just being built for frigid conditions, these animals of winter not only subsist, but thrive in some of the coldest places on earth.