KEN BURNS PRESENTS "THE GENE: AN INTIMATE HISTORY"
PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: Part 1 of 2. This two-part, four-hour documentary has Ken Burns as its primary executive producer, and is based on the book by physician and New Yorker writer Siddhartha Mukherjee. The other name that stands out, to me, is that of its top-listed TV writer, Geoffrey C. Ward, who has been a major contributor to most of Burns’ best nonfiction miniseries, The Civil War included. (By the way? Want to feel old? This fall, PBS’s The Civil War turns 30.) Anyway, The Gene is absurdly ambitious as science documentaries go: It aims not only to tell the origin and history of genetic research, and explore the moral and ethical questions posed by the ability to alter the genetic codes of human beings, but also to tell the very personal story of one family – and, in particular, one little girl – whose life could be altered for the better, and for her entire lifetime, by a daring new form of scientific manipulation. And it all works: the family steals your heart, the history fascinates, and the genetic science, through clear writing and elaborate animation, is made shockingly accessible. Now, finally, I know what I was doing, all those decades ago at Nova High School, tracing the genetic variations of fruit flies with vestigial wings. Check local listings.