Watch with Passport: Trespasses - Frontline: Scammed - New York - NOVA: Knowledge Keepers
Welcome to your every-other-week Passport guide. Have you prepped for El Niño yet? I had some “fun” cleaning out my rain gutters over the weekend.
I don’t say this lightly: this is an exceptional batch of shows. We have love during The Troubles, scam empires, ancestral knowledge and the story of one of the world’s great cities.
Now, here are some shows you can watch right now:
TRESPASSES Season One
Cushla teaches mostly adorable children by day and moonlights at her brother’s pub when the mood strikes her. She’s falling for the dark and handsome barrister, Michael. Just one small problem: he’s married. Oh, and three big problems: "the ‘Ra hate him, and the Peelers hate him. And even his own Proddy lot hate him." He’s full of opinions about justice during a time when you can get put in the hospital for falling in love with the wrong person. Maybe Cushla should listen to her mom (pro tip: always listen to Gillian Anderson). But mom spends much of her time passed out on the kitchen floor. Surely, this can’t go wrong. "We must find the bravery to choose freedom over fear."
FRONTLINE Scammed
Someone lies about who they are and tries to con you out of your money. Obviously, they’re a bad person, right? Think again. It turns out that a lot of the world’s scammers have been scammed into scamming you. Meet one man who was lured away by the prospect of a decent job at a restaurant, only to discover that he was led into a walled compound and forced to con people on the other side of the globe while under constant threat of violence. Using the latest technology, they can chat with you in any language and even create realistic video of a fake human to get you to trust them. Meet people who’ve been scammed - rich, poor, young, old, educated, tech-savvy — anyone can be a victim.
NEW YORK A Documentary Film
It’s one of those cities that continually rises up out of the ashes like a phoenix and spreads its wings fuller and brighter than ever. And every time, it’s an inspiring story. But in order to rise up out of the ashes, you must first have ashes. Beginning at the close of World War II, you’ll watch the city struggle through crime waves, the Stonewall uprising, the stock market crashing, mass emigration, natural disaster, pandemic and, of course, 9/11. But you’ll also see the phoenix rise. It will return to life with revolutions in everything from global shipping to policing, financial trading, climate solutions and the birth of art and music that has inspired the world. This one is brought to you by Ric Burns (yes, the brother of that other documentary guy).
NOVA Knowledge Keepers
How do you navigate through a frozen land with no landmarks without using GPS? Why are there hundreds of mysterious rock walls in the water just off of Canadian beaches? How do you make a house that keeps you cool in the heat and warm in the cold … with no electricity? It turns out that, long before many of us arrived on this continent, people had been solving problems and learning how to live here. In this program, you’ll meet people who have been handed ancient knowledge not from a ___pedia, a chatbot or even a book, but from a real-life person. Learn how the Coast Salish, Choctaw, Dene and Navajo have long solved problems that we’ve only begun to investigate - or possibly never considered.