What to Watch in November

There's a huge amount of worthwhile TV out there nowadays, so it can be hard to choose what to watch. But who better to recommend shows than the person who programs them? Lisa Tipton, WTTW’s Head of Programming and Pledge, constructs the WTTW schedule by searching through offerings from many different sources which include the national PBS network, the BBC, and independent filmmakers to put together a varied and engaging broadcast schedule. Each month, she recommends a few shows that she thinks you should watch.

Find all the ways to watch WTTW here. Many of the below shows are available to stream via the PBS app or will be once they premiere, especially by WTTW Passport members. 

Travel

Travel back in time to an elegant age and across Europe in the four-part Orient Express: A Golden Era of Travel, Sundays at 6:00 pm beginning November 1. Visit a winter wonderland in Nature: Christmas in the Alps on Wednesday, November 25 at 7:00 pm. And jaunt around Britain in Destination Masterpiece, which takes you to the locations behind such picturesque dramas and mysteries as All Creatures Great and Small and Wolf Hall, Sunday, November 29 at 8:30 pm.

Public Affairs

The midterm elections that will determine control of the legislative branch, governor seats, and more are Tuesday, November 3. A PBS News election special will feature hours of coverage and analysis, beginning at 7:00 pm.

Veterans Day is Wednesday, November 11, and we have a variety of programs in November honoring those who have served, including the new Salute to Service 2026: A Veterans Day Celebration hosted by Jason Kelce and with musical performances by Jon Batiste on Friday, November 6 at 9:00 pm. November is also Native American Heritage Month; find our full list of programming celebrating America's first inhabitants here. 

Frontline teams up with NPR, Public Health Watch, and Kentucky Public Radio to investigate why coal miners are suffering from lung disease at the highest rates in nearly 50 years, in Coal's Human Cost, premiering Tuesday, November 10 at 9:00 pm.

Crime and Punishment in America

Lynn Novick tackles a massive and pressing subject in her latest four-part documentary in the Ken Burns style. (He's the executive producer.) She tracks the development of prisons, police forces, criminal law, and the stories of prisoners and outlaws both well-known and unknown, every night at 7:00 pm from Monday, November 16 through Thursday, November 19.

Read our interview with Novick about the series. 

Arts and Architecture

Revisit a chapter of American optimism in creative form, with the live story of the space race featuring songs from the era at Carnegie Hall in We Chose to Go to the Moon on Tuesday, November 10 at 7:00 pm.

Great Performances has both more music and more theater when it takes over Saturday, November 15, with Romeo and Juliet from New York City's Shakespeare in the Park at 11:30 am, a tribute to songwriter Jimmy Webb at 2:00 pm, and a Nashville tribute to Tammy Wynette at 3:30 pm. Great Performances then returns to New York for the long-anticipated debut of Gustavo Dudamel as music director of the New York Philharmonic, in a concert of Mahler's 5th and a world premiere by Tania León on Friday, November 20 at 9:00 pm. Immediately following is an animated special dramatizing Saint-Saëns' kaleidoscopic Carnival of the Animals, in a performance by Dudamel and his previous orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

There's one more concert to enjoy, Paul Simon performing his most recent album Seven Psalms live, on Thanksgiving evening, Thursday, November 26 at 7:00 pm. 

Finally, discover the work of the architects Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio, who are responsible for everything from New York's ever-popular High Line to the stacked-LEGO-like Rubenstein Forum at the University of Chicago, in an American Masters documentary Tuesday, November 24 at 8:00 pm.