Weekend TV : Overcoming Obstacles in PBS’ ‘Deaf’ and ‘Last Place on Earth’

Two public television programs about humankind’s ability to overcome great odds and obstacles highlight this weekend’s TV programming.

Tonight at 9 p.m., KCET Channel 28 airs the second of Frederick Wiseman’s four cinema verite documentaries on the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and the Blind. The second episode, “Deaf,” shows how students at the school learn to communicate using signs, finger spelling, lip reading, gestures and writing. This segment also documents how the families of the deaf learn to communicate with their non-hearing loved ones.

On Sunday, the first two episodes of “Masterpiece Theatre’s” “The Last Place on Earth,” a six-part drama that chronicles the race between two explorers vying to be the first to reach the South Pole, begins on Channel 28 at 8 p.m.

Martin Shaw stars as British Navy Capt. Robert Scott while Sverre Anker Ousdal portrays Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who battled each other and the harsh Antarctic elements to make history in 1911. (Part 2 of the miniseries is airing Sunday at 8 p.m. on Channels 50 and 24, and at 9 p.m. on Channel 15.)