PBS Goes Back to School in New, Old Series

PBS, which has already picked up new and rerun episodes of the short-lived Fox reality series “American High,” has another limited series for teens in the works, “Senior Year,” which was shot at Los Angeles’ vast Fairfax High School.

The 13-part documentary, which is originating at KCET, is tentatively slated to air in the fall and is meant to provide an urban complement to the spring airing of “American High,” which takes place at a suburban Chicago high school. Filmmaker David Zeiger and a team of six recent film school graduates followed 15 diverse kids through their last year at Fairfax; the series also includes original music.

In addition to “American High” and “Senior Year,” the PBS series “P.O.V.” plans a summer airing of “High School,” Frederick Wiseman’s acclaimed 1968 film about a Philadelphia school. The film has never aired on national television.

In other news, PBS said it plans to air the four-hour conclusion to Ric Burns’ documentary series “New York” in the fall, and also has in the works a two-hour program on Sigmund Freud’s early life from producer David Grubin (“Napoleon”).