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Comedy is so back. Not that it literally went anywhere, but in recent years, as television has moved on from its eclectic Peak TV era, into an age of binge-friendly thrillers, the genre has languished a bit. Well, not in February 2026. Along with two true sitcoms—one of which reunites Tracy Morgan with the team behind 30 Rock—the month’s highlights include a frequently hilarious Irish mystery and a horror comedy that’s heavily weighted toward humor. Once you’re all chuckled out, turn to PBS for Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s latest perceptive docuseries.
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Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History (PBS)
Too many historical documentaries feel like audiovisual textbooks, slogging blandly through sepia-tone photos and letters of the “Dearest Abigail, I write to you with a heavy heart” variety. There’s a place for that kind of thing, don’t get me wrong, but its predominance makes it all the more exciting when a documentarian approaches history from a unique, analytical perspective that feels tailored to the present. Which is precisely what Henry Louis Gates Jr.—the Harvard professor, author, and driving force behind PBS docuseries including The Black Church and Great Migrations—is doing in Black and Jewish America, a four-part exploration of the complicated relationship between two inextricably connected minority communities.
Gates’ roughly chronological account weaves together major moments in each group’s history, from the Spanish Inquisition and American slavery to World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. It highlights such intersectional triumph as the founding of the NAACP by a Black-Jewish coalition and the anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit,” written by the Jewish poet Abel Meeropol and indelibly recorded by Billie Holiday. But the series doesn’t evade thorny topics, bringing particular empathy to its examination of rifts between and within Black and Jewish communities over an [ad_2]
