Amazing Grace
Channel: SABC1
TX Time: 20h00
Genre: Drama, Miniseries
Miniseries which revolves around Grace, a recently orphaned student who turns to prostitution to make ends meet and support her young siblings.
Grace witnesses her father kill their mother before turning the gun on himself. She is left to juggle between finishing varsity and taking care of little brother and sister.
She is offered a job if she can submit her final varsity results in three months - and turns to prostitution to raise the money.
She falls in love with Sipho, a pastor's son who is in a succession battle with his older brother Benjamin for their ailing father's coveted senior pastor position in the prosperous church.
Sipho and Grace hide the secret of her sordid past, but Benjamin finds out. The lies, deceits and greed are at the centre of this battle for the soul of the church.
Reverend Mbatha must choose his successor between Sipho - who is in love with a prostitute - and Benjamin, the womaniser and drunkard.
The series stars Shalima Mkongi as Grace, twins Sizwe and Lizwe Khumbuza, Talitha Ndima, Kefilwe Mello, Sandile Moloane, Kayise Ngqula, Zethu Dlomo, Jerry Mofokeng, Batsile Ramasodi and Dieketseng Mnisi.
TVSA Show Page: Amazing Grace
America's Book of Secrets: Special Edition
Channel: HISTORY (DStv 186)
TX Time: 20h15
Genre: Documentary Series, History
While much of the history of the USA is widely available, there is another deeper history lingering in the shadows.
Stories and places that have been shrouded in secrecy and hidden from public view will once again be revealed.
Each two-hour episode will give secret access to some of America's most iconic locations and organisations.
Past episodes have gone inside the Pentagon, Area 51, the FBI, and even the White House.
Now, America's Book of Secrets: Special Edition will go deeper, farther and wider than ever before in an unceasing effort to bring the truth behind today's all new, shocking headlines.
In the series premiere, "White House Secrets and Scandals": Takes an inside look at the secret protocols, hidden history, and public scandals of America's highest office.
Amazon: The Lost World
Channel: SABC3
TX Time: 19h30
Genre: Wildlife, Nature, Documentary
The Americas have seen some of history's most mysterious and iconic civilisations – from the mountainous Inca of Peru, to the Aztec of Mexico.
But the vast jungles of the Amazon have always been different – a dark, untouched wilderness, home to remote, scattered tribes.
Right now, we're discovering that the Amazon was once home to a population of millions, with dense settlements and complex societies, stretching back 2,000 years.
With brand new archaeology, and imaging technology that uses lasers to "see" beneath the dense jungle canopy, this series reveals this incredible lost world.
We will discover incredible ceremonial Earthworks and explore previously unseen settlements.
We'll dig for remains of some of the earliest Amazonians, seeking clues to how villages grew, and how the jungle itself was tamed for agriculture on a massive scale.
And we'll see how these discoveries make sense of long-dismissed stories of a Spanish priest who described incredible cities along the Amazon 500 years ago.
But just where did it all come from? And when?
Taking intrepid journeys into dangerous hotspots we'll seek out a vast cache of ancient rock art with clues to the very first Amazonians over 10,000 years ago and how they survived hunting mammoth-like creatures.
New archaeology reveals how the first settlements developed, and how (far from being a virgin wilderness) the jungle was planted with fruit and nut trees.
Throughout, we'll be meeting local people today who often hold the clues to the ancient Amazon – from the shape of tribal villages, to unusual genetic roots that question everything we thought we knew about the great human migration into South America.
But the Amazon today is a dangerous place, and its people are under threat as indigenous tribes fight for survival against loggers, gold miners and drug cartels, and while the rainforest itself is destroyed right in front of the world's eyes.
In the series premiere, "Lost Jungle Civilisation": New discoveries in the Amazon rainforest are revealing evidence of a long-lost civilisation.
Mysterious geometric shapes carved into the Brazilian landscape, mysterious ditches in the forest, and giant mounds on the plains of Bolivia: are these remnants of ancient jungle cities?
Wild Lapland
Channel: Nat Geo Wild (DStv 182 / StarSat 221)
TX Time: 18h00
Genre: Wildlife, Nature, Documentary
A lyrical portrayal of the enchanting, wild creatures who call Lapland home.
Beyond the Lights
Channel: Curiosity Channel (DStv 185)
TX Time: 21h00
Genre: Documentary Series
They are the people that rock our world - but what rocks theirs?
Beyond the Lights, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, goes beyond fame to reveal the passions of celebrities on a mission to change the world.
Shaquille O'Neal went from being poor and bullied – and becoming a bully – to success and fame in the NBA.
He credits the Boys & Girls Club with turning his life around and has spent the past 30 years giving back to America's children.
At age 19, while on a missionary trip to a clinic in Brazil, Kristen Bell helped to deliver two babies.
The experience ignited her nurturing nature, which endures today in the organisation she founded, "No Kid Hungry".
Samuel L. Jackson was 14 years old when Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and from that time onward has been a passionate supporter of civil rights.
Here are leading entertainers and artists, in their own words, telling us what inspires them.
Who Killed the Lyon Sisters?
Channel: Investigation Discovery (DStv 171 / StarSat 223)
TX Time: 21h00
Genre: True Crime, Documentary
On 25 March, 1975, 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and her little sister, 10-year old Katherine, walked half a mile from their home to a shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland... and were never seen again.
When news of their disappearance broke, a community was rocked to its core.
Residents wondered if someone within their community was responsible, and parents who once felt safe letting their children walk alone now never let them out of their sight.
Local law enforcement exhausted all resources in the extensive search for the missing girls, but the investigation into Sheila and Katherine's disappearance was plagued by false leads and questionable suspects.
Despite all of law enforcement's efforts, the case eventually went cold.
Almost four decades later, a new team of determined cold-case investigators uncovered a promising lead, and from there, the twisted story of a witness turned prime suspect begins to unravel.
With reporting from bestselling author Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) and insight from the cold-case squad who worked relentlessly to solve the mystery, Investigation Discovery follows the reinvestigation into this decades-old disappearance.
The disappearance of the Lyon sisters was a well-known case in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, in part from the reporting of Bowden, who followed the case from the beginning.
Its status as a cold case bothered detectives over the years, especially Chris Homrock.
In 2013, with the 40th anniversary of the disappearance looming, Homrock decided to take one last look at the files when he came across a potential lead - a statement from a man named Lloyd Welch who claimed to have witnessed the girls' abduction.
This set Homrock and his fellow detectives Dave Davis, Katie Leggett and Mark Janney, on a grueling journey investigating Welch.
Over the course of four years, detectives collect hours of audio and video recordings from their questioning of Welch and Welch's extended family in hopes of getting a break in the case.
They work to decipher tiny bits of truth from a forest of deception, uncovering a convoluted family dynamic shrouded in secrets, deception and alleged crimes.
Their search for the Lyon sisters spans across states, leading detectives to a remote mountainside in Virginia where members of Welch's family have lived for years.
Never-before-seen footage from 10 different interrogation sessions with Welch, interviews with Welch family members who became subjects of the investigation, and a recorded confession unfold over the course of two hours, finally bringing this 40-year-old mystery to a close.
Forces of Nature
Channel: Da Vinci (DStv 318)
TX Time: 22h00
Genre: Nature, Documentary Series
Shape, motion, elements and colour tell us a lot about Earth.
Using the latest technology to bring unique perspectives and understanding of nature's wonders, this series shows the immense forces that make our world so vibrant and diverse.
Professor Brian Cox combines some of the most spectacular sights on Earth with our deepest understanding of the universe to reveal how the planet's beauty is created by just a handful of forces.
In the series premiere, "The Universe in a Snowflake": Brian uncovers how the stunning diversity of shapes in the natural world are shadows of the rules that govern the universe.
In Spain, he shows how an attempt by hundreds of people to build the highest human tower reveals the force that shapes our planet.
In Nepal, honey hunters seek out giant beehives that cling to cliff walls. The perfect hexagonal honeycombs made by the bees to store their honey conceal a mathematical rule.
Off the coast of Canada, Brian explains how some of the most irregular, dangerous shapes in nature - massive icebergs that surge down from Greenland and into shipping lanes of the Atlantic - emerge from a powerful yet infinitely small force of nature.
Even the most delicate six-sided snowflake tells a story of the forces of nature that forged it.