Ric Burns has added the city’s difficult recent decades to New York

Two new chapters of New York: A Documentary Film premiered on PBS this week, extending the series from the aftermath of September 11 through the city’s growth as a global “superstar city,” then through financial, climatic, political and epidemiological shocks. Ric Burns directs; James Sanders co-wrote. Both episodes are now available on PBS.org and the PBS app. Official PBS page, Museum of the City of New York background

The first new chapter runs about 1 hour 57 minutes, so this is a queue rather than tonight’s light watch. The subject is New York’s recent development: Hudson Yards, downtown rebuilding, migration, infrastructure and the widening gap between a city that attracts capital brilliantly and one that has to house the people who make it work. Its length is justified only if the series can hold several explanations in view at once; the original was good at precisely that.