Driven: Kid Rock (July 2; 9 to 10 p.m.; VH1) follows young Robert Ritchie from Michigan suburbanite to superstar bad-ass, with girlfriend, old D.J. clips, and concert footage. To be followed Tuesdays by ‘N Sync, Celine Dion, Motley Crue, Weird Al, Christina Aguilera, and Notorious B.I.G.
Boomtown (July 2; 10 to 11 p.m.; channel 13), a Bryan Gunnar Cole film on P.O.V., visits the reservation of the Suquamish nation, where the economy depends more on the sale of Fourth of July fireworks than it does on the local salmon run. If you are looking for irony, the Suquamish got there before you.
Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey (July 2; 8 to 9:30 p.m.; AMC) tells his story, part feet and part philosophy, from a childhood in Chinese films to his never-completed last film, Game of Death, of which we see a remarkable 33 minutes of choreographed mayhem. Did you know that Lee created the Kung Fu television series but wasn’t allowed to star in it himself?
Great Projects – The Building of America (July 3, 10, 17, and 24; 10 to 11 p.m.; Channel 13) lets Stacy Keach tell us the not-always-edifying stories of how, for instance, America got electrified from lower Manhattan to rural Tennessee, who made money on the George Washington Bridge, and who should have gone to jail because of Boston’s elevated Central Artery.
Rediscovering George Washington (July 4; 9:30 to 11 p.m.; Channel 13), is Richard Brookhiser’s take on the Founding Father who seems least to have needed therapy, with an emphasis on the virtues that got him power and those that let him walk away from it. While it’s fun to see high-school baseball pitchers try to throw a stone across the Rappahannock, Brookhiser himself, as passionately disputatious as a David Attenborough, keeps us interested.
Pyramids, Mummies and Tombs (July 7; 8 to 11 p.m.; TLC), with the tirelessly peripatetic and opinionated Dr. Bob Brier, actually finds pyramids to talk about off the track he usually beats in Egypt – all the way to Java, China, Iraq, Honduras, and Peru, with time out for human sacrifice.
Endgame in Ireland (July 7 and 14; 9 to 11 p.m.; Channel 13) begins with the IRA hunger strikers in the Maze prison in 1981 and doesn’t stop until after Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists have stared at each other across a conference table on Good Friday 1998. Watch it and weep.