To do list:

Treme debuts tonight on HBO:

In New Orleans, a funeral means celebration: delirious, upbeat brass music–here played by the renowned Eureka Brass Band–and a cakewalk parade from the burial. This mix of mourning and joy might seem dissonant. But co–executive producer David Mills tells me as we watch the scene being set up that it’s the heart of Treme, a drama about musicians and other residents rebuilding their lives three months after Hurricane Katrina. “It’s about a city that’s been dealt a horrible blow,” he says. “But it’s not about the horrible blow. It’s about the getting back up and moving forward with life with your spirit intact.” (Poignantly, Treme would soon feel a blow itself: Mills, a veteran TV screenwriter who penned two episodes, died March 30, stricken by a brain aneurysm while on set at Café du Monde. He was 48 years old.)

Treme (Sundays, 10 p.m. E.T.)

And tomorrow night, Among the Righteous on PBS:

Did any Arabs save Jews during the Holocaust? That’s the question author Robert Satloff had in mind when he set out to discover the lost, true stories of survival, courage and betrayal in Arab lands during World War II. The history of the Holocaust in Europe is well-documented, but the history of what happened to the Jewish people of North Africa has been mostly forgotten, even in the very towns and cities where it occurred. The truth is remarkable: not only did Jews in Arab lands suffer many of same elements of persecution as Jews in Europe — arrests, deportations, confiscations and forced labor — but there were also hopeful stories of “righteous” Arabs reaching out to protect them.