Brooks Kraft, Corbis PBS's "The Supreme Court" focuses on the history of the court as well as its current justices -- standing, Stephen Breyer, left, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito; and seated, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Antonio Scalia and David Souter.

PASADENA, Calif. -- PBS's "The Supreme Court" reviews highlights in American history through the prism of cases that have come before the highest court in the land. It begins at 9 p.m. tomorrow with what might seem to some viewers like a lugubrious ancient history lesson and concludes next week with more recent, more resonant episodes from the chambers of the court.

		'The Supreme Court' When: 9 to 11 p.m. tomorrow and Feb. 7, WQED.

"The history of the court is completely intertwined with the history of America, and the court changes as America changes," said author Joan Biskupic, one of the on-air experts interviewed for the film.

This week's first hour, "One Nation Under Law," explores the creation of the court and its influential fourth chief justice, John Marshall. The second hour, "A New Kind of Justice," focuses on the court after the Civil War, when it often sided with big business.

Jeffrey Rosen wrote a companion book, "The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America" ($25, Times Books), and said both the film and book take the view that "the pragmatic justices, the ones who are best able to adjust to changing realities, are more effective over the long run than the brilliant ideologues.

"We try to use personalities and character as a window into exploring precisely that question," Rosen said at a PBS press conference earlier this month. "How is the court supposed to follow the election returns and reflect the currents of American life? This series was a nice opportunity to do that."

In its third and fourth hours next week, "The Supreme Court" moves into the 20th century to look at "A Nation of Liberties" as the court confronts race relations. The final hour, "The Rehnquist Revolution," focuses on the court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist and polarizing cases such as Roe. vs. Wade and Bush vs. Gore.

"History is part of what the law is, so that it's never history for the court, it's always a part of the ongoing evolution of the law," said Walter Dellinger III, a Duke University law professor and the former solicitor general of the United States. "It's important to understand both the decisions made by earlier courts that create the river in which you're swimming, but also to know when the court made huge mistakes and to react against and to avoid them."

The film and book include interviews with the latest Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, whom Rosen said expresses concern that the justices are behaving more like law professors than judges, with greater concern for their own agendas than the interest of the court as a whole.

"He lays out this new vision that he wants to resurrect this old vision of John Marshall, which held that the justices are supposed to subordinate their personal interests and ideologies in the interest of achieving unanimity and consensus," Rosen said. Roberts also expresses the idea that he may react to cases differently as chief justice than he would have if called on to fill the seat of another justice. "He thinks there's a different role for the chief."

Dellinger said Roberts was a strong advocate arguing before the court, which makes him an extremely influential chief justice.

"Most justices, overwhelmingly, never argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. It's very rare," he said. "I think [Roberts] was the best of all those who argue regularly before the court. His business, his vocation, was figuring out how to persuade five justices to agree with his position, and that's an enormous skill set that he brings, at a relatively young age, to the chief justiceship."