Boston 24/7

By James Poniewozik

ABC News spent three months around the clock with Boston city workers for a panoramic view of the thankless job of keeping a city afloat. The sparsely narrated episodes let the subjects' own actions tell their sometimes praiseworthy, sometimes embarrassing stories. Highlights include inside looks at an ugly contract dispute between fire fighters and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, at an idealistic but hapless new prosecutor and at a no-nonsense inner-city principal. Boston Public is in reruns, but 24/7 offers a dramatically public Boston of its own.

--By James Poniewozik