Premieres Wednesdays at 10 p.m. beginning January 20 on WLIW21

Host Michael Mosley demonstrates wartime plastic surgery with the help of a WWI teaching model. Photo: © BBC 2008 Laura Mulholland

Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making face transplants, limb transplants and a host of other cutting-edge operations possible. But getting to this point has been an extraordinary story of bravery and mistakes — stolen corpses, crazy remedies, medical fraud, lobotomized patients — and every now and then, brave advances that have saved millions of lives across the world. Blood & Guts: A History of Surgery is a new five-part series that introduces you to the breathtaking, heroic and at times comically entertaining story of how surgeons came to successfully save millions of lives worldwide. The series has its exclusive New York metro area premiere Wednesdays at 10 p.m. beginning January 20 on WLIW21 and is hosted by the charismatic and medically-trained Michael Mosley.

Preview episode one, premiering January 20 at 10 p.m.

The series premiere, “Into the Brain,” tackles an area of the body where surgery has been the most frightening — the brain.

Preview episode two, premiering January 27 at 10 p.m.

Episode two, “Bleeding Hearts”, looks at how the development of heart surgery produced some of the most reckless experiments in the whole history of surgery. With a family history of heart problems, Michael Mosley takes a personal interest in these surgical pioneers who teetered on the scalpel-edge between savior and executioner.

Preview episode three, premiering February 3 at 10 p.m.

Episode three, “Spare Parts,” traces the story of transplant surgery from a 19th-century neo-Nazi to the latest miraculous life- and limb-saving operations.

Preview episode four, premiering February 10 at 10 p.m.

From DIY face-lifts to heroic wartime reconstructive surgery, Michael Mosley undergoes 16th-century bondage and 21st-century botox in his journey to trace the bizarre history of plastic surgery in episode four, “Fixing Faces.”

Preview episode five, premiering February 17 at 10 p.m.

Body snatching, boiling bones, willful ignorance and the birth of observation… In the series finale, “Bloody Beginnings,” Michael Mosley reveals how surgery dragged itself kicking and screaming out of the dark ages to transform itself from butchery into the science it is today.

Watch or set your DVR to WLIW21 Wednesdays at 10 p.m. to catch all five episodes of Blood & Guts: A History of Surgery. Visit the schedule page to get an email reminder to watch the show.