Sometimes it seems we are drowning in numbers. We trot out best-of lists, poll data, box-office results and anniversary dates in an almost unconscious fashion, as if to give the illusion that we know what we are talking about, or that we are talking about anything at all.

The war in Iraq has been no exception to this numerological addiction. We count the number of the dead, the war’s cost and the days, weeks and years since the war began. As the war has continued and public attention has strayed, it seems that only numbers bring it back into focus. News reports proliferate as the death count reaches a round number or the war itself celebrates a significant birthday.

“Frontline” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) commemorates the war’s fifth anniversary with a four-hour, two-night timeline of the conflict called “Bush’s War.” This remarkable “Frontline” includes footage and interviews with many of the major players from the White House, CIA, State and Defense Departments and the military. It is the most comprehensive look at the war you are going to get from any news source. It’s a remarkable and smart refutation of the argument that television cannot tell a complicated story or that viewers don’t have the attention span for long-form analysis.

Much of the footage and many of the interviews have been seen on previous “Frontline” reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the constitutional questions about torture, rendition and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility; wiretapping of domestic phone calls; the vice president’s unprecedented power; the infighting between the CIA and the Defense Department and between Defense and State; the rise and fall of Donald Rumsfeld; and the decision to launch the troop surge in 2007.

But even if you’ve seen them all, you will be impressed by how they have been re-edited and synthesized to present this exhaustive timeline of decisions.

Future historians of this period will be well served by the wealth of information offered tonight and tomorrow. If you’ve ever complained that the coverage of the war is shallow or lacking in historical context, you owe it to yourself to watch.

The title may be the most misleading aspect of this two-night documentary. Just as the HBO series “John Adams” is as much about the whole gallery of Founding Fathers as Adams, President Bush is often far offstage during “Bush’s War.” If anything, he emerges here as a salesman for a Cheney-Rumsfeld production.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Rusty and Casey battle to regain status and their place in the fraternity/sorority pecking order on the second-season debut of “Greek” (7 p.m., Family).

¢ House tries to interpret an autistic boy’s screams on “House” (7 p.m., Fox). “Canterbury’s Law” has moved to Friday night.

¢ A murder case brings back bad memories of lost weekends for John on “New Amsterdam” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ Weddings can be murder on “CSI: Miami” (9 p.m., CBS). This marks the return of original, post-strike episodes of this series.

¢ A dream reveals a decades-long missing-persons case on “Medium” (9 p.m., NBC).

Cult choice

Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon heat up the dugout and the screen in the 1988 baseball romance “Bull Durham” (7 p.m., AMC).