by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Beyond the Glass Ceiling. A look at race and executive advancement. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Frontline: An Ordinary Crime. But it got complicated when two men with the same name were implicated. To be repeated on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Skating. The US National Figure Skating Championships. Expect the men’s and dance finals tonight; the pairs and the ladies in their short programs tomorrow at 8 p.m. on ESPN2 and 9 p.m. on ESPN; and the pairs and ladies’ finals on Saturday at 8 p.m. on the Family Channel, at which time ABC will be showing an NFL playoff game on the premise that real men would rather watch 22 guys in tight pants than a bunch of attractive, athletic ladies in skimpy costumes. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: Touching Evil, part one. Mystery’s back on Thursday — at least for a while. The original TE series, starring Robson Green and psycho-detective Dave Ceegan. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley. Repeated from last week. Profiles of four women pop composers: Kay Swift ("Can’t We Be Friends"), Dorothy Fields ("Big Spender," "On the Sunny Side of the Street"), Dana Suess ("The Night Is Young, and You’re So Beautiful"), and Ann Ronell ("Willow Weep for Me"). To be repeated on Saturday at 5 a.m. (Until a.m.)

FRIDAY

9:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Delbert McClinton and Asleep at the Wheel. This is a new season. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Lime Rock Park: The Secret Valley of Racing. We’ve lived in New England a long time and never heard of this place in northwestern Connecticut. We hear it’s "one of America’s most cherished road-racing venues." And we thought we knew all the stock-car tracks. To be repeated tonight at midnight. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Life 360: Flying. Not even the Life 360 Web site gives details much beyond the title. Why do these folks keep this thematic-vignette show such a secret? To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY

Noon (5) Basketball. St. John’s versus Providence College.

3:00 (4) Basketball. Kansas versus UCLA.

4:30 (5) Football. The Philadelphia Eagles host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in an NFC first-round playoff game. This could flip with the 8 o’clock game; ABC doesn’t seem to have decided yet.

8:00 (5) Football. The Oakland Raiders host the New York Jets in an AFC first-round playoff game. Unless this is at 4:30 (see above).

8:00 (7) The Bodyguard (movie). A truly bad Kevin Costner movie in which he plays the title character complicatedly in love with the singer he’s protecting — Whitney Houston, who delivered the way-too-memorable themesong for this undeserving 1992 hit. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Buffalo Philharmonic Plays Vivaldi and O’Connor: Seasons of Life. Contemporary composer and violinist Mark O’Connor performs his new The American Seasons for Fiddle and String Orchestra, and Catherine Cho does excerpts from The Four Seasons. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:30 (44) An Evening with the Nashville Symphony. Kenneth Schermerhorn conducts some classical cats through the Suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Mark "See Above" O’Connor’s Concerto for Two Violins. With Cho and O’Connor? (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (44) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part one. Repeated from last week. This two-part bio, narrated by Linda Hunt, covers WW’s life from Civil War–torn Virginia into World War I and the campaign for the League of Nations. To be repeated on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. on Channel 2. (Until midnight.)

5:00 a.m. (2) Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley. Repeated from Thursday at midnight.

SUNDAY

12:30 (25) Football. The Green Bay Packers host the San Francisco 49ers in an NFC first-round playoff game.

1:30 (2) Frontline: An Ordinary Crime. Repeated from Thursday at 8 p.m.

4:00 (4) Football. The Miami Dolphins host the Baltimore Ravens in an AFC first-round playoff game.

4:30 (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part one. Repeated from Saturday at 10:30 p.m.

7:00 (5) George of the Jungle (movie). To note that the 1967 cartoon show was funnier would be a fish-in-a-barrel thing. Brendan Fraser plays the feral lead, Leslie Mann is the fetching Ursula, and John Cleese tries to salvage matters as Ape. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nature: Condition Black. Back in January 1998, El Niño stirred up the Pacific and splashed Hawaii with 80-foot waves. Naturally, a bunch of surfers wanted to ride them. (No need to ask about SAT scores.) The Coast Guard held them back, but a few got through, nobody died, and somebody took pictures. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Key Largo (movie). Johnny Rocco and his nasty men threaten Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a Florida hotel. From 1948, and with Edward G. Robinson and Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Claire Trevor. (Until 9:40 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part two. The conclusion, in which Edith Wilson runs the country. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, on Monday at 1 a.m., on Tuesday at 2:30 a.m., and on Wednesday at midnight. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (4) The 28th Annual People’s Choice Awards. The King of Queens’ Kevin James hosts this annual presentation of awards judged by people who are several years behind the times. Best Actor nominees, for example, are Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, and Tom Hanks. Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Lopez, and Julia Roberts. Best TV Comedy: Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, and Friends. Hey, what about Inside Schwartz? (Until 11 p.m.)

9:40 (44) To Have and Have Not (movie). Bogart and Bacall (plus Hoagy Carmichael and Walter Brennan) perpetuate the myth of the French Resistance in this lovable 1944 classic. (Until 11:20 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Nantucket: Rock of Changes. Nantucket’s African-American community was fighting for integrated schools way back in the mid 1800s. To be repeated tonight at 2:30 and 5:30 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part two. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

2:30 and 5:30 a.m. (44) Nantucket: Rock of Changes. Repeated from this evening at 10:30 p.m.

MONDAY

8:00 (2) Brooklyn Bridge. In 1982, long before he unaccountably became a one-man lack-of-imagination factory, Ken Burns made this spirited one-hour film about the building of the title span. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Mark Twain, part one. After Ken Burns laid waste to baseball, you could go watch a game and discover that the sport wasn’t really a hopeless academic exercise. (Okay, maybe not a Red Sox game.) After Burns reduced jazz to something attainable only by Louis Armstrong, you could go listen to some old Monk records and remind yourself that jazz is fun. We sincerely hope this two-part bio of Mr. Clemens doesn’t inspire folks to re-read Mark Twain for the wrong reasons. Lots of still photos, plus interviews with Arthur Miller, William Styron, Hal Holbrook (one-time Twain impersonator), and more. We’d be more enthusiastic if the interviews were with Dennis Miller, Mort Sahl, and Dave Barry. To be concluded on Tuesday, starting at 9 p.m. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Wednesday at 1:30 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Forces of Nature (movie). Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock star in this watchable (once) 1999 romantic comedy about a man who’s sidetracked by his true love on the way to his wedding. Makes it as far as it does on star appeal. Co-starring Maura Tierney. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Precious Cargo. Twenty-five years after they were kidnapped from Vietnam as part of 1975’s Operation Baby Lift, a group of Vietnamese-Americans head for the Old Country. (Until 10 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part two. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Mark Twain, part one. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: David Carrasco. The topic is Mesoamerican religions. Carrasco is on the Harvard Divinity School faculty and the editor of The Oxford Encyclopædia of Mesoamerican Cultures. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) The Statue of Liberty. In 1985, long before he unaccountably became a one-man conversation killer, Ken Burns made this imaginative one-hour film about the history of the title colossus. It’s great. Hell, it’s innovative — especially for 1985. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs. The half-century-long conflict explained by the statesmen and generals who failed to resolve it. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Mark Twain, part two. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Wednesday at 3:30 a.m.

9:00 (25) 24. Let’s see some hands. How many of you are still watching this? And how enthralled are you with that real-time gimmick after it’s played out in real theatrical time? In other words, it doesn’t take a character five minutes to have a conversation; it takes him five minutes to act out having a conversation. No pauses, no "uh" or "umm," no repeats, no misunderstandings. Real time for unreal behavior. To be repeated on Friday January 18 at 9 p.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Mark Twain, part two. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

2:30 a.m. (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part two. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

8:00 (2) The Natural History of the Chicken. Something of a PBS cult classic. Seen and believed? Not really. We like the headless-chicken story best, but the chicken who came back from the dead’s pretty good too. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Egypt’s Golden Empire: The Warrior Pharaohs, Pharaohs of the Sun, and The Last Great Pharaohs. The entire Egyptian chronicle — from the pyramid-building phase through the hated-and-feared-power stage and on to the "Hey, you, get outta our tombs" finale. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) PBS Hollywood Presents: Collected Stories. Donald Margulies’s play about a sixtysomething writer’s relationship with her youthful protégée. Linda Lavin and Samantha Mathis star. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Muhammad Ali’s 60th Birthday Celebration. Will Smith, Mariah Carey, and R. Kelly honor the Greatest with song. Plus tributes from Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and two Wayanses. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:30 (5) The Job. Denis Leary’s location-shot (in NYC) comedy-drama cop show opens its season by committing suicide. Who at ABC hates this show so much that he schedules it a half-hour into The West Wing? Well, it might pick up some lead-in viewers from diehard Drew Carey fans. (Until 10 p.m.)

Midnight (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part two. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

1:30 a.m. (2) Mark Twain, parts one and two. Repeated from Monday and Tuesday at 9 p.m.

THURSDAY

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Juvenile Justice. The Massachusetts kid-court system, seen through the eyes of Leslie Harris, its only black judge. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Frontline: Trail of a Terrorist. The Ahmed Ressam story. He’s the millennium terrorist they arrested in 1999. A friend of bin Laden’s, apparently. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Inside the Terror Network. A deep investigation into the comings, goings, and plottings of three of the suspected September 11 hijackers. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Frontline: Spying on Saddam. An investigation of a US Marine’s claim that US intelligence infiltrated a 1999 UN arms-inspection team headed for Iraq. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Coupling. A much-heralded (by Channel 44) British ensemble sit-com about a couple in love and their four friends. Comparisons to Friends and Seinfeld have been made. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Egypt’s Golden Empire: The Warrior Pharaohs, Pharaohs of the Sun, and The Last Great Pharaohs. Repeated from Wednesday at 8 p.m. on Channel 44.

2:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Frontline: Inside the Terror Network. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

Issue Date: January 10 - 17, 2002

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