Hot Dots

by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY 18

9:00 (2) Mystery: Touching Evil 3, part one. Robson Green returns as Brit-cop David Creegan, this time chasing down a pair of serial killers (two . . . count 'em! . . . two) with the help of partner Susan Taylor (Nicola Walker). To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Saturday at 11 p.m. and Sunday at 10 p.m. on Channel 2.

10:00 (2) Nautilus: To War in Iron Coffins. World War I submariners operated with an amazing lack of scientific understanding of water pressure and other underwater dangers, as is evident from the diaries on which this show is based. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Mystery: Touching Evil 3, part one. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY 19

8:00 (44) Frontline: The Clinton Years. Repeated from last week. The seat may still be warm, but it's already time for a retrospective of Big Bill's presidency. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Frontline: Secrets of an Independent Counsel. A 1998 report that attempts to explain the purpose of indie counsels, those sometimes obsessive lawyers our country hires to hound public figures outside normal channels. The show dwells on two examples: the investigation of former Agriculture secretary Mike Espy and the Republican-conspiracy-inspired Ken Starr assault on Bill Clinton. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Jazz: The True Welcome (1929-1935) and Swing: Pure Pleasure (1935-1937). Repeated from last week. In the first show, Louis Armstrong, Chick Webb, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman turn jazz into the driving pop force of the Depression. The second edition (featuring Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, and Teddy Wilson) takes it all one step further -- into the swing era. To be repeated on Saturday at 5 p.m. and on Sunday at 11 a.m. and at midnight. (Until 3:30 a.m.)

3:30 a.m. (2) Swinging with the Duke: The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. As if you weren't tired of Wynton from Ken Burns's over-reliance on his narration and perspective already, we have this Duke Ellington 100th-birthday concert -- plus clips of the Duke in performance. To be repeated on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 5 a.m.)

SATURDAY 20

The Presidential Inauguration. None of the local TV stations actually has this event listed on its advance schedule, but we assume that the mid-morning coverage will be carried across all networks. Can't blame them for not committing. It was touch-and-go there for a while. The rumor mill has it that they'll be swearing in George W. Bush, and that will probably be the case even though he didn't actually win the election. Is there an asterisk big enough to cover this presidency? Look for the action in DC to start around 10 or 11 a.m. (Until 2005.)

2:00 (5) Basketball. Temple versus DePaul.

5:00 (44) Jazz: The True Welcome (1929-1935) and Swing: Pure Pleasure (1935-1937). Repeated from Friday at midnight.

8:00 (5) The Ghost and the Darkness (movie). A based-in-fact Hollywood movie released on the 100th anniversary of the 1896 lion hunt that inspired it. Michael Douglas plays a big-game hunter who shows up to rescue a bridge-building expedition from a pair of man-eating lions. With Val Kilmer. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:30 (44) Swinging with the Duke: The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Repeated from Friday at 3:30 a.m.

10:00 (44) Newport Jazz 2000. Repeated from last week. Interviews and performance clips featuring Dianne Reeves, Fourplay, Celia Cruz, Femi Kuti, and John Zorn and Masada. (Until 11 p.m.)

11:00 (2) Mystery: Touching Evil 3, part one. Repeated from Thursday at 9 p.m.

11:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Steve Earle and Kasey Chambers. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 21

11:00 a.m. (2) Jazz: The True Welcome (1929-1935) and Swing: Pure Pleasure (1935-1937). Repeated from Friday at midnight.

Noon (5) Basketball. West Virginia versus Notre Dame.

Noon (7) Basketball. An NBA tripleheader.

8:00 (7) The 58th Annual Golden Globe Awards. If you're not nominated for anything bigger, there's always this just-for-fun awards presentation orchestrated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Some odd match-ups indeed: Gladiator versus Erin Brockovich, Björk versus Julia Röberts and Garth Broöks, Tracey Ullman versus Sandra Bullock, Jim Carrey versus Robert De Niro, The West Wing versus The Sopranos, Jessica Alba versus Sarah Michelle Gellar, Calista Flockhart versus Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ted Danson versus Kelsey Grammer. But given the organization handing out the prizes, our favorite category has got to be Best Foreign Language Film (and none of them is in English). (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Dirty Dozen (movie). The 1967 hardcore action film about a team of convicted murderers and rapists transformed into an elite assassination squad. Lee Marvin does the transforming; the transformed include Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, and John Cassavetes. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Bramwell 6, part two. The suds continue to flow when Eleanor's old flame, Dr. Finn O'Neill, introduces a controversial smallpox treatment by testing it on his wife and is suspected of trying to kill her. To be repeated this evening at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Mystery: Touching Evil 3, part one. Repeated from Thursday at 9 p.m.

10:30 (44) Pain and Parking in L.A. (movie). A vérité exploration of the daily quest for a legal parking space. It's a metaphor, we suppose. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

11:00 (2) In the Life. This month's edition of PBS's magazine-format show devoted to gay, lesbian, etc. issues includes interviews with gay-rights leaders Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny, and Liz Vincenz about the tactics and politics of gay activism in the 1960s. Next, we check in with the always delightful Alison Bechdel, cartoonist creator of the always delightful "Dykes To Watch Out For" strip. Plus, a first-hand account of gays' mistreatment by the Nazis, a profile of openly gay Disney executive Tom Schumacher, a report on the Hearts and Voices program that organizes volunteer musicians to perform for AIDS/HIV-related fundraisers, and a preview of Lifetime Television's original movie What Makes a Family, which is based on a lesbian child-custody case and stars Brooke Shields, Cherry Jones, and Anne Meara. This installment will air again on Friday at 10 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until midnight.)

Midnight (2) Jazz: The True Welcome (1929-1935) and Swing: Pure Pleasure (1935-1937). Repeated from Friday at midnight.

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Bramwell 6, part two. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

MONDAY 22

8:00 (5) Hope Floats (movie). A 1998 well-traveled-territory romance about a woman who flees her unfaithful husband and returns to her Texas home town and her mother, who tries to fix her up with Harry Connick Jr. Sandra Bullock plays the victimized wife who finds herself despite it all. Mae Whitman plays her caught-in-the-middle daughter. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Jazz: Swing: The Velocity of Celebration (1937-1939). After a Depression's worth of swing, cutting-edge fans wearied of the genre and turned to the blues-inspired Kansas City-centric innovations of Count Basie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and Ella Fitzgerald. To be repeated tonight at 11 p.m. and 1 and 4 a.m., and on Tuesday at 9 and 3:30 p.m., and on Wednesday at 1 p.m. all on Channel 44, and on Friday at midnight on Channel 2. Good luck following that schedule; WGBH threw us a curve or two by getting a date wrong, but we think we've deciphered it. Bottom line -- if you can't watch nightly, wait until midnight on Friday of each week and start your VCR taping overnight on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Mystery: Cadfael: The Rose Rent. A lovestruck monk is stabbed to death and Cadfael (Derek Jacobi) tries to expose the assassin before he strikes again. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 23

8:00 (2) Scientific American Frontiers: Affairs of the Heart. Two features on heart disease. The first follows a Texas toddler through two corrective heart surgeries. The second hits close to home with a report on the long-standing Framingham heart study that was responsible for identifying most of the known heart-disease risk factors. To be repeated on Wednesday at midnight. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Jazz: Dedicated to Chaos (1940-1945). Jazz goes to war with swing shows for the troops while, back on the homefront, after-hours clubs give birth to bebop and change what jazz means for all time. Featuring Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker. To be repeated tonight at 11 p.m., and 1 and 4 a.m., and on Wednesday at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., and on Thursday at 1 p.m. all on Channel 44, and on Friday at 2 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 24

8:00 (2) Basic Black: Jazz in Beantown. The local angle on all this jazz. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Frontline: Ambush in Mogadishu. The first of a trio of Frontline repeats this evening that target America's foreign-policy missteps. The inside story of the failed 1993 Army Rangers raid to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Jazz: Risk (1945-1955). As America frets under the Cold War threat, bebop goes off what for the '50s was considered the deep end. The disruption prompts the birth of mellower West Coast cool jazz. Between the two subsets (and thanks to the introduction of long-playing records), we have the richest and most diverse era in jazz history -- the years when the legends took their place in the pantheon. Featuring Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, and Miles Davis. To be repeated tonight at 11 p.m. and 1 and 4 a.m., and on Thursday at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., and on Friday at 1 p.m. all on Channel 44, and on Friday at 4 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Frontline: Hunting bin Laden. A good terrorist is hard to find. This collaboration between Frontline and the New York Times investigates the whereabouts and activities of the world's most famous secret killer, focusing on his followers and the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Frontline: The Triumph of Evil. How the US, Britain, France, and the UN all managed to miss the warning signs of the Hutu massacre of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Scientific American Frontiers: Affairs of the Heart. Repeated from Tuesday at 8 p.m.

THURSDAY 25

9:00 (2) Mystery: Touching Evil 3, part two. The conclusion of the first of two new Touching Evil two-parters. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Nautilus: Silent Assassins. This series on submarines and submariners continues with a look at unusual submerged weapons -- underwater "motorbikes" (torpedoes with rudders and propellers), midget subs, and even manned suicide torpedoes. Let's cut right to the chase -- how dumb do you have to be to sign up for that gig? (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. and 4 a.m. (44) Touching Evil 3, part two. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.