by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY

8:00 (2) Local News: Change and Consequences. In which the media-outlet subject of this documentary series — WCNE-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina — is given a facelift by broadcasting mega-force A.H. Belo. Everybody gets a new haircut and we all learn to pander? Or worse? Or better? (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the the New York Yankees in game #2 of the American League championship series.

9:00 (2) Frontline: The Most Dangerous Place in the World. Timed to correspond to Mr. Bush’s visit to Shanghai, where apparently he plans to hype Vlad Putin on how much fun it would be if we cast aside that old-fashioned treaty that prevents superpowers from developing weapons of mass destruction. Presumably Mr. Bush thinks the ABM Treaty is outmoded because it was effective. Now with the risk of a Cold War becoming a hot war reduced, it must be safe to toy with planetary annihilation again. Nice logic. Now that the fire’s out, we should start playing with matches again. But we digress. Presumably Bush is heading to the Far East to head off the topic of this report — namely, the threat that the issue of Taiwan’s independence is likely to spark a war. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 44 and on Sunday at noon and Monday at 8 p.m., also on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

4:00 a.m. (44) Frontline: The Most Dangerous Place in the World. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Atlanta Braves versus the Arizona Diamondbacks in game #3 of the National League championship series.

8:00 (44) Antiques Roadshow: Boston, part three. The third " sneak preview " of a trio of Boston-area shows from the upcoming season. The " sneak preview " concept has a hollow ring to it. We prefer to think of this as starting the season early with three local-interest editions that will be repeated later. (Until 9 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Life 360: A Place in Time. Thanks to the PBS Web site (see www.pgs.org/life360) and certainly not the weekly program schedule, we learn that this edition of the 13-part storytelling series (hosted by Nightline correspondent Michel Martin) focuses on a survivor’s story from a woman who was abducted and raped, at age 14, by a stranger. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Ibrahim Ferrer and his orchestra (of Buena Vista Social Club fame). (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY

2:30 (7) Football. Notre Dame versus USC.

4:00 (25) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the New York Yankees in game #3 of the American League championship series.

6:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre American Collection: The Ponder Heart. Repeated from last week. Eudora Welty’s comic yarn about the fortune and misfortunes of wealthy Mississippian Daniel Ponder (played by Ally McBeal’s Peter MacNicol), whose father tries to have him declared nuts because he’s always giving away the family’s holdings. All this gets tangled up in the generous son’s love for and trial marriage to a hick bombshell named Bonnie Dee Peacock (played by Girl, Interrupted’s Janet Webber, Angela Bettis) who is eventually murdered. With Brent Spiner, Jennifer Lewis, and Boyce Holleman. Directed by Martha Coolidge. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (5) The Birdcage (movie). The 1996 remake of La Cage aux Folles, as per an Elaine May screenplay. Mike Nichols directs Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, and Dianne Wiest. (Until 11 p.m.)

7:30 (25) Baseball. The Atlanta Braves versus the Arizona Diamondbacks in game #4 of the National League championship series.

9:00 (7) The Truman Show (movie). Jim Carrey is being watched — by millions of TV viewers for whom the existence he thinks of as real life is just the ultimate reality show. Peter Weir directs, from 1998. Laura Linney co-stars. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:30 (44) Live from Lincoln Center: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A concert of Beethoven stuff performed by the CMS of LC and guests David Shifrin (clarinet), Ani Kavafian (violin), Paul Neubauer and Cynthia Phelps (viola), and Gary Hoffman (cello). (Until 11:30 p.m.)

SUNDAY

11:00 a.m. (44) Frontline: Give War a Chance. Peter J. Boyer looks at the big difference between military and civilian attitudes about sending in the troops. This report was, no doubt, put together prior to our recent incursion into Afghanistan, and to judge by the bumper stickers at large in the land these days — " Kill ’Em All, Let Allah Sort ’Em Out, " " Nuke Afghanistan " — there are a lot of halfwits out there who think global politics is just one big B movie. It wouldn’t be so bad if these same clods didn’t also wave our flag around so loosely, suggesting that America stands for mindless brutality. Then again, perhaps it does. (Until noon.)

Noon (2) Indian Motorcycle Memories. Long before Harley became the name in deafening two-wheeled transportation, the Indian Motorcycle Company, out in Springfield, was leading the pack in daredevil races. A road trip back to the 1920s, when nobody expected cycles to be safe. (Until 12:30 p.m.)

Noon (44) Frontline: The Most Dangerous Place in the World. Repeated from Thursday at 9 p.m.

12:30 (2) Prepare for Saints. A documentary, presumably based on the book of the same name by cultural historian Steven Watson, about the preparations for the February 8, 1934 staging of a modernist opera at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum. Apparently Four Saints in Three Acts was quite the show — with a score by Virgil Thomson and a libretto by Gertrude Stein and performed by an all-black cast. Some speculate that the " story " — something extremely vague about saints in Heaven (or perhaps Spain) — was some sort of insiders’ allegory representing life in a European artists’ colony where Thomson and Stein met. Doesn’t matter; tell the actors to do, say, or sing whatever they want to and you’d get the same effect. (Until 1 p.m.)

1:00 (4) Football. The Pats versus the Indianapolis Colts.

1:00 (25) Football. The St. Louis Rams versus the New York Jets.

1:00 (44) Out of the Past (movie). Repeated from last week. A 1947 noir with Robert Mitchum playing a " reformed " crook drawn back into a life of crime by his old boss and his girlfriend. Co-starring Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer. (Until 2:40 p.m.)

2:40 (44) The Asphalt Jungle (movie). Repeated from last week. John Huston’s 1950 adaptation of a W.R. Burnett novel that traces the evolution of a crime. Starring Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, and Sam " Gunga " Jaffe. (Until 4:30 p.m.)

4:00 (25) Football. The Green Bay Packers versus the Minnesota Vikings.

5:00 (44) Indie Select: Pain and Parking in LA. Repeated from last week. A film about the frustrations of urban life. To be repeated tonight at midnight. (Until 6 p.m.)

7:30 (25?) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the New York Yankees in game #4 of the American League championship series. See next listing.

7:30 (25?) Baseball. The Atlanta Braves versus the Arizona Diamondbacks in game #5 of the National League championship series, if necessary. If it’s not necessary, Fox will broadcast the American League game. If it is, then one of these games will be broadcast on Fox and the other on Fox Sports New England.

8:00 (44) The Night of the Iguana (movie). The 1964 adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s tale of a drunken ex-clergyman living dissolute in Mexico. Starring Richard Burton, typecast as the drunk, plus Deborah Kerr and Sue (Lolita) Lyon. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt. Behind the scenes with long-suffering Eleanor. Mrs. Roosevelt was actually a heroic figure, and this private-life investigation doesn’t detract from that. To be repeated on Monday at midnight. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Jenifer (movie). Laura San Giacomo plays the title heroine, a 35-year-old with her own Off Broadway theater group who comes down with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in this based-in-fact 2001 TV-movie. Sisters Annabella Sciorra and Jane Kaczmarek rally round; Vincent Spano plays her actor boyfriend. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Now, Voyager (movie). Repeated from not too many weeks ago. Bette Davis plays a scared Boston deb desperately seeking peace and confidence with the help of Claude Rains and Paul Henreid. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY

7:00 (5) Chronicle: The Best of " Main Streets and Back Roads. " A one-hour anthology, likely designed to promote the new book of the same name. More on that next week; just got it and need time to read some. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Antiques Roadshow: Sacramento, part one. The season (which we’ve been " previewing " for the past three weeks) opens with the first of two shows from California. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the New York Yankees in game #5 of the American League championship series, if necessary.

8:00 (44) Frontline: The Most Dangerous Place in the World. Repeated from Thursday at 9 p.m.

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: The Cazalets, part one. A family drama adapted from the work of Jane Howard about a Sussex family coming of age in the turbulent days just before World War II. With Stephen Dillane and Ursula Howells. Moving Masterpiece Theatre to Monday nights is the most obvious move in WGBH’s apparent suicide campaign. We bet that some idiot decided that ’GBH programming has to " change with the times " and — lacking any positive ideas — opted for denying loyal viewers one of the things that keeps them loyal. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Football. The Philadelphia Eagles versus the New York Giants.

Midnight (2) The American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY

8:00 (2) Nova: Secrets of the Mind. A mind-bending study of the work of researcher V.S. Ramachandran, an expert in bizarre neurological defects. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Atlanta Braves versus the Arizona Diamondbacks in game #6 of the National League championship series, if necessary.

9:00 (2) Scientific American Frontiers: The Gene Hunters. Now we learn that you’re left-handed, red-haired, heterosexual, and good at math because of specific genetic components. (Although they’re still searching for the bad-driving gene.) Host Alan Alda talks about such things with Nobel Prize–winning researcher James Watson and Eric Lander, of the Human Genome Project. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 5 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (25) Stupid Behavior Caught on Tape. It’s come to this. Will there be presidential news clips? (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Nova: Plague Fighters. Battling Ebola in Zaire. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (44) Nova: Secrets of the Mind. Repeated from this evening at 8 p.m.

2:00 and 5:00 a.m. (44) Scientific American Frontiers: The Gene Hunters. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

4:00 (25) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the New York Yankees in game #6 of the American League championship series, if necessary.

7:30 (2) Under Quabbin. Continuing its campaign to integrate its sister station WGBY/Springfield into its programming, WGBH gives us this documentary on a joint effort by the UMass-Amherst biology department and the state-police underwater rescue team to explore what’s left of four towns flooded into history by the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930s. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Atlanta Braves versus the Arizona Diamondbacks in game #7 of the National League championship series, if necessary.

8:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring classic performances by Leonard Cohen. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Rock, Rhythm, and Doo Wop. Like Doo Wop 50, this pop-revival show was filmed in Pittsburgh. Frankie Valli, Jerry Butler, and Lloyd Price host the Five Saints, the Rays, the Innocents, the Earls, the Duprees, and — making a loud surprise appearance — Little Richard himself. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Peace of Mind and Brownsville Black and White. Two films from the Boston Jewish Film Festival. The first looks at a Maine summer program that unites Palestinian and Israeli kids (with some rough interactions). The second, filmmaker Richard Broadman’s last movie, examines the nature of cultural and social shifts in urban America using, for example, the history of the Brownsville Boys Club in Brooklyn. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

THURSDAY

7:30 (5) An American Salute. God bless us, everyone. Please? With the BSO and the Pops. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Local News: A Working Team. This series about one Southern TV station’s efforts to upgrade its news department continues with a look at how a natural disaster (in this case a hurricane) can boost news ratings. (Ergo: hurricanes are good for business, so let’s invent hurricanes.) (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Baseball. The Seattle Mariners versus the New York Yankees in game #7 of the American League championship series, if necessary.

9:00 (2) Frontline: Testing Our Schools. Correspondent John Merrow visits Virginia, California, and Massachusetts to find out how states decide what to test on standardized school-performance tests. Whatever it is, the teachers’ union is against it because, of course, defending the rights of people to conduct classes where kids don’t learn anything has, of late, been confused with a labor issue. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) They Drew Fire. Brian Lanker (I Dream a World) directed this look at five combat photographers and what it takes to document real war. Jason Robards narrates. (Until 11 p.m.)

Issue Date: October 18 - 25, 2001