by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY

8:00 (2) She Says: Women in the News. A send-up for female broadcast journalism luminaries — CNN’s Judy Woodruff, ABC’s Carole Simpson, NPR’s Nina Totenberg, and American Experience creator Judy Crichton. (Until 9 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Lady Bird. Letters, interviews, and secretly taped White House chat reveal Lyndon Johnson’s first lady. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) A Blackadder Christmas Carol. Rowan Atkinson plays England’s kindest man, who’s visited by spirits who persuade him to turn sour. To be repeated on Saturday at 10:15 p.m. and on Monday at 10:30 on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY

8:00 (4) Home for the Holidays with Mariah Carey. Back from rehab in time to celebrate the True Meaning of Christmas. Critics please reconsider: in light of Britney Spears, you’ve got to cut Mariah some slack. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (7) Stars on Ice. Which stars? It hardly matters. Every ice show, faux competition, and exhibition is taped these days, and the networks are banking on the public’s insatiable appetite for the sport. When you factor in cable, you can pretty much spend all weekend at the rink. (Until 9 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Life 360: Voice. Tonight’s show focuses on verbal (and literary) self-expression, with a profile of US Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Lyle Lovett and "friends." (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY

1:30 (4) Football The Pats versus the Miami Dolphins.

4:00 (7) Divas on Ice Starring Katarina Witt. Is she still skating? Standing? Does anyone remember when she was the Eastern Bloc Ice Bitch? Well we suppose if we can excuse Mariah Carey, we can give Katarina a break too. (Until 6 p.m.)

5:00 (25) Football. The Philadelphia Eagles versus the San Francisco 49ers.

8:00 (7) Face/Off (movie). John Travolta is such a dedicated federal agent that he has surgery to make himself look like evildoer Nicolas Cage. Sort of an I Love Lucy farce with guns. Actually meant to be a gripping flick from director John Woo. With Joan Allen. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Newport Jazz Festival 2001. No details provided, but there’s usually a pretty good roster of improvisers at this 47-year-old fest. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Football. The Oakland Raiders versus the Tennessee Titans.

10:15 (2) A Blackadder Christmas Carol. Repeated from Thursday at 10 p.m.

11:00 (2) A Christmas Carol. Repeated from last week. Ross Kemp stars as Eddie Scrooge, a loan shark who spreads gloom over a multicultural urban setting. These CC updatings will never cease, but more than half the importance of the holiday classic lies in the Victorian archetypes that have entrenched themselves in our culture for more than a century and a half. (Until 12:30 a.m.)

Midnight (44) St. Olaf Christmas Festival. The annual holiday concert by the 75-member choir from St. Olaf’s college in Northfield, Minnesota. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m. (Until 1 a.m.)

SUNDAY

1:00 (4) Football. Our guess is the New York Giants versus the Seattle Seahawks followed by the Jacksonville Jaguars versus the Minnesota Vikings.

1:00 (25) Football. The New Orleans Saints versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

2:00 (5) Squanto (movie). Here’s one that doesn’t show up very often. Released by Disney in 1994 as Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale, this ostensibly history-for-kids sleeper stars Adam Beach as the Bay State Native American (heretofore famous as the savage who taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn) who gets hauled off to England, where he bonds with a band of monks. (Until 4 p.m.)

4:00 (2) Live from Lincoln Center: Nutcracker Swings. Repeated from last week. The New York Philharmonic (under Kurt Masur) and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (under Wynton Marsalis) perform the Tchaikovsky score interspersed with parallel passages from the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn arrangement. To be repeated tonight at 11 p.m. (Until 6 p.m.)

4:00 (7) Aretha Franklin’s Tribute on Ice. Okay, just wait a minute. Aretha Franklin is undeniably one of the great talents of our age. You just don’t have more soul than Aretha does. But the woman can’t skate. We swear. (Until 6 p.m.)

8:00 (7) Beloved (movie). The 1998 Jonathan Demme/Oprah Winfrey collaborative adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning novel about a former slave woman determined to protect her children at all costs. Not exactly a critical darling. Starring Winfrey and Danny Glover. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Lassie Come Home (movie). Before the TV show, and before the super-dog ideal became a cultural ideal, Roddy McDowall starred with Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Liz Taylor, and, of course, an uncredited collie in this 1943 adaptation of Eric Knight’s heartwrencher about a boy who wants his dog back. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Lindbergh. An in-depth look at one of American mass media’s first pop heroes. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (4) One Special Night (movie). James Garner and Julie Andrews reunite 17 years after Victor Victoria without all the gay stuff in this TV-movie about two people stranded in a snowstorm getting to know each other, etc. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Legacy of a Kidnapping: Lindbergh and the Triumph of the Tabloids. Lewis Lapham gets to the point by putting Charles Lindbergh’s fame and fall in the context of the sensationalist press. Too bad Bruno Hauptmann had to die for the aviator’s fame. (Until 11 p.m.)

11:30 (44) Indie Select: Julio y Su çngel. Repeated from last week. Penelope Cervera’s tale of a Mexican orphan who looks for his guardian angel and finds a grumpy old man. (Until 1 a.m.)

MONDAY

8:00 (7) It’s a Wonderful Life (movie). Look, it’s okay. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Nutcracker from the Royal Ballet. Repeated from last week. A revival of the Tchaikovsky classic under Anthony Dowell. In this edition, which goes back to the original E.T.A. Hoffmann story for its inspiration, the Mouse Queen turns Drosselmeyer’s nephew into the title character. Clara (an adult, played by Alina Cojocaru) and Dross execute the rescue. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The Canterville Ghost. Ian Richardson stars (as the spirit) in this adaptation from Oscar Wilde’s tale of an American robber baron who moves into a haunted mansion in England. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Our Favorite Things. Another "destined to be a classic" (the fate of almost any Christmas concert) show — this one from the Konzerthaus in Vienna and featuring Tony Bennett, Pl‡cido Domingo, Vanessa Williams, and Charlotte "What’s All the Fuss About?" Church. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:30 (2) A Blackadder Christmas Carol. Repeated from Friday at 10 p.m.

11:35 (7) Christmas Eve at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. An evening with the pope. (Until 1 a.m.)

Midnight (ATT) Dear John. They told John Ashcroft that ATT (available from selected cable services) stood for Anti-Terrorism Television, figuring he’d never stay up late enough to catch on that it really stands for Aid To Terrorists TV. Tonight, host Ralph Nader, dressed up as Thomas Jefferson, lectures a group of young Taliban trainees on the American judicial ideal. "In our country," he says, "the police don’t just show up in the middle of the night and drag you off to some dungeon. Not even the attorney general [hint, hint] can do that! We actually let regular citizens decide whether people should go to jail. Maybe you should try that. Does that help?" (Until 1 a.m.)

1:00 a.m. (7) The Prudential Center Tree Lighting. A repeat. (Until 1:30 p.m.)

CHRISTMAS

9:00 a.m. (5) Christmas at Washington’s National Cathedral. We anticipate a misplaced display of patriotism. (Until 10 a.m.)

10:00 a.m. (5) Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade. With Mickey, Goofy, Pluto, and Britney. (Until noon.)

4:20 (44) Pygmalion (movie). No songs, just Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins coaching Wendy Hiller (as Eliza Doolittle). Adapted from the Shaw play in 1938. (Until 6 p.m.)

5:30 (7) Basketball. The Toronto Raptors versus the New York Knicks, followed by the Philadelphia 76ers versus the Los Angeles Lakers.

7:00 (2) Brideshead Revisited Marathon — Leg One: Et in Arcadia Ego, Home and Abroad, The Bleak Light of Day, and Sebastian Against the World. Nothing to do this Christmas week? Want to spend some a lot of conversationless stare time with the family? Just tune into this Evelyn Waugh festival. ’GBH is rerunning the entire, exhaustive John Mortimer dramatization of Waugh’s between-wars bonding drama. An excellent and engrossing production to be sure, with Jeremy Irons (as Charles Ryder) and Anthony Andrews (as Sebastian Flyte) in fine form throughout, but watching the whole thing in one week smacks of psychic suicide. Four more installments show up on Wednesday; the final depressing three will be shown on Thursday, starting at 8 p.m. both nights. Hardcore fans can catch the whole thing on Saturday December 29 on Channel 44, where it’ll run from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

10:00 (44) The Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir: The Gift of Music. You get the idea. Keith Lockhart conducts. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY

8:00 (2) Brideshead Revisited Marathon — Leg Two: A Blow upon a Bruise, Julia, The Unseen Hook, and Brideshead Deserted. Charles and Sebastian soldier on. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Elton John One Night Only: Greatest Hits Live. Again, you get the idea. Taped segments from Elton’s two sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (4) The Kennedy Center Honors. Hardly an obscure or unexpected selection of honorees this year. Being inducted into the Famous Long Ago Club tonight we have Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Jack Nicholson (okay, that was a little unexpected), and Luciano Pavarotti. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Viehjud Levi. The story of a Jewish cattle trader persecuted by his neighbors under the Nazis. If you’re looking to escape the warm and fuzzy, here you go. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

Midnight (ATT) Johnny Ashcroft on the Spot. Aid To Terrorists television (available from selected cable services) continues its series of late-night instructive documentaries designed to make life better for terrorists. Tonight, Chelsea Clinton discusses the role of women in democracy. "In our country," she begins, "we even have women senators. And nobody really cares what you wear. And girls drive. Think about it." (Until 1 a.m.)

THURSDAY

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Brothers at Risk. A discussion of depression and suicide in the African-American community. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Brideshead Revisited Marathon — Leg Three: Orphans of the Storm, A Twitch upon the Thread, and Brideshead Revisited. The conclusion. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

8:00 (25) Nine Months (movie). A 1995 Hollywood comedy picked up from a French film. Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore star as a couple coping badly with pregnancy. With Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, and Robin Williams. (Until 10 p.m.)

Midnight (ATT) Pressed for Answers. Aid To Terrorists TV takes on the controversial issue of whether America should continue to have freedom of speech in this round-table discussion featuring Bill Maher, George Bush (Sr.), Henry Kissinger, Charlotte Church, and Marilyn Manson. The show, taped earlier this month, is cut short when John Ashcroft walks on stage and arrests everyone except Church, who as a foreign national qualifies for a military tribunal. (Until 12:38 a.m.)

Issue Date: December 20 - 27, 2001

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