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by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Roger Wilkins. Host Darren Duarte chats with former Washington Post and New York Times reporter (and partial Pulitzer winner for the Post’s Watergate coverage) Roger Wilkins about his latest book, Jefferson’s Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism, which confronts the unimaginably touchy subject of how and whether the descendants of slaves can learn to love their country. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Football. Miami versus Nebraska in the Rose Bowl.

FRIDAY

8:00 (25) Happy Gilmore (movie). The cult of Adam Sandler just grows and grows. In this 1996 comedy, he’s a terrible hockey player who switches to golf and puts the PGA in its place. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Life 360: Milestones. Our individual rites of passage are mundane incidentals to people who don’t know us. But it feels like fame at the time. Tonight’s collection of vignettes includes looks into such personal-best opportunities as beauty pageants and high-school graduations. (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY

Noon (4) Basketball. Penn State versus Vanderbilt.

2:00 (4) Basketball. Georgia versus Michigan State.

4:00 (7) Skating. Hallmark’s "Salute to Gold," starring Kristi Yamaguchi. (Until 6 p.m.)

4:00 (44) Basketball. Connecticut versus Tennessee.

8:00 (4) AFI Awards 2001. Not a lot of time for suspense (or campaigning) here. The American Film Institute announced its first-annual awards-show nominees on December 17. And already the 100-person jury of what AFI refers to as "experts from across the moving image community" has voted on the year’s best in TV (Buffy the Vampire Slayer versus The Sopranos) and cinema (Memento versus Shrek). There are a bunch of categories, and they obviously put this show together in a hurry. Good luck to us all. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (5) GI Jane (movie). Demi Moore shows us that girls can make it in This Woman’s Army. From 1997 and a sad affair all around. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (7) GoldenEye (movie). Pierce Brosnan (not the real James Bond) is tossed, catapulted, dropped, and otherwise violently propelled across several continents in this 1995 Fleming-esque thriller. Judi Dench plays M. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Stage on Screen: Tantalus: Behind the Mask. A behind-the-scenes look at a Denver Center Theater Company/Royal Shakespeare Company production of John Barton’s 10-play cycle about the Trojan War. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) A Centennial Toast to Symphony Hall. Repeated from last week. Diana Rigg hosts Symphony Hall’s centennial birthday celebration. The BSO, the Pops, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and a lot of celebrity guests assist — Seiji Ozawa, Keith Lockhart, and John "The Harry Potter Music Sucked" Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, James Taylor, Mandy Patinkin, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Chieftains, and the Boys Choir of Harlem. To be repeated on Sunday at 5 p.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

SUNDAY

10:00 a.m. (44) Genesis: A Living Conversation with Bill Moyers. Read your Bible! Bill spends the entire day with a parade of guests discussing the ethical, religious, and social messages of Book the First — from the creation to exile in Egypt. (Until 8 p.m.)

1:00 (4) Football. The Pats versus the Carolina Panthers, followed by the Buffalo Bills versus the Miami Dolphins.

4:00 (25) Football. The Atlanta Falcons versus the St. Louis Rams.

1:30 (2) From Swastika to Jim Crow. A documentary about European Jewish intellectuals who fled the Nazis to the States, where they ended up teaching in black colleges. (Until 2:30 p.m.)

2:00 (5) Skating. Michelle Kwan goes to China. (Until 3 p.m.)

5:00 (2) A Centennial Toast to Symphony Hall. Repeated from Saturday at 10 p.m.

8:00 (44) Victor/Victoria (movie). Julie Andrews plays a man and James Garner plays along as Robert Preston pulls the strings in this 1982 Blake Edwards cabaret comedy. (Until 9:45 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson, part one. All along the East Coast, college campuses are littered with statues of our 28th president. Although Princeton claims him, the man taught at several schools, where apparently he alienated students and faculty alike. 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 (during which he suffered the stroke that had him virtually handing the Oval Office over to his wife, Edith). To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Monday at 1 a.m. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Entrapment (movie). Sean Connery steals art; Catherine Zeta-Jones catches art thieves for an insurance company. From 1999, and co-starring Ving Rhames. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:45 (44) Laura (movie). A classic 1944 Otto Preminger murder mystery starring Gene Tierney as the intended victim. With Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and Vincent Price. (Until 11:10 p.m.)

11:00 (2) Building Big: Tunnels and Domes. Just when WGBH seemed to have settled down and resumed using linear logic to plot its programming schedules, we get this several-part David Macaulay series on major engineering feats. Suddenly we’re back in program-grid chaos, and whether it’s meant as a challenge or as bait, we’re not rising to it. Tunnels includes a look at the Big Dig. Both these shows are repeated on Wednesday at 3 p.m. on Channel 44. There are three more (Skyscrapers, Bridges, and Dams) that pop up at 3, 4, and 5 a.m. on Wednesday. Go figure. (Until 1 a.m.)

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

MONDAY

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: The Song of the Lark. Alison Eliot and Maximilian Schell star in an adaptation of Willa Cather’s novel about a young woman who leaves her Colorado home to chase stardom as an opera singer. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, on Tuesday at 1 a.m., and on Thursday at 3 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Football. The Minnesota Vikings versus the Baltimore Ravens.

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Death: A Love Story. A intimate look at the last year in the life of BU film-and-television-department chair Mel Howard. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 10 p.m.)

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

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: The Song of the Lark. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

4:00 a.m. (2) Indie Select: Death: A Love Story. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Junot Díaz. Critic/author Stavans talks with Dominican-American writer Díaz about Drown, his collection of short stories about growing up in Dominican barrios and New Jersey slums. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Death Star. Apparently stars blow up. Wait! Our Mr. Sun is a star . . . Okay, fiddle-dee-dee to that thought. This Nova (get it?) show covers the personal frustration of 30 years of scientific competition among astronomers looking for the source of these big bangs. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Wednesday at midnight. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Life Beyond Earth. The search for living things on other worlds.

9:00 (44) Sound and Fury. Cochlear implants can turn the deaf into hearing people. Sounds great, but apparently folly knows no bounds, and some activist members of the hearing-impaired community feel the operation is an insult to that very special attribute of not being able to hear trains coming. Sorry, guys, this is a non-issue. It’s okay to be deaf, but it’s okay not to be as well. This show follows a family through its faux PC struggle. (Until 10 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: The Song of the Lark. Repeated from Monday at 9 p.m.

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Nova: Death Star. Repeated from this evening at 8 p.m.

3:00 a.m. (44) The Natural History of the Chicken. Just watch it. (Until 4 a.m.)

WEDNESDAY

2:00 (44) Building Big: Tunnels and then Domes. Collect the whole set — if you can find them all.

8:00 (2) Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley. We tried to find the names of "the four female songwriters who wrote such classics as ‘Big Spender’ and ‘Can’t We Be Friends’ " in the Channel 2 press material but had to go elsewhere. So consider this an exclusive: the women pop composers profiled here are 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 Thursday at midnight. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (5) The 29th Annual American Music Awards. Who wins? Who cares? Performances by Yolanda Adams, Brooks & Dunn, Cher, Toby Keith, Kid Rock, Shaggy, Usher, and, of course, Britney Spears. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (2) American Masters: Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest of Sounds. Julie Andrews, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Trevor Nunn, and Celeste Holm discuss the man responsible for The King and I, South Pacific, and Pal Joey. Plus vintage clips featuring Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Mary Martin, and Barbra Streisand. To be repeated on Thursday at 1 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Michael Jackson’s 30th Anniversary Celebration. It’s been 30 years since . . . (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Building Big: Bridges and Dams. Have these been on before?

Midnight (2) Nova: Death Star. Repeated from Tuesday at 8 p.m.

3:00 a.m. (2) Building Big: Skyscrapers, Bridges, and Dams. Some repeated; some to be repeated. Watch us not care about the details. (Until 6 a.m.)

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. Jesse Jackson would sympathize. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Skating. The US National Figure Skating Championships, arriving early so the skaters will have time to redo their programs before the Olympics. Expect the men’s and dance finals tonight, the pairs tomorrow, and the ladies on Saturday. (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.)

9:30 (2) Frontline: Jefferson’s Blood. Shelby Steele watches as the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings do a DNA test and research their unusual roots. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley. Repeated from Wednesday at 8 p.m.

1:00 a.m. (2) American Masters: Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest of Sounds. Repeated from Wednesday at 9 p.m.

3:00 a.m. (2) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: The Song of the Lark. Repeated from Monday at 9 p.m.

Issue Date: January 3 - 10, 2002

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