THURSDAY

8:00 (2) Is Jerusalem Burning? Myth, Memory, and the Battle of Latrun. In 1948, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion ordered, against expert advice, two attacks on a Jordanian-held fortress in hopes of relieving the siege of Jerusalem. Both attacks were repulsed, and the battles were immediately turned into demoralizing symbols of failure that this film contends have damaged Israel’s self-image. To be repeated tonight at 3:30 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Blair’s War. This report looks at Blair’s role in the recent diplomatic failure over Iraq and its impact on traditional European alliances. We know it’s easy to like Tony Blair (especially when he’s compared with that unelected freak we call a president), but do keep in mind that if he hadn’t fallen for Washington’s jive, the Iraq war likely would not have happened. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

Midnight (2) American Masters: Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind. Repeated from last week. Joni’s now 60 years old, and it’s safe to say that nobody as talented is recording today. A career/personal profile. To be repeated on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and on Sunday at midnight. (Until 1:30 a.m.)

2:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Frontline: Blair’s War. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY

9:00 (2) Now with Bill Moyers. As usual, we recommend that you watch this excellent and timely public-affairs show. As usual, we can’t tell you what’s being covered tonight because the Now folks keep things open until the last minute (hence the timely aspect). And as usual, we’ll take the opportunity to indulge in a little current-events screed of our own. Fading to Black Dept.: Now that we’re all used to our country’s changing colors in accord with the severity of a terrorist threat, we can’t help noticing from front-line TV broadcasts that Iraq does the same thing. Sometimes Baghdad is a sickly green (especially in the vicinity of parking garages when nothing’s happening). Other times (and the networks break in for these) the city turns deep red. Late at night (back here in the States) Saddam’s town goes back to a more conventional tan and white. That’s about as much sense as the barrage of war coverage has been making to us. They’re a Cruel and Evil People Dept.: Meanwhile, we eagerly await reports from embedded broadcast journalists who appear to have been taken hostage by our own troops. " This is reporter Matt Mathers reporting from the Iraqi city of Gondor, where 75 civilians have apparently committed suicide in response to last night’s bombardment by coalition forces. What’s remarkable isn’t just that these Iraqi noncombatants ended their own lives in what is assumed to be a mass protest ordered by forces loyal to Saddam, but the barbaric way in which they did it — often dismembering themselves or crushing their own bodies under heavy sections of building rubble. Further proof that Saddam’s reign of terror against his own people continues. " And if you think that’s an exaggeration, just wait. (Until 10 p.m.)

SATURDAY

6:00 (4) Basketball. The NCAA men’s Final Four, first Kansas versus Marquette and then Syracuse versus Texas.

8:00 (5) E.T. the Extraterrestrial (movie). Home again; home again. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:30 (2) American Masters: Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind. Repeated from Thursday at midnight.

9:00 (7) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (movie). Harrison Ford’s least successful Jones film. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Chris Isaak and Norah Jones. (Until 11 p.m.)

11:00 (2, 44) City/Motion/Space/Game. Here’s something a lot of people can be expected to do — especially at 11 p.m. Get two television sets and put them side by side. Tune one to Channel 2 and one to Channel 44. What you’ll see is a two-faceted 1968 video piece by choreographer Gus Solomons Jr., writer Mary Feldhaus-Weber, and composer John Morris. The action involves Solomons dancing around the ’GBH studios and the city of Boston. We are assured that if you watch both halves of the broadcast simultaneously, you’ll appreciate a " dense tapestry of associated images " — which may or may not justify spending the day rearranging your furniture. Neat concept, but does Channel 2 go on the left or the right? (Until midnight.)

Midnight (2) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from the Pat Metheny Group. (Until 1 a.m.)

SUNDAY

1:00 (5) Basketball. The Celts versus the Washington Wizards.

3:30 (5) Basketball. The Sacramento Kings versus the Philadelphia 76ers.

4:30 (44) Ben-Hur (movie). Repeated from last week. Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd battle it out for the soul of the Middle East in William Wyler’s 1959 spectacular. (Until 8 p.m.)

7:00 (5) Toy Story (movie). The unbeatable offbeat animated movie about the secret lives of toys. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (movie). Woody Allen joins Tony Roberts, Mia Farrow, and José Ferrer in this spinoff of Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: The Jury, part one. The start of a four-part Brit courtroom (the Old Bailey) drama focusing on the trial of a Sikh teen accused of killing a white student. Sirs Derek Jacobi and Antony Sher square off at the bar. As the title implies, the real drama involves the jury. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (4) The Whole Nine Yards (movie). Dull-lived dentist Matthew Perry gets mobbed up with gangster neighbor Bruce " Kill the Arabs " Willis. Amanda Peet almost saves this 2000 comedy. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:30 (44) Goodbye, Columbus (movie). Once a national phenom; now obscure. Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw co-star in this 1969 adaptation of Philip Roth’s send-up of middle-class American Jewry. (Until 11:10 p.m.)

Midnight (2) American Masters: Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind. Repeated from Thursday at midnight.

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre: The Jury, part one. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

MONDAY

8:00 (44) Accidental Hero: Room 408. A stand-and-deliver story from a San Francisco teacher who coached his students through tough academic competitions. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Daughter from Danang. Michael Moore got the Oscar and, thank Heaven, a forum to speak the truth to Hollywood, but Gail Dolgin’s documentary about a Vietnamese-American who was spirited to the States in 1975 during a children’s-evacuation program called Operation Babylift and her return to Southeast Asia as a adult to find her real family deserves credit for making a statement as well. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Tuesday at 1 a.m. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Basketball. The NCAA men’s championship.

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) The American Experience: Daughter from Danang. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Countdown to Graduation. This follow-up to La Plaza’s 20 Days to 10th Grade and Diplomas and Dropouts goes back to Charlestown High to check in with two Class-of-Aught-Three students in the final scramble toward their diplomas. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Runaway Universe. Chasing two rival teams of astronomers out to explain what force is causing the universe to expand. Or is it? It could be pulsating. Or speeding up. Or slowing down. We read a really long science piece about this in the New York Times last year and can’t remember which way we’re going. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44 and on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (7) Cher: The Farewell Tour. Whatever she does, she did it for the cameras in Miami in November. Plus footage of her stint with Sonny and other career highlights. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The First Year. A documentary following new teachers through their break-in semesters at a Southern California school. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: You Can Make It on Your Own. Hawkeye explores the far-flung benefits of digital technology — from rural Indians who computer-monitor their own water supply to kids who compose music. To be repeated on Wednesday at 2:30 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) The Battle of City Springs. A look at a radical curriculum designed to save a failing public school in a poor Baltimore African-American neighborhood. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) The American Experience: Daughter from Danang. Repeated from Monday at 9 p.m.

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

WEDNESDAY

8:00 (44) Journey to Planet Earth: Hot Zones. The series conclusion, in which we learn how altered ecosystems contribute to the spread of infectious disease. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Peter and Paul and the Christian Revolution: The Rock and the River and The Empire and the Kingdom. A chronicle of the early days of the Christian Church, during which apostles Peter and Paul managed to found a major religion despite in-fighting, politics, and persecution. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Ennis’ Gift. Arlington filmmaker Josh Seftel’s documentary about special-needs students who grew up to be actors, businesspeople, and teachers. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Misunderstood Minds. A look at dyslexia and the latest thinking on how to overcome this learning problem. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Peter and Paul and the Christian Revolution: The Rock and the River and The Empire and the Kingdom. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

1:30 a.m. (2) Nova: Runaway Universe. Repeated from Tuesday at 8 p.m.

2:30 a.m. (2) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: You Can Make It on Your Own. Repeated from Tuesday at 9 p.m.

THURSDAY

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Bob Moses. The founder of the national mathematical literacy program and the Algebra Project talks about his civil-rights activism and his work in math ed. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) A Day in the Life. A cinéma-vérité documentary filmed inside Dorchester’s Jeremiah E. Burke High School. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Kim’s Nuclear Gamble. A look at the Bush administration’s inept efforts to deal with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il, whose politics and personal habits make Saddam look sane. There is, of course, a language barrier firmly in place. Bush’s people, especially the Texans who never exactly mastered English, keep complaining about Kim’s " nookulaar arms, " which in Korean translates to " Cobb salad. " Clearly we’re not on the same page. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Great Deliverance, part one. Nathaniel Parker plays aristocrat detective Thomas Lynley, who’s investigating a brutal small-town murder with the help of working-class partner Barbara Havers (Sharon Small). (Until 10:30 p.m.)

2:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Frontline: Kim’s Nuclear Gamble. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.