THURSDAY 8

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Mothers and Sons. A repeat show in which three men discuss their relationships with their mothers. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Warrior Challenge: Romans. Repeated from last week. Modern macho men are plunged into simulated ancient environments where they play gladiators, centurions, Vikings, and knights. But not all at once. Tonight they try pointless brutality the Roman way. To be repeated on Sunday at noon. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: The Wall Street Fix. A look at the WorldCom disaster, which proves that no matter how corrupt you think big business is, somebody always comes up with a way to be more crooked. And though it’s nice to see the WorldCom execs getting hauled off in handcuffs, the damage is enormous. Hendrick Smith hosts. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Skinwalkers. An "American Mystery" based on the Tony Hillerman novel in which Navajo tribal cop Joe Leaphorn investigates a scary murder. Starring Wes Studi and Adam Beach. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 9

8:00 (25) The Matrix (movie). Not really the kind of thing you want to see on a UHF station with commercials. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Now with Bill Moyers. All right, we have some press information on tonight’s scheduled show — the operative word being "scheduled," since the original plan could be overtaken by events. Moyers interviews Bill Gates, enemy of free enterprise/benefactor of global health, in front of a live audience at Columbia. The topic for tonight is not the anti-competitive monopolistic business practices that made Bill rich but the good causes — most relating to public health — to which he now applies his ill-gotten gains. (Until 10 p.m.)

Midnight (2) PBS Hollywood Presents: The Gin Game. Repeated from last week. D.L. Coburn’s Pulitzer-winning play starring (together again) Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, who meet at an old-folks home and spin their bios over games of gin rummy. A script from (and for) a more leisurely age, perhaps, but the casting could make it interesting. To be repeated on Sunday at 4 p.m. (Until 1:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY 10

8:00 (2) Aida. Not a lot of details available. "Verdi’s masterpiece comes to us live from the Springfield Symphony Orchestra." That’s Springfield where the Simpsons live, we can only assume. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (5) The Green Mile (movie). Multi-Oscar-nominated 1999 drama about a prison guard (Tom Hanks) and a convict (Michael Clark Duncan) with a gift for miracle healing. Plus Bonnie Hunt. From a Stephen King novel. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Keb’ Mo’ and Willis Alan Ramsey. (Until 1 a.m.)

SUNDAY 11

Noon (2) Warrior Challenge: Romans. Repeated from Thursday at 8 p.m.

4:00 (2) PBS Hollywood Presents: The Gin Game. Repeated from Friday at midnight.

5:30 (2) Ken Burns’s American Stories: Baseball: Shadow Ball (1930-1940). Repeated from last week. A few hours from 1994’s Emmy-winning Baseball: The Ultimate Bore, covering the game as it struggles through the Depression, the waning of Babe Ruth, and the dumb decision to ignore players from the Negro League. (Until 8 p.m.)

5:45 (44) That’s Entertainment (movie). Again. The 1974 MGM-musical retrospective — and the best retrospective of the retrospective genre it spawned. And while we’re on the subject of old movies: who is Paul from the Past? We thought he was some sort of host for these films, but we never see him except in promos. Actually, the same promo over and over. Does he do anything else? And why does he look like a zombie junkie wearing a trenchcoat he stole from some homeless guy? Is this an image Channel 44 wants to project? Is this what the folks at WGBX think people looked like in the 1940s? (Until 8 p.m.)

7:00 (5) E.T. the Extraterrestrial (movie). The digitally upgraded and elongated edition of Steven Spielberg’s 1982 story — with the reinstatement of the infamous E.T./Elliott bathtub scene. That’s not a joke. Not our joke, anyway. (Until 10 p.m.)

8:00 (4) Survivor Stuff. Anybody still care? The final Amazon show, followed, at 10 p.m., by the Amazon reunion show. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Harvey Girls (movie). A lipstick grudge match between mail-order bride Judy Garland and saloon girl Angela Lansbury. From 1946, when audiences knew that Harvey Girls were waitresses at a chain of train-station diners. (Until 9:40 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: White Teeth: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones and The Temptation of Samad Iqbal. Clearly the event of the month on PBS. Brit novelist Zadie Smith wrote this chaotic-but-hopeful account of life at its most unusual in the multi-racial neighborhood of Willesden Green in North London when she was 24 years old. The story, set in 1974 through 1992, focuses on two families, one headed by a mild-mannered suicidal named Archie Jones, the other by a devout Muslim intellectual named Samad Iqbal. But it’s all mixed up with pop culture, the two men’s shared World War II experiences, and a cluster of family members, neighbors, and activist groups. Inasmuch as it’s a commentary on a community that doesn’t really exist in America, you’re going to have to take a lot on faith. Two more hours show up next week. To be repeated tonight at midnight and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. and on Monday at 4 a.m. and on Wednesday at 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. and on Thursday on Channel 44 at 3 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre: White Teeth: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones and The Temptation of Samad Iqbal. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

MONDAY 12

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Northern Spain. Trekker Shilpa Mehta runs with bulls and bullfighters and gawks at Barcelona’s Gaudí architecture. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Ken Burns’s American Stories: Baseball: The National Pastime (1940-1950). Another edition from Burns’s tedious 450-hour documentary — but at least it’s one of the more inspiring editions. The decade saw DiMaggio hit safely in 56 games in a row, Ted Williams hit .406 on the season, and Jackie Robinson suit up with the Dodgers. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

9:00 (5) The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (movie). A TV-movie based on Ridley Pearson’s novel based on Stephen King’s novel Red Rose, which as we recall made no sense. So this before-the-fact drama should explain it. Something about magic and curses and terror in a mansion at the turn of the century (20th). Starring Lisa Brenner and Steven Braud. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (7) Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Three’s Company (movie). Three actors you never heard of play three you have — John Ritter, Suzanne Somers, and Joyce DeWitt — in this smarmy behind-the-scenes/inside-the-lawsuits chronicle of the late-’70s/early-80s ABC hit sit-com. Brian Dennehy steps in to play network exec Fred Silverman. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet. Another forgotten intervention featuring Tibetans and our buddies in the CIA repulsing a Red Chinese invasion in the 1950s and ’60s. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Indie Select: Trading Women. A film about the sale of women from Burma, Laos, and China into Thailand’s sex industry. (Until 11 p.m.)

4:00 a.m. (2) Masterpiece Theatre: White Teeth: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones and The Temptation of Samad Iqbal. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY 13

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Back on Track. A documentary about Puerto Rican jockey Dyn Panell’s struggle to regain his top ranking on the New England circuit. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Sinking City of Venice. The world’s oddest city (not counting Wheeling, West Virginia, which has another brand of peculiarity) could, thanks to said oddity, wash down the drain into the Adriatic. A look at preventative plumbing measures. To be repeated tonight at 2 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Manor House: Tough Love, Days of Empire, and Winners and Losers. Repeated from last week. A living-history show with modern types cast as masters and servants in an Edwardian mansion. It’s a likable enough crew, but the workload is outrageous by today’s standards. And when does anybody get a day off? To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Warrior Challenge: Knights. Dueling (in armor) revisited by a mounted cop and a polo player. Whatever you do, stay on the horse. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. and on Thursday at 8 p.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Secrets of Lost Empires: Mediæval Siege. A bunch of modern engineers and historians work long and hard to build a mediæval catapult. (Until 11 p.m.)

3:00 a.m. (2) Manor House: Tough Love, Days of Empire, and Winners and Losers. Repeated from this evening at 8 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 14

8:30 (2) Greater Boston Arts. This month’s (new) installment checks in with Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula (How I Learned To Drive) Vogel as she preps for a production at Trinity Rep in Providence; Boston-born watercolor artist Richard Yarde, whose "Ringshout" exhibit opens soon at the Worcester Art Museum; and two "photo pranksters" (Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnich) shooting a text-and-photo narrative cycle about a 19th-century Middle East city — on Cape Cod. Plus a tribute to drama critic Elliot Norton on the occasion of his 100th birthday. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre: White Teeth: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones and The Temptation of Samad Iqbal. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

THURSDAY 15

3:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: White Teeth: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones and The Temptation of Samad Iqbal. Repeated from Sunday at 9 p.m.

8:00 (2) Warrior Challenge: Knights. Repeated from Tuesday at 9 p.m.

8:00 (5) Basketball? If there’s an NBA conference-semifinal game #6 somewhere, it’ll air tonight.

8:00 (7) Finales. The season ends for Friends, Will & Grace, and E.R., all of which ran out of steam some months back. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: A Dangerous Business. A report on workplace safety in what Frontline insists on calling "one of America’s most dangerous industries" but won’t specify which one. We’re betting meatpacking, but there are lots of chemical-plant jobs that might qualify. The starting point is that nationwide each year 6000 Americans lose their lives at work. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: Forgotten. A confusing yarn about two murders — committed two decades apart — in a little English village. Starring Amanda Burton, Paul McGann, and Ian Hogg. (Until midnight.)

The 525th line. Nightmare Visions Dept.: A beautifully done TV ad can still be pretty offensive. Hewlett Packard, a California-based corporation that’s made good electronic stuff for decades, from old-school audio gear to today’s computer products, never struck us as sinister, but it’s been running this very Euro-looking ad for the past year showing a man getting yanked out of a dim café by a computer cursor and dragged into a paddy wagon. The message is something about law-enforcement computer systems. Ostensibly, that is. In reality, HP is sending a pretty clear message about secret-police round-ups. Right down to the "somewhere in Paris" lighting, the pre-war-reminiscent clothing, and the Third Man–ish music, this is a vignette based on some detested pogrom. The "criminal" (or perhaps political dissident) is hauled away from fervid conversation. A foreign-faced young woman looks on in mute helplessness. The open prisoner transport awaits in the narrow street. One cannot help getting the impression that the culprit here is destined to be held without charges at some remote government facility. Nice image, HP. Just the thing to sell governments on law-enforcement software systems. Actually, given who’s buying these days, HP’s ad agency might be right on target.