Hot Dots

by Clif Garboden

FRIDAY 11

7:00 (2) The Long & Short of It. Kennedy School professor and former Republican Oklahoma congressman Mickey Edwards joins Robert Reich and Alan Simpson. (Until 7:30 p.m.)

7:30 (38) Hockey. The Bruins versus the New Jersey Nets.

9:00 (2) Frank Sinatra: The Concert for the Americas. A 1981 show with the Buddy Rich Orchestra, from the Dominican Republic. (Until 10:20 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Around the World in 80 Days: The Challenge. A repeat of the British travel-stunt series with Monty Python's Michael Palin off to match Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg's 12-week-plus trip from London to London via everything east. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Looking for John Muir. Cambridge-based naturalist Robert Perkins retraces the steps (literally) of proto-environmentalist/mystic Muir. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:20 (2) Marvin Hamlisch and the Pittsburgh Pops. Marvin, the Pgh. Poppers, Pete Fountain, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and Nell Carter on the stage of Heinz Hall. (Until 11:20 p.m.)

SATURDAY 12

6:00 (44) American Masters: Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde. Repeated from last week. A bio of the American artist who broke enough ground to replace the IRT. (Until 7 p.m.)

6:30 (2) La Plaza: From Here and There. Confronting the reality of a Latino heritage versus the American culture of everyday life. The theme is played out by example as La Plaza cameras follow young Chileans Pablo and Alejandro Picker through their search for identity. (Until 7 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Persuasion. Repeated from last week. A 1995 combo theatrical/made-for-TV Jane Austen adaptation involving BBC Films, WGBH, and Millisime productions. For all that, the thing should have subtitles; the characters mumble into their laps in some no-doubt authentic dialect that 20th-century Americans should be excused from understanding. Amanda Root stars as Jane's Anne Elliot, who, at the tender age of 19, turns down a proposal from handsome, but unproven, Captain Wentworth (played by Ciaran Hinds), who then goes off to seek his fortune at sea and finds it. Later on, Wentworth returns, rich and decorated, to find Anne unmarried and way behind the social curve. She still loves him; he can't quite place the face. But there's time, and what with all the reversals of fortunes that apparently characterized people's lives in the late Napoleonic era, the opportunity for love to rebloom will certainly present itself. What did she say? (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Les Misérables (movie). No tedious music here. Fredric March plays a Jean Valjean hounded by by-the-book police chief Charles Laughton in this 1953 film edition of Victor Hugo's classic. To be repeated on Sunday at 3 p.m. (Until 10:50 p.m.)

10:50 (2) Julius Caesar (movie). The case for why it's okay to be lonely at the top -- from 1970, by Shakespeare, and starring John Gielgud, Richard Johnson, Jason Robards, and Charlton Heston. To be repeated on Sunday at 1 p.m. (Until 12:50 a.m.)

SUNDAY 13

Noon (2) Antiques Roadshow. Repeated from last week. The attic-treasure seekers hit Concord, Massachusetts, appraise some colonial trinkets, and do a bit of Minuteman National sightseeing. (Until 1 p.m.)

1:00 (2) Julius Caesar (movie). Repeated from Saturday at 10:50 p.m.

3:00 (2) Les Misérables (movie). Repeated from Saturday at 9 p.m.

3:00 (4, 12) Tiger Woods: Son, Hero, Champion. Even if you don't dig golf, you've got to like this guy. (Until 4 p.m.)

7:00 (2) Eyewitness: Prehistoric Life. In which you learn what fossils have taught others about the origins of life on earth. (Unless, of course you're one of the faithful who believe that we're all descended from some heterosexual pre-incarnation of Do deposited here as part of an extraterrestrial science-fair project -- in which case you're incapable of learning anything.) (Until 7:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Rebecca, part one. Rerouting the fabled Road to Manderlay. This Daphne du Maurier gothic romance was given atmospheric but shallow -- one might say dramatically impoverished -- treatment by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940. We can't imagine the story gets any more compelling thanks to this two-part TV treatment starring Emilia Fox as the second Mrs. de Winter. (She marries a widower, moves into his mansion, suspects the place is haunted by this first wife's spiritual remains, lives in fear of the maid her predecessor left behind, and deduces hubby's awful dark secret about an hour and half after the dimmest-witted among the audience has.) Faye Dunaway plays the part of the New York socialite who introduces Fox to her Cornish beau, who's played by Charles Dance. Diana Rigg is Mrs. Danvers. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Mother Knows Best (movie). That's because daughter married a social undesirable. Naturally it's up to Mom to restore the status quo. Joanna Kerns stars with Grant Show, Christine Elise, and Jessica Walter. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (7, 10) Meteor Man (movie). Mild-mannered inner-city school teacher is hit by a rock from outer space and becomes a superhero. Robert Guillaume and Marla Gibbs are the proud stars of this one. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Mystery: Cadfael: The Leper of St. Giles. Repeated from last week. Baron Huon de Domville unexpectedly rides off into the night on the eve of his wedding. Derek Jacobi stars. To be repeated on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until midnight.)

Midnight (2) In the Life: As American As Apple Pie: Gay Americana Uncovered. Repeated from last week. The history of gays and lesbians in vaudeville and the circus, plus a trip to an old building on Pittsburgh's North Side (where, though it's of no special importance, we used to shop for sheet music and clarinet reeds), now home to the Andy Warhol Museum (which is worth the trip, by the way). (Until 1 a.m.)

MONDAY 14

8:00 (2) Mysteries of Deep Space: To the Edge of the Universe. A chance to catch up with those 39 numbskulls from Rancho Santa Fe, who must be proffering their Nikes on the Tatooinian black market by now, trying to raise their return fares. But seriously: this three-part series combines animation and pictures from the Hubble space telescope to offer a modern astronomy lesson. To be repeated on Friday at midnight. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (7) The Walk for Hunger. Preview and promotion for the May 4 20-mile trek to raise cash for the good institutions that feed the hungry. Funny that the government can't handle this, but it can't, so vote in the streets. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The American Experience: Demon Rum. A prohibition chronicle focusing on how the highhanded goody-goody crusade against high spirits plunged the country into corruption and hypocrisy. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern. How one Iowa couple saved their family farm from the clutches of the mean old bank during the agribiz-inspired foreclosure purge of the 1980s. The film won at Sundance. To be repeated on Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (5) Reality Bites (movie). Ben Stiller directed this story of four Gen Xers trying to figure out what twentysomethingness holds for them, and he stars with Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, and Steve Zahn. From 1994. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (7, 10) Nightscreams (movie). Ghost of a murdered woman invades the body of her living look-alike. Starring Teri Garr and Candace Cameron Bure. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 15

8:00 (2) Nova: Kingdom of the Sea Horse. Get startled: 1) in the world of seahorse sexuality, it's the male who gets pregnant; 2) there are seahorse experts (one of whom, McGill University's Amanda Vincent, hosts this program); and 3) seahorses are endangered, especially in (where else?) the Philippines, where the locals are harvesting them into extinction because they believe the kinky little critters are (what else?) an aphrodisiac. God save us all from the horny uneducated peoples of the world. A look at Vincent's conservation efforts. To be repeated on Wednesday at midnight, and on Thursday at 9 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Middlemarch, part two. Dorothea experiences life with Casaubon. Let this be a lesson to you, young lady. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:30 (5) Soul Man. Dan Aykroyd mixes messages playing a clergyman in a new sit-com titled to evoke The Blues Brothers. Give it a chance; Dan's been doing those Canadian ghost-story re-enactment shows too long. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: How To Buy a President. The knee-jerk anti-Clinton crowd would have you believe that Bill would sell out for extra cheese on his Whopper. That's both irrelevant and unfair. It is, however, true that the guy's campaign accepted money from Asian special interests, which is at best a clownish mistake, at worst a federal crime. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (4, 12) Deep Family Secrets (movie). Could be the title of nine out of 10 TV-movies. This 1997 effort has a wife disappearing, hubby accused of her murder. Acting might save it: Angie Dickinson, Richard Crenna, Molly Gross, Meg Foster. Might. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: Cadfael: The Leper of St. Giles. Repeated from Thursday at 9 p.m.

10:00 (2) Viewpoint: Missing in Tibet. We have no background worth sharing here -- only that this show profiles Ngawang Choefel, who was sentenced to an 18-year prison term in Chinese-occupied Tibet. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Lost Africans of the Andes. James Earl Jones narrates this account of an expedition to obscurest Ecuador and a secret village of people of African descent. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 16

9:00 (2) The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle. The history of Latino labor leader Chavez and the crusade that launched the nation's first farmworkers' union. In an era when the union notion is abused to protect incompetent public-school teachers, it's good to be reminded that some worthy folks really need to organize for self-protection. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) The American Experience: Troublesome Creek. Repeated from Monday at 9 p.m.

Midnight (2) Nova: Kingdom of the Sea Horse. Repeated from Tuesday at 8 p.m.

THURSDAY 17

9:00 (2) Mystery: Cadfael: Monk's Hood. First a wealthy landowner announces his intention to leave a lot of dough to Shrewsbury Abbey. Next thing you know, the guy's been poisoned to death. Go figure. Cadfael does. Derek Jacobi stars. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Nova: Kingdom of the Sea Horse. Repeated from Tuesday at 8 p.m.

FRIDAY 18

7:30 (38) Basketball. The Celts versus the Philadelphia 76ers.

9:00 (2) The Great Love Songs. Tender lyrics from the 1920s through today, delivered by Jack Jones, Maureen McGovern, John Raitt, and other people like that. Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do with It?" probably didn't make the final cut here; the Channel 2 program schedule blurb lists three examples -- "I'll See You in My Dreams," "When I Fall in Love," and the immortal "When Time Goes By" (must be from that unforgettable Bogart/Bergman film Casanova -- "Play it again, Stan"). (Until 10:20 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Around the World in 80 Days: Two Arabian Fights. Michael Palin continues his British-TV race against the globe and the clock with a visit to Egypt and a rough passage to India. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:20 (2) Marvin Hamlisch and the Pittsburgh Pops: Looking Back. Hamlisch is no big deal (Pittsburgh just wanted to hire someone as lame as John Williams to lead it's orchestra-lite), but it's always nice to check in with tonight's guest stars, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, who sing a tribute to the Gershwin brothers. (Until 11:20 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Mysteries of Deep Space: To the Edge of the Universe. Repeated from Monday at 8 p.m.