Hot Dots

by Clif Garboden

THURSDAY

8:00 (38) Stephen King's Graveyard Shift (movie). Horror show about industrial downsizing -- where the former employees never complain. Starring David Andrews and Kelly Wolf. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Mystery: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Mazarin Stone. Except that, in the wake of the death of Jeremy Brett, there's no Sherlock. Instead, brother Mycroft (Charles Gray) goes after the stolen Crown jewel while "Watson is visited by the eccentric Garrideb sisters" -- who belong to a completely different Holmes tale, where they're not sisters, or even women. With Brett as Holmes, this series was merely dull. Now it's looking weird. To be repeated on Sunday at 10 p.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

FRIDAY

9:00 (2) Evening at Pops. With special guests Sarah Vaughan and Wynton Marsalis. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (10) Basketball. The Bulls and the Jazz, still at it, in game six of the NBA championship.

10:00 (2) In Performance at the White House. In 1994, when Mr. Clinton was a happier office holder, he was entertained at home by Aretha Franklin and Lou Rawls. (Until 11 p.m.)

11:00 (2) Gershwin by Bisaccia. Solo piano renditions from Paul Bisaccia. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY

1:00 (64) Baseball. The Sox versus the New York Mets.

9:00 (2) Enchanted April (movie). Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson star in a 1991 British-television drama as an unhappy and uptight pair who flee their gray lives for a villa in Italy. Also starring Joan Plowright and Polly Walker. To be repeated on Sunday at 2:50 p.m. (Until 10:40 p.m.)

9:00 (10) In the Line of Duty: Hunt for Justice (movie). He's wearing a red-and-white-striped hat and shirt and he probably stands out in a crowd. A Jersey state trooper and an FBI agent temporarily reassigned from harboring Whitey Bulger chase left-wing revolutionaries (the kind who used to live under J. Edgar Hoover's bed). Adam Arkin and Dan Lauria star. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:40 (2) Saint Joan (movie). Jean Seberg's first time on the big screen in this 1957 Otto Preminger adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1923 play about the little Catholic girl who would have done just fine at the Citadel. To be repeated on Sunday at 1 p.m. (Until 12:10 a.m.)

11:00 (36) On Tour. Tonight's concert clips feature the ever-questionable No Doubt, plus A Tribe Called Quest, Spearhead, and Phunk Junkies. (Until midnight)

Midnight (38) The Duelists (movie). Such an unappealing word -- like "shootist" or "bassoonist" or a lot of other "ist" coinages. Anyway, this 1977 Ridley Scott-directed drama (taken from Joseph Conrad's more tastefully titled The Duel) casts Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel as feuding officers (feudists, as it were) during the Napoleonic wars. It's the photography and the supporting cast that make this worth staying up for, though. The "also-starring" roster includes Edward Fox, Cristina Raines, Diana Quick, Tom Conti, Albert Finney, and Pete Postlethwaite. (Until 2 a.m.)

SUNDAY

7:30 (10) Basketball -- Maybe. Game seven of the NBA finals, if necessary. Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, a Mormon, doesn't generally attend Sunday games, preferring to spend the day with his family. Will he make an exception in this case and stay in Chicago? If there's no basketball, look for the movie Forever Young at 9, with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis starring in the tale of a cryogenics-experiment subject who gets forgotten in the back of the freezer for 50 years.

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Dr. Finlay: Stolen Lives. These Scottish-doctor dramas are charming, interesting, and well done (if a bit pointless), but you wouldn't necessarily know that from the info trickling out of WGBH. The program schedule sent to folk like us gives a vague enough description of this episode: "After 38 years, a mother has her daughter released from an asylum -- only to discover dark secrets that have long been locked away." Puzzled, we consulted 'GBH, the official members' magazine that viewers like you have to pay for, and found: "After 38 years, a woman discovers dark secrets about her family." Look, 'GBH guys, viewers and writers like us depend on publicists like you, and before you go writing these program descriptions somebody has to watch the program! Stop faking it, okay? Give some responsible descriptions and do your stuff justice. We're not mind-readers, and the less you disclose, the less likely we are to watch. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (12) The Man from Left Field (movie). Burt Reynolds plays an amnesiac who agrees to coach a kids' baseball team in this 1993 TV-movie. Funny, we don't remember it at all. Could this amnesia thing be catching? Burt directs himself; Reba McEntire and Joe Theismann help out. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (6) See Jane Run (movie). Joanna Kerns plays an amnesiac -- would we lie about something so easily checked? -- whose slowly returning memory reveals dark secrets. Big surprise. ABC must be assuming we've already forgotten there's an amnesia movie on CBS. (Until 11 p.m.)

MONDAY

8:00 (10) Twisted Desire (movie). Dad disapproves of his daughter's boyfriend. So she pretends to love another and plots Pop's murder. Starring Melissa Joan Hart (of Sabrina fame) and Daniel Baldwin. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Vietnam: A Television History: Vietnamizing the War (1969-'73) and Cambodia and Laos. If you take the long view and understand that America's Vietnam War was a belated extension of a basically unjustifiable squabble between colonial factions dating back to the French occupation of Indochina, the notion of turning the fight over to the Vietnamese seems beyond absurd. Nevertheless, once we'd convinced ourselves that there was some kind of cause at stake and once we'd determined that we couldn't win anything, "Vietnamization" was the only way out. The second hour of this landmark series looks at that bastard Nixon's illegal secret bombing campaign against Cambodia. What a mess. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Beyond Obsession (movie). Do the networks get together and agree to synchronize these movie plots or what? Pianist Emily Warfield tries to get boyfriend Henry Thomas to kill mom Victoria Principal. A 1994 TV-movie. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY

8:00 (2) Nova: In Search of Human Origins, part three. Host Donald Johanson explains how humankind became hunters and began migrating out of Africa. To be repeated on Thursday at 9 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Nazi Gold. Switzerland, we were taught in school, remained somehow nobly neutral throughout World War II. Now it comes out that the Nazi did their banking there and the swell Swiss turned away fleeing Jews into the hands of the Gestapo. Clocks, chocolate, and war profiteering. Thanks, Heidi. A look at Alpine politics and the Swiss response to Holocaust survivors' demands for reparations. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (4) To Save the Children (movie). Richard Thomas gets to chew the scenery as a former cop who invades a Wyoming elementary school and holds everyone hostage. Robert Urich helps out. A 1994 TV-movie. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) American Playhouse: Shimmer. Elijah Shepard, Marcus Klemp, and Mary Beth Hurt star in the story of two boys who seek to escape the tedium of life in a 1950s Iowa juvenile home. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (2) P.O.V.: A Healthy Baby Girl. Doctors once prescribed a drug called DES to women in danger of miscarrying. Turns out it didn't really work, but it did give the daughters of those at-risk moms cancer. Filmmaker Judith Helfand's documentary based on her own case. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY

8:00 (2) The World of National Geographic: The Grizzlies. They call it "the bear that walks like a man." Scary big thing. Turns out, it's just misunderstood, and if we don't start understanding it soon, it's going to get extinct. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (64) The World's Most Incredible Animal Rescues. Next week: The World's Most Incredible Leaking Fire Hydrants. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) American Visions: The Empire of Signs and The Age of Anxiety. Host Robert Hughes delves into abstract expressionism, then concludes this remarkable series on American art in American culture with a quick trip through the past quarter-century to study our angst in our art. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY

9:00 (2) Mystery: Maigret: Maigret on the Defensive. Here's another deep explanation from WGBH: "Maigret assists a young woman and then finds himself in danger of being dismissed." Could you be a little less clear? They're talking this one up around the water cooler already. "Hey, did you see that Maigret mystery where he assisted the young woman?" "Yeah, I love it when detectives assist people." "And how about when he found himself in danger of being dismissed?" "Wow." Anyway, Michael Gambon stars. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (12) The Class of 2000. Dan Rather and Peter Van Sant (is he related to Gus?) check out the class of 2000 at the end of their frosh year. (Until 11 p.m.)