BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 19

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Fathers and Daughters. Exploring the Dad-daughter relationship within the African-American community. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Public Schools Inc. For-profit public education is a contradictory concept for sure, but the Edison Schools company and its controversial founder, Chris Whittle, are looking to capitalize on America’s failure to support proper universal education. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: Hetty Wainthropp Investigates: How Time Flies and Something To Treasure. Two more Patricia Routledge puzzlers. In the first show, Hetty responds to a clock collector’s suspicions that he’s been offered stolen property. The second program finds our housewife sleuth in a mining town where’s everyone’s distracted by a rumor of hidden treasure. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) Mystery: Hetty Wainthropp Investigates: How Time Flies and Something To Treasure. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY 20

10:00 (2) Race: The Power of an Illusion. This series, questioning the biological inevitability of racial differences, continues with an hour retracing the history of the concept of race. (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY 21

1:00 (64) Baseball. The Sox versus the Philadelphia Phillies.

6:00 (2) He Touched Me: The Gospel Music of Elvis Presley. The King’s lifelong love of spiritual tunes showcased through vintage interviews and rare between-sets performance footage. To be repeated tonight at 11 p.m. (Until 7:30 p.m.)

7:30 (2) Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session with Carl Perkins. A much-aired concert from 1983 teaming up rockabilly patriarch Perkins with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Rosanne Cash. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (6) Amistad (movie). One of the longest and most meandering movies ever made. Steven Spielberg’s epic based on an 1839 revolt aboard the title slave ship and the Supreme Court case that followed. With Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, plus Morgan Freeman and Matthew McConaughey. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (10) Child Stars: Then and Now. Malcolm-Jamal Warner (of Cosby fame) interviews a group of TV child stars who didn’t turn into junkies — including Emmanuel Lewis, Candace Cameron, Jason Hervey, and (for the old folk) Angela Cartwright. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night. Second only to Fiesta in the Sky (that documentary about hot-air ballooning) in terms of public-TV overexposure. An excellent (the first 100 times) concert black-and-white film from 1988 featuring Roy Orbison onstage with Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, and many more big names. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (10) The Cosby Show: A Look Back. A clips and reunion show reliving the golden days of the Cosby show. (Until 11 p.m.)

12:30 a.m. (2) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Merle Haggard and the Derailers. (Until 1:30 a.m.)

SUNDAY 22

3:40 (44) George Lucas in Love. An (affectionate, they assure us) parody of Star Wars and Shakespeare in Love. From 1990 and by filmmaker Joe Nussbaum. (Until 4 p.m.)

4:00 (44) Adam’s Rib (movie). For the 5000th time. Tracy and Hepburn. He prosecutor; she defense lawyer; them married and on the same case. Sort of like a plot from The Practice except nobody here gets raped, shot, kidnapped, stalked, disbarred, or falsely imprisoned. (Until 5:55 p.m.)

5:30 (2) The Chieftains: Down the Old Plank Road. The Old Plank Road apparently leads from Dublin to Tennessee, where the world’s most famous Celtic musicians make the Nashville scene to jam with Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Earl Scruggs, and Ricky Scaggs. (Until 7 p.m.)

7:35 (44) San Francisco (movie). Back in those Barbary Coast days before the 1906 earthquake, Clark Gable ran a nightclub and had a run-in with ambitious singer Jeanette MacDonald. From 1936 and costarring Spencer Tracy. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: The Way We Live Now, parts three and four. In which Melmotte’s phony railroad scam is revealed and Melmotte is beset by scandal. Both episodes to be repeated tonight at midnight; part four to be repeated tonight on Channel 44 at 1 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (12) Guilty Hearts (movie), part one. Treat Williams and Marcia Gay Harden star in this BIFTVM (Based-in-Fact TV-Movie) about a man whose wife ends up dead shortly after his lover leaves her husband. To be concluded on Wednesday, starting at 9 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:30 (44) Duel in the Sun (movie). Jennifer Jones heads to the Old West where she finds herself middled between brothers Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck. From 1946 and not a Spencer Tracy in sight. (Until midnight.)

1:00 a.m. (44) Masterpiece Theatre: The Way We Live Now, part four. Repeated from this evening at 10 p.m.

MONDAY 23

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Turkey. Justine Shapiro explores the Turquoise Coast, sleeps in a tourist tree house, survives an authentic Turkish bath, and rambles through the ruins at Ephesus. To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Ken Burns’s American Stories: Not for Ourselves Alone, part one. A Peabody-winning Burns documentary about the alliance of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton that breathed life into the 19th-century women’s-rights movement. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) A Hot Dog Program. Another of filmmaker Rick Sebak’s affectionate looks at trashy American institutions. This time the object of cultural affection is the frankfurter. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Great Old Amusement Parks. More Rick Sebak stuff, this time touring Playland and other legendary American fun spots. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) Ken Burns’s American Stories: Not for Ourselves Alone, part one. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

3:00 a.m. (2) Globe Trekker: Turkey. Repeated from this evening at 8 p.m.

TUESDAY 24

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Music from the Archives: Olga Román in Concert. Pianist Danilo Pérez backs vocalist Román through a selection of Brazilian jazz, bossa nova, and samba tunes. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Garden of Eden. You wouldn’t have expected Adam and Eve to come from an island chain off the coast of Kenya, and likely they never saw the Seychelles. But this array of coral and granite isles is the closest thing to an untouched paradise left on earth. To be repeated tonight at 2 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from the Blind Boys of Alabama with Robert Randolph and the Family Band. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: There Is a River and God Is a Negro. The first two hours of a six-hour series covering the evolution of religious values and African-American culture in the US — from slavery through this century. No specific details on these opening episodes are available, but it should be worth checking out. To be continued on Wednesday and Thursday at 9 p.m. To be repeated tonight at midnight, and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) P.O.V.: Flag Wars. A new season of P.O.V. (that stands for " Point of View " ) kicks off with a film from Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras about an African-American neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, where older black residents are threatened by realtors and gay gentrifiers who want to buy and renovate the area’s old houses. To be repeated tonight at 3:30 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (44) P.O.V.: Georgie Girl. A documentary look at the thoroughly unlikely career of George/Georgina Beyer — from farm boy to transsexual cabaret diva to community activist to elected member of the New Zealand parliament. From filmmakers Annie Goldson and Peter Wells. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: There Is a River and God Is a Negro. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

3:30 a.m. (2) P.O.V.: Flag Wars. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

5:00 a.m. (2) P.O.V.: Georgie Girl. Repeated from this evening at 10:30 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 25

8:00 (44) Cincinnati Pops: Patriotic Broadway. Flag-wavers from 1776, Ragtime, and Hit the Deck from the Cinci-Poppers under Erich Kunzel. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: Guide My Feet and Freedom Faith. Tonight’s faithful accounts cover the great black migration north and the Civil Rights Movement. To be repeated at midnight and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4:30 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (12) Guilty Hearts (movie), part two. The conclusion. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Great Performances: Kiss Me Kate. Brent Barrett and Rachel York are so in love and true to each other in their fashions in this Tony-winning revival of Cole Porter’s shrewish Shakespeare adaptation. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: Guide My Feet and Freedom Faith. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.

THURSDAY 26

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Belynda Dunn. Host Darren Durate talks with the since-deceased AIDS activist about her battle to have a liver transplant. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) God and the Inner City. Since our government is clearly far more interested in spending billions to kill people in Islamic countries than in pulling its own citizens out of poverty and neglect, faith-based (i.e., religious-affiliated) social-welfare groups might be the only means left to bring reason and opportunity to minority neighborhoods. Then again, if the feds fund religious groups, we’ve got a constitutional problem; and we doubt very much if the Bushies are likely to include the Nation of Islam on its list of worthy charities. A look at existing faith-based programs and featuring a interview with Dorchester’s Reverend Eugene Rivers. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (6) One Fine Day (movie). Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney play single parents too busy to care for their kids who fall in love. From 1996. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: Inheritors of the Faith and Rise Up and Call Their Names. The series ends with a look at the rise of the Nation of Islam. To be repeated tonight at midnight and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery: Hetty Wainthropp Investigates: Family Values and Digging for Dirt. Two more Wainthropp puzzlers starring Patricia Routledge as another middle-aged female British detective. (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 and 4:00 a.m. (44) This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys: Inheritors of the Faith and Rise Up and Call Their Names. Repeated from this evening at 9 p.m.