BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 18

Noon (12) Basketball. First-round NCAA championship play, through 5 p.m.

7:00 (2) The Great Flood of 1936: The Connecticut River Story. Filmmaker Ed Klekowski (who a few years back gave us the thoroughly disappointing documentary Under Quabbin, which involved diving into the Quabbin Reservoir and discovering that the towns that were flooded out to create the pond had been torn down before they let the water in) looks back at the Connecticut River’s greatest recorded disaster, the flood of March 1936, when a freak warm spell dumped multi-inches of rain on an already saturated snowpack in northern New England and the rushing result did $500 million damage and washed 430,000 people out of their homes. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

7:00 (12) Basketball. More first-round NCAA championship play.

8:30 (2) Broadway’s Lost Treasures. This fundraising regular features old Tony Award production numbers, with Yul Brynner, Angela Lansbury, Zero Mostel, and more of that era doing their showstoppers. Much more entertaining than it sounds, and far more entertaining than any Tony Awards show. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Johnny Cash Anthology. At last, something worth watching. An excellent career recap of the late Johnny Cash featuring performances from his TV show and early concerts. If you don’t understand how good Cash really was, check this one out. (Until midnight.)

FRIDAY 19

Noon (12) Basketball. More first-round NCAA championship play.

6:30 (12) Basketball. Still more first-round NCAA championship play.

7:00 (2) Visions of Greece. Another aerial tour — this one looks down on Athenian ruins and the Aegean isles. (Until 7:30 p.m.)

9:30 (2) Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. Moyers’s long-ago interview with the late writer/editor/theorist who defined the link between cosmic issues and folk tales. All of it. (Until 1:30 a.m.)

10:00 (10) Crossing Jordan. Well, the failed series about a spunky medical examiner in Boston (Jill Hennessey) is back, its producers having realized (in the wake of the CSI empire) how far they missed the mark when they made the original series all about Jordan and her father and their family secret. Now, Jordan’s back to being the bratty iconoclast/loose cannon she was supposed to be in the first place. And things are much better. And it’s something to watch on network TV on Fridays. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Coupling, "Inferno." Steve confesses his love for Susan in the course of describing the plot of a film called Lesbian Spank Inferno to a dinner party where the guests include Jane’s therapist. As always, funnier than it sounds. The Jeff Quote from the BBC Web site for this one is: "Oh, wouldn’t that be great . . . being a lesbian. All the advantages of being a man, but with less embarrassing genitals." (Until 10:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY 20

1:00 (12) Basketball. Second-round NCAA championship play.

6:00 (44) The Martha Stewart Bowling Show. Sorry to disappoint, this is really another round of alleged "viewer favorites" from WGBX’s recent fundraising disruption. Just more junk. (Until midnight.)

7:30 (44) Vicar of Dibley Marathon. All the Dawn French you can handle (actually just four episodes). French is okay, but she has all the predictable, straight-woman lines. It’s the supporting cast of character actors that makes this Brit-com about a female vicar in a conservative small English town work. Emma Chambers (Alice) and Trevor Peacock (Jim) make any episode worthwhile. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (6) Stuart Little (movie). Another class act of children’s literature brought into lowest-common-denominator focus by Disney. The primary flaw here is that the title character is a stray mouse who comes to live with the Little family. E.B. White’s original scenario was far more provocative: Stuart (a mouse by all descriptions) was actually the Littles’ second child. Featuring the voices of Michael J. Fox, Geena Davis, and Hugh Laurie. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:30 (44) The Funny Ladies of British Comedy. Penelope Keith hosts a collective tribute to female Brit-com stars Judi Dench, Dawn French, Pat Routledge, Mollie Sugden, and Prunella Scales. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

SUNDAY 21

Noon (12) Basketball. Second-round NCAA championship play. Three games.

Noon (44) Are Killer Roaches Entering Your Home in Cereal Boxes? Honestly, we doubt it. More "viewer favorites." (Until midnight.)

1:00 (6) Basketball. The Dallas Mavericks versus the New Jersey Nets.

3:45 (2) Anne of Green Gables. The original (from 1985) — and by far the best — Canadian-TV adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s first novel about orphan Anne Shirley’s adventures on Prince Edward Island. Megan Follows takes the title role, and she’s perfect, as are Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth as the Cuthberts. Sequels to this proved less successful, and the third installment (with Anne running around Europe during World War I) was an absolute embarrassment. For reasons that remain unclear, Channel 2 is showing this twice in a row. The second show begins at 6 p.m. And there will probably be lots of pledge-break interruptions detracting from the fun. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Bog-Daddy and the Green Gators: A Holiday on Ice. Fooled you again. This is another block of unspecified "viewer favorites." If one of them turns out to be Anne of Green Gables, that’ll make three in a row. (Until midnight.)

9:00 (12) Proof of Life (movie). Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, Pamela Reed, and David Morse star in a 2000 adventure about an engineer kidnapped by rebels in South America and his wife’s efforts to negotiate his release. (Until 11 p.m.)

Midnight (44) Globe Trekker: Pakistan. Trekker Neil Gibson tours Pakistan from the jumble of Karachi’s streets to the glaciers of the Hunza Valley. In between, he rides camels, visits bazaars, stuffs onions in his turban (that’s what it says), and (equally unlikely) has his fortune told by a bird. (Until 1 a.m.)

3:00 a.m. (2, 44) Nature: The Joy of Pigs. This time, we’re not kidding. A venture into the world of wild swine to learn all about "the bearded pig of Borneo; the intrepid warthog and the unique red river hog of Africa." And simulcast, no less, so if you’re determined to watch PBS this time of day, you’ve no other choice. (Until 4 a.m.)

MONDAY 22

7:30 (2) When I Fall in Love: The One and Only Nat King Cole. Cole (not to be confused with his cousin Old King) had (briefly) a 15-minute Monday-night show back in 1956. This was a remarkable thing, not because it was 15 minutes (lots of proto-TV shows started as quarter-hour fill-ins) but because Nat was black, and though they called it black-and-white TV, television was mostly white. Nat, it turned out, was very cool and TV-savvy, but the show didn’t last long because no sponsor was interested. The entertainment (crude kinescope quality and all) is, however, timeless. This collection of clips is worth your time. Whether it’s worth wading through more fundraising nonsense is another matter. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (6) NTSB: The Crash of Flight 323 (movie). Jeffrey Samms stars in this movie about a National Transportation Safety Board team piecing together what happened before the title flight went down. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Tim Janis: Beautiful America. Janis is (a) a legendary pilot with the Flying Tigers; (b) a modern American composer whose works you’ve never heard; (c) the chef at a Chicago restaurant called Le Bon Janis. Unless you’ve heard more stuff than we have, the answer is (b). George Clooney celebrates the visual wonders of America’s national parks to the strains of Janis and his Tim Janis Concert Ensemble. (Janis also runs a record label, which distributes — guess what? — music by the Tim Janis Concert Ensemble.) The whole thing sounds like an instant industry made for public-television fundraising. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:30 (44) Andy Williams: My Favorite Duets. Repeated from two weeks ago (and perhaps as a "viewer favorite"). Clips from The Andy Williams Show (1962-’73) where Andy croons along with Julie Andrews, Pearl Bailey, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Judy Garland, Phil Harris, Lena Horne, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Johnny Mathis, the Osmonds, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and more. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

10:00 (10) Average Joe: Adam Returns. And this time he brought a chainsaw. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 23

7:30 (2) The Ferrets of Blimton Street. Marsha Ferret is arrested for illegally photocopying the latest edition of Caring for Your Newborn During Wartime and distributing it to needy Iraqi parents. Sorry again, just more "viewer favorites." (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) "Mele Kakikimaka" Means Something in Hawaiian. How people talk funny around the world explained. But really, it’s just more (you guessed it) "viewer favorites." (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 24

7:30 (2) Tim Janis: Beautiful Rhodesia. The true story of Princeton mathematics professor John Rhodesia set to the music of the Tim Janis Concert Ensemble. Ooops, we mean more "viewer favorites." (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Angle Parking Against Traffic. A personal avant-garde essay by filmmaker Jim Tanis about his trip to Norway to find the descendants of the ancestors who shipped his grandmother off the New Jersey in the late 1800s. Or it might be "viewer favorites." (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 25

7:00 (12) Basketball. NCAA regional semifinal action. Two games.

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Ruth Batson: An Activist’s Life. Roxbury’s Ruth Batson (who died last year, at age 82) devoted her life to education and children’s advocacy and played a major role in securing educational equality for African-Americans in Boston’s schools. This edition of Basic Black looks back at her long and productive life. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Conquistadors with Michael Wood: The Conquest of the Incas. What seems like ages ago (before fundraising), they started showing this Michael Wood series on the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Tonight’s featured genocidal maniac is Francisco Pizarro, who defeated the Incas. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (6) World Figure Skating Championships. From Dortmund, Germany, and featuring US skaters Sasha Cohen, Michelle Kwan, Jennifer Kirk, and Amber Corwin (alternate). More on Saturday March 27. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (2) The Journey of Sacagawea. She walked with Lewis and Clark. Her image is on that one-dollar coin that you mistake for a quarter. This is her story. (Until 11 p.m.)