BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 13

8:00 (2) Queen Victoria’s Empire: The Moral Crusade. With production values comparable to those of a "sophisticated classroom slide show," this series on Queen Vic’s years on the throne is frighteningly educational. Tonight’s edition looks at events just after Prince Albert’s death. Dr. Livingston gets lost in Africa, Gladstone and Disraeli shout each other down in conflicting attempts to change the course of empire, the Brits "acquire" the Suez Canal, and everybody tries to colonize Africa at once. A busy decade, for sure. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:54 (10) Frasier: Goodbye, Seattle. The series finale. Frasier packs up and moves back to Boston, where he finds Sam in a ménage with Diane and Lilith. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: The Killer at Thurston High. A look at a pre-Columbine school shooting. The 1998 murders took place at Thurston High in Oregon. The killer, Kip Kinkel, woke up, shot mom and dad, then went to school and opened fire (two dead; 25 wounded). Produced in 1999. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (10) E.R. The season finale, in which Dr. Romano rises from the grave and names Peter Benton chief of staff, and Dr. Greene’s daughter kidnaps her stepsister. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 14

8:00 (10) Frasier. A repeat airing of the series finale, without the six extra minutes. We blame the current vogue for "closure" for all these corny and unlikely endings to tired-out once-funny sit-coms. As finales go, M*A*S*H and Newhart hold all the trophies. The garishly overblown Friends finale was probably the worst script that cast tackled in memory. As was made all the more obvious by the well-edited clips show that preceded it. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (64) Little Nicky (movie). Into Adam Sandler’s career have come several dumb ideas that he’s managed to salvage through sheer force of comic acting. This 2000 effort is not one of those. Sandler plays the title character, a junior devil rebelling against Satan (Harvey Keitel, who must have had gambling debts or something). (Until 10 p.m.)

9:30 (2) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: Don’t Forget. Repeated from last week. Alan Alda explains how we learn and remember and how we can be fooled by a false memory. He also visits some elderly folk whose short-term recall is completely shot, so they live in the immediate or the distant past. And we look at some studies toward a way of curing (or at least preventing or delaying) Alzheimer’s disease. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY 15

Noon (2, 44) The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. We wish. Actually, the time slots between now and 3 p.m. have been dedicated to "Viewer Favorites." But instead of watching, go to www.slate.msn.com/id/2081042/ for Hart Seely’s April 2003 Slate piece on Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s accidental poetry recitations. One highlight being this commentary on the Internet: "A trained ape can know an awful lot/Of what is going on in this world,/Just by punching on his mouse/For a relatively modest cost!" Just sharing — since we don’t have any shows to describe here. (Until 3 p.m. on Channel 2; until 8 p.m. on Channel 44.)

3:00 (6) Hockey. Stanley Cup conference-final playoff action, meaning the Tampa Bay Lightning versus the Philadelphia Flyers or the San Jose Sharks versus the Calgary Flames.

5:00 (10) Racing. The Preakness. Will Smarty Jones start? And if he starts, will he win? And if he wins the Triple Crown, will he get his own TV show? (We hear he likes the Friends slot.)

9:00 (12) Swordfish (movie). John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, and Halle Berry star in this jumbled 2001 thriller about a spy, the CIA, and a plot to pull off a major computer-theft caper. (Until 11 p.m.)

SUNDAY 16

Noon (44) Viewer Favorites. Whatever. We’re out of jokes. Somewhere along the way, WGBH/WGBX crossed some unforeseen line, and viewers around the region are losing respect for stations that seem to respect their viewers less and less. The feeling of betrayal at a time when we good guys need to fight back hard is growing. Sure, PBS is still the most culturally responsible television on television, but given that the network news shows are focused on hyping the series finales of sit-coms, to what are we really comparing it? (Until midnight.)

6:15 (2) Peter, Paul and Mary: Carry It On. Yarrow, Stookey, and Travers relive their 40-year career, with special focus on the early days when this clean-cut trio broke into AM radio with songs by Dylan and Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. They deserve a lot of credit, and they get it here. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (12) Helter Skelter (movie). Back in August of 1969, roughly a year and a half after American forces massacred 300 unarmed Vietnamese at My Lai and roughly three months before the public heard about it, severely delusional stateside misfit Charles Manson organized a group of equally pathetic groupies to commit random civilian murders in Los Angeles — killing (on consecutive nights) Sharon Tate (pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski) and four friends and businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife. This movie, from Vincent Bugliosi’s book of the same name, stars Jeremy Davies as Chuck Manson and tries to show how he built his Family. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Prime Suspect Two, part one. This PS series has already been rebroadcast more than its share. DCI Tennison (Helen Mirren) investigates a murder in a London Afro-Caribbean enclave with a lot of interference from her bosses and from a hot-headed newcomer to her squad. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

MONDAY 17

7:00 (AFTV) The Anna Nicole & Lynndie Show: Boys in the Hoods. The Armed Forces Television Network departs from its usual diet of Francis the Talking Mule movies and VD-prevention films for this pairing of known celebrity idiot Anna Nicole Smith and rising anti-star Lynndie England, who burst into the limelight as the mongrel-ish, butt-Bogarting babe in a T-shirt simulating an AK47 assault on an Iraqi prisoner of war’s privates in Abu Ghraib torture-and-humiliation photos intended for the Rumsfeld family album. In this kickoff edition, roomies Anna and Lynndie invite the boy toys over for blind man’s darts. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Colonial House: A New World and Harsh Reality. The much-promoted "hands-on history experiment" series that has 24 experimenters trying to reconstruct life in a 1628 colony in Maine (for five ugly months). As if battling the elements weren’t hard enough, the group members quickly turn on one another and argue about politics and religion. The historical-challenge aspect of these re-enactment shows is great, but there’s never enough of it, and what there is is overshadowed by the reality-TV gimmicks that dwell on the participants’ least-helpful character traits. For reasons unclear, these initial two one-hour shows will be repeated immediately at 10 p.m., and then again tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m. and midnight.)

8:00 (6) Motown’s 45th Anniversary Special. Scant details available except that the featured hosts/artists will be Lionel Richie and Justin Timberlake. (Until 10 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Nepal. Trekker Ian gets on the upward trail of a princess/goddess and some Bengal tigers — both of whom he finds. As a climax (are you watching, Governor Mitt?), he attends a Nepalese wedding involving five grooms and one bride. To be repeated on Wednesday at 3 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World. He was mad as cheese, T.E. Lawrence was, but his success in uniting Arab tribes against the Turks in the early 1900s has influenced just about everything in the Middle East since. To be repeated tonight at 1:30 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 18

7:00 (AFTV) The Anna Nicole & Lynndie Show: A Little Less Leg, Please. Anna Nicole persuades Lynndie to pose for Sports Illustrator’s annual gym-suit issue. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Colonial House: City of God and The Outsiders. Our group of modern-day colonists continue to shatter myths about early America. The colonies’ governor gets tough and starts torturing religious dissidents. Then a new wave of colonists arrives, and our heroes have to cope with food and housing shortages. To be repeated immediately at 10 p.m., and then again tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m. and midnight.)

8:00 (44) Rosemary Clooney: Girl Singer. Rosie had great writers and a tough life, but in the end she made it all good. Lots of 1950s TV performance clips plus interviews with Clooney’s relatives and intimates. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 19

7:00 (AFTV) The Anna Nicole & Lynndie Show: Trolls Outta Control. Anna Nicole and Lynndie pack up their portable electrodes and plaster-casting gear and head to Guantánamo for the annual "Clothing Optional Gala" to celebrate the birthday of Lynndie’s beau, under-indictment reservist Charles Graner. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:30 (2) Great Performances: The Art of Piano. A truly detailed look at piano playing through the 20th century that considers influences from all sides (piano manufacture, recording technology, piano music in Hollywood films) and does compare-and-contrast bits with the hands of Arthur Rubinstein, Glenn Gould, Vladimir Horowitz, Alfred Cortot, Edwin Fischer, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Benno Moiseiwitsch. (Until 11:15 p.m.)

9:00 (10) The West Wing. The season finale. This is turning into an action show, we fear. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (10) Law & Order. The season finale. Lives forever. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 20

7:00 (AFTV) The Anna Nicole & Lynndie Show: What’s in Your Wallet, Your Highness? The increasingly puzzled King Abdullah II of Jordan guest-stars. (Until 8 p.m.)

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Jackie Jenkins-Scott: Health-Care Visionary. A profile of Boston’s Dimock Community Health Center chief Jenkins-Scott and how she took a failing enterprise (in 1983) and turned it into a national showpiece for community health-care centers. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Queen Victoria’s Empire: The Scramble for Africa. A Sudanese holy war threatens the Suez Canal, and Cecil Rhodes finds diamonds in South Africa. Both events came out badly. And then Queen Vicky died with the 19th century. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (64) American Pie 2 (movie). Jason Biggs and Shannon Elizabeth star in the 2001 second helping. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: The Alternative Fix. A repeat show about alternative medicine and how it makes money whether or not it makes people healthier. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

The 525th line. An open note to Anna Nicole and Lynndie: congrats on your new gig. Anna Nicole, you’re a proven professional hussy, so you have no right to complain about bad taste. Lynndie, you may be new to the famous-fool game, but hey, screw you if you can’t take a joke. Hope we didn’t embarrass you or insult you or make you feel bad or anything, you bologna-brained piece of Army trash.