BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 10

1:00 (44) and 7:00 (2) The WGBH Auction 2004. More auction inaction. How shall we fill the space this week? More fake band names? How about 39 Emus or Prophets of Midol? The Elder Skatesmen? Telephone Trolley? Baker’s Cousin? Feel free to use any of these. Apple Fanny; Royal Detroit; Ugly Australians; Paper Porridge; Cheezed Crackers; Lloyd Webber’s Grill; Buick Babes; Frightful Visionaries; Plaster Carcass. You get the idea. (Until 7 p.m. and midnight respectively.)

8:30 (5) Basketball. The Los Angeles Lakers versus the Detroit Pistons in game #3 of the NBA championship series.

FRIDAY 11

1:00 (44) and 7:00 (2) The WGBH Auction 2004. More hours of fun for people who like to have the television on but don’t want to watch. The annual Channel 2 Auction is slightly more entertaining than your local-cable-access station that runs school-lunch menus and schedules of VFW bingo nights. But just marginally. Hey, speaking of which: do any of you get that station with the foreign guy holding an electric guitar and talking about Jesus? What language is that? What’s the point? Jesus would probably watch the Auction. (Until 7 p.m. and midnight respectively.)

8:00 (64) Outrageous Celebrity Look-Alike Behavior Caught on Tape. How far can they stretch this concept? Next week: Outrageous Bank Tellers to the Stars’ Behavior Caught on Tape. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:30 (44) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: Unearthing Secret America. Something to do with the Rosicrucians, whoever they are? The Masons? Nothing so opaque, actually. In this edition of AASAF, Hawkeye examines archæological finds in Virginia — including the remains of the Civil War submarine Hunley (fast becoming a PBS regular), artifacts from the fort at Jamestown, and rubble extracted from slave quarters at Monticello and Williamsburg. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY 12

1:00 (2) The WGBH Auction 2004. This appears to be the end. Channel 44 has filled the afternoon (1 to 4 p.m.) with serial editions of Ask This Old House. (Until midnight.)

3:00 (64) Baseball. The Sox versus the Los Angeles Dodgers.

4:30 (44) Globe Trekker: Iran. Repeated from last week. Trekker Ian (who we presume visited before last year’s earthquake) does Tehran, checks out the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grave, tries Iranian nightlife (we’ll believe it when we see it), skis Iran, wrestles with a man who claims to be related to Genghis Khan, tours the blue mosque of Esfahan, and hangs with some nomads. (Until 5:30 p.m.)

5:30 (44) P.O.V.: The Smith Family. This documentary film takes an uncomfortably close look at one Mormon family’s multi-faceted tragedy. After nine years of marriage, Kim Smith discovers that her husband has been having same-sex affairs and that she’s HIV positive. None of this sits well with the sons of Moroni, and Kim, once widowed, is left to redefine things for herself. (Until 7 p.m.)

8:30 (6) Field of Dreams (movie). When popular films hit DVD, they often turn up as network movies. Hmmm. Kevin Costner’s 1989 baseball fantasy about a presumably deluded man who gets in touch with his inner child by turning a cornfield into a ballfield for a Chicago Black Sox reunion. Corny? Sort of, but this is actually a fairly well-done film with a strong emotional undercurrent. Costner stars with Amy Madigan, Timothy Busfield, and Gaby Hoffman. Ray Liotta takes the outfield as Shoeless Joe Jackson. (Until 11 p.m.)

SUNDAY 13

4:00 (2) Great Performances: Little Women. LMA’s tireless saga adapted for the Houston Grand Opera by American composer Mark Adamo and featuring Stephanie Novacek as Jo, Joyce DiDonato as Meg, and Chad Sherman as Laurie. (Until 6 p.m.)

5:15 (44) The Diary of Anne Frank (movie). Repeated from last week. The 1959 George Stevens film based on the well-circulated diary of a victim of Nazi persecution in the Netherlands. Millie Perkins takes the title role. (Until 8:06 p.m.)

8:06 (44) Anastasia (movie). Director Anatol Litvak’s 1956 film about a scam to pass an amnesia victim off as the last Romanov. Based on a play by Marcelle Maurette and starring Ingrid Bergman (who got an Oscar for her efforts) as the forgetful impostor. (Until 10 p.m.)

8:30 (6) Basketball. The Los Angeles Lakers versus the Detroit Pistons in game #4 of the NBA championship series.

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Anna Karenina, part one. Tolstoy’s soapy tragedy comes to TV with Helen McCory in the title role of the neglected wife who has a passionate fling with a military man (the dashing Count Vronsky, played by Kevin McKidd). And no good comes of it. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (12) See You in My Dreams (movie). Sam Shepard autobiographical short stories are the basis for this TV movie that has nothing to do with the Sammy Kahn song. Aidan Quinn stars as a failed rancher who kicks his son out of the house for his own good and then has to deal with his mostly destroyed marriage. Also starring Marcia Gay Harden and Will Estes. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Night of the Iguana (movie). John Huston directed this 1964 film from the Tennessee Williams play about a defrocked priest rotting out his life as a tour guide in Mexico. Richard Burton boozes his way through the lead as he fields, deflects, and flees the attentions of Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, and little Sue Lyon. Convoluted would be a good one-word description, but if you’re relaxed, this can be an interesting yarn. (Until 1 a.m.)

1:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Foyle’s War: The White Feather. Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle "Yes, That Really Is Her Name" Weeks co-star as WW2-era police inspector Christopher Foyle and his resourceful driver Sam. In this, they investigate the shooting of a Nazi sympathizer. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 2:30 p.m.)

MONDAY 14

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Mongolia. Who do you send to a country whose national dish is mutton? Trekker Ian Wright, of course. He’ll eat anything. Ian tours modern Ulaan Bataar, scours the ruins of Genghis Khan’s headquarters, visits a monastery that miraculously survived Stalin, and hums along with some throat singers. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The American Experience: Jimmy Carter: Hostage, part two. The collection of Carter American Experience shows and Carter interviews gets muddled and confusing this week, but this is the conclusion of what started it all last Monday. Carter negotiates a landmark peace treaty in the Middle East, only to have his presidency brought down by hostages in Iran, a phony energy crisis, and a failing economy. This is how we got that idiot Reagan. Part one of this will air tonight at 12:30 a.m. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. Also repeated on Tuesday at 9 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (2) The Carters — A Conversation: Looking Back. Repeated from last week. The first half of a 2002 Gwen Ifill interview with Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn. The topic is the couple’s personal and political history. (Until 11 p.m.)

12:30 a.m. (2) The American Experience: Jimmy Carter: Jimmy Who? part one. Repeated from last week. How JC rose from a truly obscure born-again Georgia farmer and politician to win the Democratic nomination for president. (Until 2 a.m.)

5:30 a.m. (2) The Carters — A Conversation: Looking Forward. An odd first-run time slot for the conclusion of Gwen Ifill’s interview with Carter. This one gets his comments on terrorism, the Middle East, AIDS, and mental health. (And it was taped in October of ’02, before we blundered our troops into Iraq.) To be repeated at more watchable times, such as Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. and 2 a.m. (Until 6 a.m.)

TUESDAY 15

8:00 (2) Nova: Who Killed the Red Baron? Okay, the sheriff . . . yes; the deputy, perhaps . . . but definitely not Manfred von Richthofen, the World War I German dog-fight ace whose demise over the River Somme has been a matter of controversy for almost a century. To be repeated tonight at 3 and 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 4 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:30 (6) Possible Basketball. The Los Angeles Lakers versus the Detroit Pistons in game #5 of the NBA championship series.

9:00 (44) P.O.V.: Flag Wars. A three-year portrait of a Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood in transition from working-class black to gentrifying gay. Not an especially pretty picture. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (44) Independent Lens: The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out. A documentary about Kristina Boerger, a lesbian who moved to Illinois, felt lonely, and started a lesbian chorus. (Until 11 p.m.)

2:00 a.m. (44) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: Hot Times in Alaska. Another early-morning debut. The loyal Bushies won’t like this one. But then again, they objected to The Day After Tomorrow, which was fiction. Global warming — believe in it or sweat it out — is for real, and the Alaskan environment holds the proof. To be repeated at 5 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 3 a.m.)

WEDNESDAY 16

8:00 (44) Three About Ancient Egypt. Or, Mummy Dearest. We begin with a Secrets of the Pharaohs exposé on the Tut family curses. Then, at 9 p.m., it’s Tales from the Tomb, by which tomb they mean the one numbered KV-5, where throughout the 1990s archæologist Kent Weeks re-created the era of Ramses 2. And finally at 10 p.m., it’s hands-on fun time with Unwrapping the Mummy, a lesson in the lessons that scientists learned from the remains of a Luxor noblewoman named Asru. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:30 (2) Great Performances: Keeping Score: MTT on Music (W.T.). All that alphabet stuff decoded: "MTT" stands for San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas; "W.T." could mean anything from Worthy Tradition to Wrestling Tournament — it remains unexplained in the show’s press materials. This show follows MTT as he prepares the SFS to perform PIT’s Fourth Symphony. (That’s Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.) To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 1 a.m. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:30 (2) Great Performances: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in Performance. The SFS follows through on what it learned at 8:30 p.m. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 2 a.m. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Driven To Play: The North American Rock Guitar Competition. A behind-the-scenes look at the finalists in 2003’s competition at the University of Buffalo as they prepare to do their American Idol thing. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 17

7:30 (2) Basic Black: An Interview with Antwone Fisher. Host Darren Duarte talks with the subject of Denzel Washington’s 2002 movie about a violent Navy recruit who confronts his abusive childhood. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Frontline: The Plea. If the jury system is the strength of American justice, plea bargaining is the work-around that subverts it. At least, that’s what some legal experts contend, since 95 percent of all cases never see a jury. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

8:30 (5) Possible Basketball. The Los Angeles Lakers versus the Detroit Pistons in game #6 of the NBA championship series.

10:30 (2) Frontline: Burden of Innocence. With all this prisoner exoneration going on, it’s time to ask what happens to the victims of bad justice when they re-enter society — usually without any money. (Until 11:30 p.m.)