BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 1

Noon (10) Tennis. The ladies’ semifinals from Wimbledon. (Until 5 p.m.)

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles. Timely because Melvin’s son, Mario, recently released Baadasssss!, a movie about the making of Melvin’s 1971 feature Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Although this interview may predate that. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Wide Angle: Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber. This series, hosted by the BBC’s Mishal Husain, tries to get post–September 11 Americans to take a "wider view" of the world. Good luck with that. Anyway, tonight’s show features personal interviews from Israeli jails, with suicide bombers (failed), a bomb builder, and a suicide recruiter all revealing their religious fanaticism and prejudices as well as their personal reasons for wanting to die for Islam. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 2 and 4 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

5:00 a.m. (44) Soundstage: Sheryl Crow, part two. The conclusion of the Crow concert. (Until 6 a.m.)

11:35 (10) Wimbledon Update. (Until 11:50 p.m.)

FRIDAY 2

Noon (10) Tennis. The gentlemen’s semifinals from Wimbledon. (Until 5 p.m.)

5:00 (44) On Stage at the White House: The Governors’ Dinner. A semi-documentary/semi-concert program watching the Bushes host all 50 US governors. The documentary part shows us how they pick the food and set the tables and all that. The concert part features Natalie Cole. (Until 6 p.m.)

11:35 (10) Wimbledon Update. (Until 12:05 a.m.)

SATURDAY 3

9:00 a.m. (10) Tennis. The ladies’ final from Wimbledon. (Until 2 p.m.)

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

6:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: Cora Unashamed. Regina Taylor stars in this TV adaptation of Langston Hughes’s story of an African-American woman in Iowa at the turn of the century confronting abortion, isolation, death, and worse. (Until 8 p.m.)

6:00 (44) The American Experience: Murder at Harvard. Repeated from last week. An uncharacteristically dull (for an American Experience edition) retelling of the famous Thanksgiving-weekend 1849 murder of Dr. George Parkman, a wealthy Boston physician whose remains were later discovered in a Harvard Med School privy by a janitor. Dr. John Webster (in whose lab the privy resided) was convicted and hanged, but the puzzlement of why he did it has survived. (Until 7 p.m.)

8:00 (2) The American Experience: Woodrow Wilson: A Passionate Man and The Redemption of the World. Woodrow was considered somewhat conservative in his day, but despite that, he managed to give us the Federal Reserve Act, the graduated income tax, and the Federal Trade Commission. He would have given us the League of Nations, too, but then, as now, too many Americans couldn’t see past their driveways. Linda Hunt narrates. To be repeated on Sunday at 4 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (12) The Patriot (movie). The Mel Gibson movie about the start of the American Revolution that’s been running virtually non-stop on cable for several years. Mel decides to fight the Brits when they kill his son. It’s always personal with Mel, isn’t it? Heath Ledger co-stars. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (10) The General’s Daughter (movie). John Travolta and Madeleine Stowe co-star in this patriotic story of rape, murder, and cover-ups at West Point. (Until 10 p.m.)

11:00 (2) Soundstage: Sheryl Crow, part two. It’s taken Sheryl the better part of three weeks to get the concert finished. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 4

9:00 a.m. (10) Tennis. The gentlemen’s final from Wimbledon. (Until 2 p.m.)

3:28 (44) Fiesta in the Sky. That damn hot-air-ballooning documentary again. Would a hot-air balloon work at the North Pole? To be repeated — relentlessly. (Until 3:55 p.m.)

7:00 (6) Meredith Willson’s The Music Man (movie). A sick and unnecessary remake of the boys’-band musical. The biggest mistake of all (besides not comprehending the music) was casting Matthew Broderick as Harold Hill. Avoid this at all costs. (Until 10 p.m.)

7:55 (44) My Darling Clementine (movie). John Ford directed this classic 1946 telling of the O.K. Corral gunfight yarn. Henry Fonda does a cool Wyatt Earp opposite Linda Darnell (as a woman named Chihuahua) and Cathy Downs (as the title’s darling). Alas, somebody accidentally cast Victor Mature as Doc Holliday. Walter Brennan more than makes up for that as a suitably cranky Clanton patriarch. (Until 9:35 p.m.)

8:00 (2) A Capitol Fourth. Thousands of Americans submit themselves to humiliating strip searches so they can sit in front of the Capitol building and listen to Vince Gill and Amy Grant sing with the National Symphony Orchestra. Barry Bostwick hosts. Plus cannons and fireworks and the always appropriate performing of the 1812 Overture. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:35 (44) Captain Horatio Hornblower (movie). Director Raoul Walsh’s 1951 Hornblower film with Gregory Peck as the captain and Virginia Mayo as Lady Barbara Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s fair sister. Somehow Horatio and Babs hook up in Central America, where the British navy has sailed to foment a revolution to distract the French from the Napoleonic War. (Until 11:33 p.m.)

10:00 (6) An American Celebration at Ford’s Theatre. Kelsey Grammer hosts; First Lady Bush chairs. Performers include Patti LaBelle, Gary Sinise, Jessica Simpson, and Destiny’s Child. (Until 10 p.m.)

11:33 (44) and 5:30 a.m. (2) Fiesta in the Sky. That damn hot-air-ballooning documentary again. Once upon a time in a tiny town in northwest Ontario, there was born a magic goat who, his keeper discovered, could puff himself up and float into the clouds. Although Nipsy always came home for dinner, as the years wore on, he began spending more and more time in the air. Unfortunately, one duck season, he was winged by a hunter and dragged through a swamp by a golden retriever. He survived, but after that, he couldn’t get more than four feet off the ground. (Until midnight and 6 a.m.)

MONDAY 5

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: The Czech Republic and Southern Poland. Trekker Justine Shapiro tours Prague Castle, rides in a skoda to a Czech rave, takes the train to Poland, checks out the Black Madonna and Kraków, pays her respects at Auschwitz, and samples rural (Polish) life. To be repeated on Channel 2 on Wednesday at 1 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) History Detectives: LCT103 — WW2 Land Craft/The Abolitionist Flag/Mail Order Brides. The puzzles for today involve a piece of dredging equipment in Wisconsin that may have floated troops to France on D-Day; an old sheet that may actually be a flag used in abolitionist demonstrations; and four pictures of women taken in Chicago in the 1890s that may be ads for mail-order brides. To be repeated tonight at 2 and 4 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 1 and 4 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) The American Experience: Mount Rushmore. As if having four giant presidential heads (George, Tom, Abe, and Teddy) carved into the side of a mountain in the middle of North Nowhere, America, hadn’t been odd enough, putting John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, a temperamental son of a Mormon bigamist, in charge of the carving made things even more peculiar. To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 6

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Soraya. In the mid 1990s, Colombian singer-songwriter Soraya was heading to the top of the Latin and crossover charts. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she’s since devoted her energies to advocating for a cure. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Volcano Above the Clouds. Kilimanjaro is the world’s highest volcano, and the ice on top is melting. Global warming? Quite possibly. Something more immediate, like what happened in 1980 to Washington State’s Mt. Saint Helens? Hmmm. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Diet Wars. It seems Americans spend $40 billion a year on diet stuff. And still the country is full of glumping fat people. A look at the controversies about weight and health and how to lose one without the other. To be repeated tonight at 2 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Last Call: Dreams, Main Street, and Search for Community. Once upon a time, Nantucket catered to Quakers and whalers. Then it was a quaint and quiet community. Now it’s mostly for really rich people. This film looks at the transformation through the eyes of some of the people who caused that and some who’ve suffered by it. The locus for all this is the "legendary" Bosun’s Locker, a bar that represented the old and good. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers: Losing It. More about weight and its not-so-tragic loss. Alda explores the biology of weight and follows 12 volunteer subjects as they try various means (from fad diets to gastric-bypass surgery) of shedding the surplus. To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) P.O.V.: War Feels like War. It’s no secret that the news America got during the invasion of Iraq was bogus and sanitized. This film covers those journalists who shunned official protection and trailed after the coalition forces to see what damage they’d really done to innocent civilians. To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 7

9:00 (2) The American Experience: The Kennedys: The Father. The first installment of a major documentary series on the Kennedy family. This edition tells papa Joseph P. Kennedy’s story as he moves and shakes through Wall Street, Hollywood, Gloria Swanson, and the Roosevelt administration to position his son to become the US’s first Catholic president. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Lost Library of Herculaneum. Back in the year 79, the Roman city of Herculaneum was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and with it a library of papyrus scrolls, which were unearthed in 1752. Scientists have been trying to unroll and read them ever since. A look at modern methods that could help the effort, and at rumors that another library may still be under the ashes. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Nova: Infinite Secrets. Another rare-book documentary, this one about Archimedes’s greatest work (a palimpsest, to be technical) on math, the last copy of which was erased by some recycling monk eight centuries ago. Now, pages have been found and are being recovered and translated at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 8

9:00 (2) Wide Angle: The Russian Newspaper Murders. In the old days, the state ran (and protected) the Russian press. Today, independent journalists are allowed to practice, but when the mob or the government murders one, nobody bothers to investigate. Mishal Husain hosts. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m., and on Channel 44 at 2 and 4 a.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

5:00 a.m. (44) Soundstage. Music from Ronald Isley and Burt Bacharach. (Until 6 a.m.)