BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 29

9:00 (6, 10, 12) Presidential Debate 2004. That would be John Kerry and that inarticulate idiot who’s been pretending to be our president. Please let him hang himself, John. Then when he does, start calling him names and blaming him for everything that’s wrong in America. (Until 9 p.m.)

4:00 a.m. (44) Puerto Rico Jazzfest 2003. Featuring performances by William Cepeda, Paquito D’Rivera, Makoto Ozone, Claudia Acuña, and Chick Corea, several of whom are associated with the Berklee College of Music. To be repeated on Saturday at 2 a.m., and at 5 a.m. on Channel 2 (Until 5 a.m.)

5:00 a.m. (44) Soundstage. Featuring 35th-anniversary music from Yes. (Until 6 a.m.)

FRIDAY 30

8:00 (44) Nova: Origins: "Earth Is Born" and "How Life Began." Repeated from last week. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson from the Hayden Planetarium and Museum of Natural History in New York guides us on a multi-part tour of the cosmos back in the day and now. Part one involves a lot of booming and crashing and colliding and big-banging; the second hour explains how some of the dust managed to become organic. To be repeated on Saturday at midnight on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Nova: Origins: "Where Are the Aliens?" and "Back to the Beginning." Repeated from last week. The story of everything that ever was and ever will be continues with a look at the search for intelligent life in the universe. Besides us, that is, and excluding certain individuals — Chuck Norris, Rush Limbaugh, and anybody named Bush. Included in this hour are the recent triumphs of finding planets outside our solar system and figuring out whether any of them could support life (as we know it or not). Finally, we investigate the Big Bang, using an echo from deep space as our evidence. To be repeated on Saturday at 1:56 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until midnight.)

SATURDAY 1

Noon (12) Football. Auburn versus Tennessee, or Arkansas versus Florida.

1:00 (64) Baseball. It’s the last week of the regular season, so expect to see some contest bearing on the playoff picture.

2:30 (6) Football. Purdue versus Notre Dame.

3:30 (12) Football. LSU versus Georgia.

3:30 (6) Football. Miami versus Georgia Tech.

7:30 (44) André Rieu: Live in Tuscany. You call that living? (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Pollyanna. A depressed Aunt Polly, a morose millionaire, a festering shut-in, and a gloom-and-doomed doctor have their lives of quiet desperation disrupted by a sunny little girl who insists on finding something good in everything. Don’t you just want to slap her? Georgina Terry (age 11) stars as the orphan prophet of cheer in this new adaptation of Eleanor Hodgman Porter’s 1913 classic. With Amanda Burton and Kenneth Cranham. To be repeated on Sunday at 7 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m., we think, though we’ve hit another "lost program slot" in the WGBH schedule, and if this is truly longer than expected, it might run until midnight.)

SUNDAY 2

1:00 (12) Football. The Pats versus the Buffalo Bills.

4:00 (12) Football. The New York Jets versus the Miami Dolphins.

4:00 (64) Football. The Atlanta Falcons versus the Carolina Panthers.

9:00 (2) Mystery: Death in Holy Orders, part one. Martin Shaw steps in (replacing Roy Marsden) as Scotland Yard commander Adam Dalgliesh in this latest adaptation of a novel by P.D. James. This killer yarn is set at a seminary, St. Anselm’s, which is named for the author of the ever-popular ontological proof of the existence of God. A student is found dead; his father insists it wasn’t an accident. Enter Dalgliesh, whose arrival prompts a bloodier murder and reveals a desperate squabble over shutting down the college. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Monday at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (12) Suburban Madness (movie). Sela Ward and Elizabeth Pena star in a BIFTVM (based-in-fact TV-movie) about Mrs. Clara Harris, whose response to an unfaithful orthodontist husband was to run over him thrice with her Mercedes. It happened in Texas, of course, and this film shares its name with a 2002 cover story in the Texas Monthly. (Harris was convicted of murder, but along the way she became something of a cause célèbre among people who would certainly have too much sense to champion a man who beat his cheating wife. Conclusion: we live in an odd society.) (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Desperate Housewives. Doing its part for Domestic Negativity Sunday, ABC gives us the series opener of this suburban soaper seen from the point of view of a suicide. Meant to be funny, we’re told. Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, and Marcia Cross star. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (44) P.O.V.: The Lost Boys of Sudan. A film following two refugees from Sudan’s decades-long civil war who though safely relocated to the US confront grim memories and culture clashes. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:00 (6) Boston Legal. The unpleasantness continues with the opener of this series about unlikable lawyers played by unlikable actors (James Spader and William Shatner). (Until 11 p.m.)

MONDAY 3

9:00 (2) The American Experience: "RFK: The Garish Sun" and "RFK: The Awful Grace of God." A two-part American Experience production delving into the truly troubled life of Robert Kennedy. The first hour looks at RFK’s childhood, his role in the social-scrambling Kennedy clan, and how that changed when his older brother Joe was killed, in 1944, and Bobby became brother John’s support system into the White House. The second hour examines the post-JFK-assassination period, when Bobby got religion and, from the right’s point of view, became the most dangerous man in America. The forces of evil had to stop him, and they did, in 1968. But it’s an inspiring story, if only for what might have been. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Tuesday at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Football. The Kansas City Chiefs versus the Baltimore Ravens.

9:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Oliver Twist, part one. Ah jeez, give the kid some porridge. A three-part story with a Twist, adapted for TV by Alan Bleasdale. Sam Smith plays Oliver, orphan among thieves. With Robert Lindsay as Fagin, Michael Kitchen as Mr. Brownlow, David Ross as Bumble, and Julie Walters as Mrs. Mann. Not a bad version, as these things go. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 4

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Francisco Goldman. Boston-born novelist Goldman discusses his latest book, The Divine Husband. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (64) Baseball. Divisional playoff action.

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Peru. Trekker Neil Gibson embraces the great outdoors from the Peruvian mountains to the Amazon jungle. Plus, he checks out some ancient ruins and Lake Titicaca and celebrates the potato harvest and the solstice. Neil’s got lots of gusto, but he doesn’t have a much fun as, say, Trekker Ian. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 Debates 2004: The Veeps Mouth Off. Gwen Ifill moderates this face-off in Cleveland between Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards and would-be fascist despot and current VP Dick Cheney. Seems to us the best tactic for JE would be to steer the conversation around to conflicts of interest and unwarranted secrecy, but what do we know? Followed by critiques and commentary. (Note: other networks may catch up to this.) (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 5

8:00 (2) American Masters: Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer. An oft-aired biography of everyman-hoofer Kelly that explores his choreography and his demanding personality. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:30 (2) PBS Hollywood Presents: Cop Shop. This duet of cop dramas is set on New York’s Upper West Side, but the show is on PBS and not in Jerry Bruckheimer land or out there with the HBO "groundbreakers." Well, it is related to those worlds, in that these two dramas about the personal lives of cops were thought up by David Black, who’s written for Law & Order, CSI: Miami, and Hill Street Blues. But these scripts put realism before drama — i.e., nobody shoots anybody and the crimes aren’t outrageous. The cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Blair Brown, Rosie Perez, Jay Thomas, and Rita Moreno. The first script, "Fear," involves a community terrified by a series of rapes; the second, "Blind Date," looks inside a local brothel. "Fear" was filmed in real time (to simulate a live-TV broadcast); "Blind Date" required some reshooting and editing. Joyce Millman’s review is on page TK. To be repeated tonight at 2:30 and 4 a.m., and at 3 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 6

8:00 (64) Baseball. More divisional playoff action.

9:00 (2) Wide Angle: The Saudi Question. Twenty percent of the world’s oil is controlled by a rich but thoroughly non-democratic country. This show looks deep inside the Saudi government and the reform movement that threatens its (profitable) fundamentalist culture. To be repeated tonight at 5 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Life As We Know It. Give this season opener a chance — it was created by the producers who gave us the short-lived Freaks and Geeks, and it’s based on British writer Melvin Burgess’s coming-of-age novel Doing It. Might be a cut above. (Until 10 p.m.)

The 525th line. Good wishes to the Hewlett-Packard company, maker of fine things electronic, for reviving the Kinks’ "Picture Book" in its latest ads for . . . well, they seem to be selling something that has to do with digital photography. We’re sure the product is fine, but it’s the choice of signature song that fascinates us. "Picture Book," a bittersweet self-conscious mock-nostalgic commentary on the pacifying role of personal memories (via family photograph albums) in old age’s confrontation with mortality, seethes with two-edged irony. It’s one of those deceptively simple Kinks lyrics that ruefully explores a dark universality in a very playful fashion. Great song, very hip. But did the ad-agency exec who green-lighted the appropriation of this now obscure pop tune get that, or did he/she never vet the words past the title phrase? After all, a lyric that describes ancient snapshots as pictures of "people with each other to prove they loved each other a long time ago" is pretty obviously deeper than the "na-na/scooby-doo" format that delivers the message. Our bet is that the HP folks either picked the song ingenuously ("Hey, this happy-sounding old song is about photographs! Let’s use it!") or, if they understood it, they assumed that the audience wouldn’t have the context to appreciate the song’s original thrust. (How many active Kinks fans are there out there these days?) Either way, the ads sidestep the opportunity for potential HP customers unfamiliar with the entire lyric to read anything deeper into it by not including subsequent-verse picture-book descriptions like "your mama and your papa and fat old Uncle Charlie out cruising with their friends" or "picture book: when you were just a baby, those days when you were happy, a long time ago." Or perhaps Hewlett-Packard is just secretly cool. That’s a comforting possibility.