BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 4

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Cathy Hughes. Hughes, owner of Radio One, the world’s largest black-owned broadcasting company, talks about her rise from single teenage mother to corporate success. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) American Masters: Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, and the Blacklist — None Without Sin. Elia Kazan was a great Hollywood director (On the Waterfront, Gentleman’s Agreement), but he was also an HUAC rat who sold out his comrades to the McCarthy mob in 1952. This serious and disturbing documentary explores Kazan’s relationship with the people he betrayed — specifically one-time good-buddy playwright Arthur Miller. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 5

8:00 (44) Nova: Volcano’s Deadly Warning. How do you know when a volcano is about to erupt? You believe the experts. But in 1993, one expert led a team of researchers right into the heart of a deadly spew in Colombia. A look at that fatal miscalculation. To be repeated on Saturday at 2 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

SATURDAY 6

Noon (6) Football. BC versus Rutgers.

3:30 (12) Football. Notre Dame versus Tennessee.

3:30 (6) Football. Minnesota versus Wisconsin or Oklahoma versus Texas A&M.

7:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Talking Heads: The Hand of God. Repeated from last week. Eileen Atkins delivers a 40-minute Alan Bennett monologue as a greedy antiques dealer who stumbles into a relationship with a dying woman who has a house full of priceless artifacts. Following that, Bennett himself comes on and talks about his growing up in post-war England. To be repeated on Sunday at 5 p.m. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (10) Men in Black (movie). Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith drag an almost lovable buddy comedy out of a seemingly directionless script about a space-alien undercover TPF. (Until 10 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Innocents (movie). British director Jack Clayton’s 1961 adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw stars Deborah Kerr as the haunted nanny, Peter Wyngarde as Peter Quint, and Michael Redgrave as the Uncle. Truman Capote had a hand in the script. (Until 10 p.m.)

11:00 (2) Soundstage. Featuring the never-especially-exciting music of Fleetwood Mac. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 7

1:00 (12) Football. The New York Jets versus the Buffalo Bills.

1:00 (64) Football. The Philadelphia Eagles versus the Pittsburgh Steelers.

2:00 (10) The NYC Marathon. What, us worry? We have a better baseball team and a better marathon. (Until 3 p.m.)

4:00 (12) Football. The Pats versus the St. Louis Rams.

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Henry VIII, part one. The eighth King Henry wanted a son, and in pursuit of same, he overturned both religion and state and killed a couple of women. This career has earned him the adjective "colorful." In tonight’s retelling, Hank dumps first wife (of 24 years!) Catherine of Aragon, their daughter, Mary, and Pope Clement VII in favor of Helena Bonham Carter, here disguised as Anne Boleyn, who delivers yet another daughter, Elizabeth, and ends up on Royal Death Row while his highness dallies with Jane Seymour (Emilia Fox). With Ray Winstone as Colorful King Henry, David Suchet as Cardinal "My Turn" Wolsey, and Charles Dance as the Duke of Buckingham. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (12) Dallas Reunion: Return to Southfork (movie). Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Independent Lens: Chiefs. A glance at growing up Native American in America through the eyes of high-school basketballer Beaver C’Bearing and his teammates. Filmed over two years of championship play, but it’s about more than basketball. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

11:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from John Fogerty. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY 8

9:00 (2) They Made America: Rebels and Revolutionaries. Most making-of-this-great-land-of-ours documentaries focus on populist images of slaves plucking cotton, hard-scrambling prairie pioneers, and our grandfather using Old World muscle to nail it all together. Others focus on the super pols and captains of industry who made it happen. This American Experience special looks at yet another breed: influential people who get lost in the shuffle of progress. Examples in hour one are Russell Simmons, who’s expanded America’s cultural boundaries through international hip-hop marketing, and Ted Turner, whose inflated ego resulted in a new media landscape to complain about. The second hour (those were "Rebels," as distinct from these "Revolutionaries") covers suicide John Fitch, who invented the steamboat for which promoter Robert Fulton got credit, and Lewis Tappan, New York businessman turned abolitionist crusader who founded Dun & Bradstreet. Okay, not the four names that would have leapt immediately to our mind, but the individual segments should be fascinating. Harold Evans narrates. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Football. The Minnesota Vikings versus the Indianapolis Colts.

9:00 (44) Skinwalkers. Wes Studi and Adam Beach star as Southwest US mystery novelist Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee in this desert-scaped yarn in which the prime suspect is suspected of being a shape-shifting killer witch. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 9

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Bus to the Burbs. METCO (that stands for Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, whatever that means) buses selected inner-city (Boston and Springfield) minority kids to suburban schools in hopes of forging a better tomorrow — which, for the most part it does. But even though 30 percent of Boston public-schoolers of color are Latino, their METCO population is less than 13 percent. This show follows Weston High senior Miguel Montesino through the cross-cultural experience. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: America’s Stone Age Explorers. Who got here first? (And do we really owe them anything?) Since the 1930s, archæologists and such have claimed that the first North Americans crossed a Bering Straits land bridge post–last Ice Age. Evidence? Sophisticated spearpoints dug up at Clovis, New Mexico. Nova reconsiders this notion by locating Clovis–like points everywhere from France to Western Pennsylvania to Texas and suggests that the original Yanks may have slogged here across the frozen Atlantic, 17,000 years before Columbus sailed. Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Northern Spain. Trekker Shilpa Mehta almost runs with the bulls at Pamplona and then walks with the saints at Santiago de Compostela. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: The Persuaders. Don’t get us started. A show about the cutting-edge techniques and disturbingly profound influence of marketing and public relations — a/k/a the Liars’ Professions. Having long ago abandoned the notion that people might actually be attracted to products that work and politicians who represent, the marketers and PR folks have reduced the whole selling game to devising sophisticated techniques for scamming the public. Worse yet, these mercenary hucksters have created an alternative reality that shapes the way the public sees politics and economics. Flacks validate a world view based on false values, exile the iconoclasts, and condemn the survivors to lives of myopic suffering. But no matter how "they" persist, war is not peace, and neither is freedom slavery. Resist. Please. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 3 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

2:30 a.m. (44) Independent Lens: Polka Time. Set up those VCRs (remember we’re on EST now), it’s Polka Time!!! E-yip! E-yip! A trip to otherwise forgotten Gibbon, Minnesota (44°32’N; 94°32’W; 0.9 square miles; population roughly 800), for the annual international Gibbon Polka Fest. Polka People are happy people — some would say happier than Pepper People. (Until 3 a.m.)

WEDNESDAY 10

8:00 (2) Regency House Party. Another marriage of historic re-creation and reality TV. This one has 10 moderns living out a nine-week house party for singles in the Regency-era (1811–’20) style established by spendthrift royal fop King George IV. The Bachelor meets 1900 House. Some concept! To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

THURSDAY 11

7:30 (2) Basic Black: A Conversation with Spike Lee. No details provided, but Spike’s always in interesting interview subject. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) The Six Wives of Henry VIII: Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Dovetailing with the new MT is this repeat of the documentary series on Colorful Ol’ Henry’s reign from the viewpoint of his marital victims. (Until 11 p.m.)

The 525th line. It’s "Whenever We Feel Like It/Not Annual or Anything Awards" time. First off, the "Persistently Illogical Commercial Award" goes to the people at Pet-Meds, which is some sort of mail-order veterinary-supply company; their infuriating lack of common sense is exceeded only by the transparency of their pitch. It goes something like, Question: "What do you do to get your pet’s medicines?" Answer: "Oh, shit, well, I have to drag the damn dog into the car and then I have to drive, and then I sit in traffic, and then there’s the intolerable hassle of getting the dog through the door of the vet’s office, and then I have to pay them. Jeez, by the time I get home, I’m a wreck." As Bill Maher would say, okay . . . what could the woman possibly do to make her life easier? How about leaving the golden retriever with her roommate — you know, the roommate who buys her pet’s medicine by mail. She’s sitting right there with lots of time on her hands bragging about how much better her way is. This ad has been in circulation for several years, so you’d think it must be convincing people of something. All it convinces us is that some people are too stupid to own dogs.

Our "Stunt Night at the al-Qaeda Corral Award" goes to the (suspected GOP) prankster who sent around the tape of some college kid doing a bad Ali G imitation threatening additional terrorism on US soil. Ham-handed authentic tapes from terrorist organizations are embarrassing enough, but watching the media take this thing seriously was unbearable. If the home video truly represents al-Qaeda’s new innovative youth-oriented approach to geopolitical intimidation, then the enemy needs a better spin consultant. Coming to light when it did, all the tape lacked was the tag line, "I’m George W. Bush, and I approved this message."

Our "Speaking of Which, Best Political Spot Ever Award" goes to Barney Frank, who closed his infrequently aired campaign ad with the tag "I’m Barney Frank. I authorized this message. Who else would?" That’s what the world needs — fewer Republicans; more perspective.