BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 13

8:00 (2) Queen Victoria’s Empire: Passage to India. India was the far corner of anybody’s world until steamships and British colonialism made the whole planet smaller. The invasion of goods, values, and Brits resulted in culture clashes, which Queen Vic solved by imposing direct rule. And the rich were so mean. (Until 9 p.m.)

10:00 (2) One Man’s Journey into the Great Solitude. No details provided. Could be anybody. Whoever it is, he will repeat his performance tonight at 5 a.m. on Channel 44. Alone . . . utterly alone. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Perfect Illusions: Eating Disorders and the Family. Following WGBX’s prime-time cooking line-up (Lidia’s Italian Kitchen and Jacques Pépin) is this profile of four women who developed eating disorders as teens. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 14

8:00 (44) Three Shows About Eruptions. With Pacific volcanoes and subsequent tsunamis fresh in everyone’s troubled minds, we have a trio of shows about those very forces of nature. At one-hour intervals, it’s Nature’s "Violent Hawaii," Nova’s "Volcano’s Deadly Warning," and Nova’s "Volcano Above the Clouds." (Until 11 p.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) The American Experience: Citizen King. Repeated from last week. According to Martin Luther King, 1963 was "the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children." Well, that never got very far, but the good intention of his "I have a dream" speech carried the American civil-rights leader through the last five years of his life as he tried to broaden his mission beyond race. (Until 3 a.m.)

3:00 a.m. (2) Nova: The Boldest Hoax. Repeated from last week. In 1912, everybody who was anybody was an Englishman, so it stood to reason that the Missing Link was a Brit as well. At least, that made it easier for the scientific community to accept the discovery of Sussex’s Piltdown Man by amateur digger Charles Dawson. Four decades later, the find was declared a hoax. This show investigates the elaborate suspicions about who fooled whom and how. (Until 4 a.m.)

SATURDAY 15

1:00 (12) Basketball. Syracuse versus Providence.

4:00 (6) State Farm US Figure Skating Championships. More tonight at 8 p.m. (Until 6 p.m.)

4:30 (12) Football. The New York Jets versus the Pittsburgh Steelers in AFC semifinal #1.

5:30 (44) The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (movie). Repeated from last week. Ingrid Bergman stars as a British servant determined to do missionary work in China in this earnest 1958 drama. There’s also a subplot about her Eurasian lover. With Robert Donat and Kurt Jürgens. (Until 8:10 p.m.)

6:30 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: He Knew He Was Right, part one. Repeated from last week. An Anthony Trollope novel adapted by the unstoppable Andrew Davies. In this, a man marries his heart’s desire only to have a false rumor of infidelity destroy his happiness. Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Palmer, Laura Fraser, and Oliver Dimsdale star. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (6) State Farm US Figure Skating Championships. Probably the men’s and the ladies’ finals. We’ve lost track: is Michelle Kwan still competing? (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (64) Football. The St. Louis Rams versus the Atlanta Falcons in NFC semifinal #1.

11:00 (2) Soundstage. Featuring music from Lisa Marie Presley and Peter Wolf. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 16

1:00 (64) Football. The Minnesota Vikings versus the Philadelphia Eagles in NFC semifinal #2.

1:30 (12) Basketball. Michigan State versus Wisconsin.

2:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: Wives and Daughters, parts one through four. That irrepressible Andrew Davies did the screenplay for this adaptation of 19th-century soap writer Elizabeth Gaskell’s unfinished gossipy small-town romance. Yes, that means Davies had to devise an ending. Justine Waddell and Francesca Annis star. It’s actually mostly about fathers and stepmothers. (Until 8 p.m.)

4:30 (12) Football. The Indianapolis Colts versus the New England Patriots in AFC semifinal #2.

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: He Knew He Was Right, part two. The conclusion, in which gooey-green jealousy wins the day — or loses it. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

11:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from the Polyphonic Spree and Ozomatli. A little high-concept music, please. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY 17

9:00 (2) Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, part one. Boy, this had better be the best documentary ever committed to film. Ken Burns’s latest foray into liberal guilt has been promoted relentlessly for the past several months. In fact, we’re willing to bet that the promo time has, by now, exceeded the running time of the two-part film. Hey, we’re not saying this saga of the first African-American world heavyweight champ isn’t likely to be wonderful; we’re just suspicious because it’s been oversold. And besides, the promos have been misleading, claiming the documentary is about the "greatest boxer you never heard of." Who hasn’t heard of Jack Johnson?! Granted, the one thing most people know about him (courtesy of a Leadbelly lyric) is wrong, but the guy managed to sustain fame for the better part of a century without Burns’s help. For the record, Jack Johnson was not denied passage on the Titanic (epic folklore irony though that may be). Truth is, in the confusion following the great ship’s going down, the coincidental death of a cricket star named Jack Johnston (who also was not on board) begat a rumor that America’s JJ had been on the doomed liner. British press . . . go figure. Anyway, Johnson, Texas son of former slaves, lived a flashy life and made people hate him by dating white women. Once he made it to heavyweight champ, the backlash became so great that the wide world of turn-of-the-century sports campaigned to find a "great white hope" to bring the title back to the palefaces. The 1970 film (from a Broadway play) The Great White Hope, with James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, is another reason Johnson is already famous. In any case, here’s hoping for the best from Burns, and — have mercy — may he make his point with the least amount of racial teeth gnashing. The story speaks for itself. To be concluded on Tuesday starting at 9 p.m. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44, and then every few hours throughout the week. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 18

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Cyro Baptista and Beat the Donkey. Seldom does the word polyphonic come up. Now we get it twice in one week, as that’s the prime description of Grammy–winning Latin percussionist Baptista’s 10-piece ensemble, whose instruments originate in countries ranging from Africa to Indonesia to Brazil. No animals were harmed in the production of this concert. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Supersonic Dream. That’s the old SST dream, which survivors of 1969’s maiden flight of the Concorde will recognize as standing for SuperSonic Transport — or "real fast airplane." A look at the short-lived and not terribly successful venture into SS passenger flight. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Ultimate India. A collaborative of Trekkers do the subcontinent. Trekker Megan stops trying on new hats long enough to eat spicy food; Trekker Holly gets too close to Indian sanitary systems; Trekker Andrew gets all bent out of shape with yoga; and Trekker Justine seeks and finds spiritual enlightenment in a warm hug. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, part two. The conclusion. To be repeated tonight at 4 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 19

9:00 (2) Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State: Surprising Beginnings and Orders and Initiatives. The first half of a four-part documentary about the world’s most premeditated mass murder. Linda Hunt narrates and Linda Ellerbee hosts. The first installment sets the stage for the Holocaust and explains that the gas chambers’ first victims were actually Russian POWs. The second hour covers the Final Solution summit at Wannsee and the mechanics of the Nazi genocide. In between the horrors of history, Ellerbee interviews theology prof Michael Berenbaum and creative-writing instructor Melvin Jules Bukiet about the world’s grudging acceptance of the Holocaust and Duke history professor Claudia Koonz and University of South Florida African–studies expert Edward Kissi about the build-up to genocide and how we can prevent it. Note: anyone into the Holocaust Denial Movement probably shouldn’t watch this. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m., and at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 20

10:00 a.m. (6, 10, 12) Black Thursday. Unless we do an immediate recount, that bastard idiot Bush will be sworn into an office he doesn’t deserve and didn’t win this morning. Why? Because American voters are only slightly brighter than hamburgers. Because John Kerry has slightly less charisma than flannel. Because Republicans are scum and they cheat. Because you people didn’t listen to us when you had a chance. And so we mark this desperate day with a quote from journalist/historian William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) about pre-war Germany: "I had thought that all men and women of the Western World valued personal freedom above all else in life. To my surprise, I found that few Germans seemed to mind that their individual liberties had been taken away. They seemed unconcerned that so much of their fine culture was being destroyed and replaced by a mindless barbarism. And they seemed strangely unaware how Hitler was tricking them." So there. (Until the revolution comes.)

8:00 (2) Queen Victoria’s Empire: The Moral Crusade. The crusade in question was the colonization of Africa — spurred by the exploits of Stanley and Livingstone and the debates of Disraeli and Gladstone. (Until 9 p.m.)