BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 24

7:00 (12) Basketball. Two NCAA "Sweet 16" tournament games: Illinois versus Wisconsin-Milwaukee and then Texas Tech versus West Virginia. Or maybe Louisville versus Washington followed by Arizona versus Oklahoma State. Or maybe they’ll cut back and forth, or drop in windows. Can’t miss a single moment. (Until midnight.)

7:30 (44) Basic Black: Prostate Cancer: The Enemy Within. A panel of experts discuss prostate cancer, which, thanks to ßaws in the health-care system, kills more than twice as many black males as all males. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Dirty War. An HBO Films drama about a hypothetical "dirty bomb" attack on central London. Followed by a panel discussion of how a similar terrorist attack might play out in an American city. To be repeated tonight at 2 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 25

7:00 (12) Basketball. Two more NCAA "Sweet 16" games: North Carolina State versus Wisconsin followed by Kentucky versus Utah, or maybe Duke versus Michigan State followed by North Carolina versus Villanova. (Until midnight.)

8:00 (44) Patsy Cline: The Lady Behind the Legend. Photos, old movies, concert clips, and interviews with friends and family add up to this portrait of country music’s eternal First Lady, who applied her unmatchable voice to dozens of crossover hits before dying in a Piper Comanche crash in 1963, just 30 years old. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Loretta Lynn in Concert. The coal miner’s daughter pays tribute to her best friend, Patsy Cline (see above), and warns men everywhere not to "come home a-drinkin’ with lovin’ on your mind." A 1978 concert taped at the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, Alberta. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 9:45 p.m.)

9:45 (44) In Concert Classics Featuring Dionne Warwick. Another vintage concert from Canada. This one features the favorite diva of Burt Bachrach and Hal David, Dionne Warwick, in 1977. To be repeated tonight at 2:15 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

10:30 (44) Dusty SpringÞeld: Reßections. Pet Clark and B.J. Thomas host 16 classic SpringÞeld performances, including the white-soul classic "Son of a Preacher Man" and the strident Italian–born "You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me." To be repeated tonight at 3 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

SATURDAY 26

Noon (44) Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? Repeated from last week. A complex study of the man hired to murder JFK — or at least take the blame for it. To be repeated on Sunday at noon, and at 5 p.m. on Channel 2, and on Monday at 1 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 3 p.m.)

3:00 (44) The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo. Repeated from last week. A bio-doc of the famous Mexican painter, who lived a large and flamboyant public life despite illness (polio) and pain (a bone-crushing bus accident). To be repeated on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. on Channel 2. (Until 4:30 p.m.)

4:30 (12) Basketball. The Þrst two NCAA quarterÞnal games. (Until 9 p.m.)

6:00 (44) That’s Entertainment III (movie). Repeated from last month. You’d Þgure that after That’s Entertainment I and II, they wouldn’t have much left except for outtakes and bloopers, and that appears to be the case. If we’re lucky, those will include Audrey Hepburn and Jeremy Brett (he was Freddy) doing their own singing in My Fair Lady. Gene Kelly, June Allyson, and Cyd Charisse are among the hosts. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (6) Wonderful World of Disney: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. This is a six-part Disney production (without Michael Landon) meant to follow the Ingalls family’s adventures in Manifest Destiny as chronicled in the third book of the popular all-American pioneer series, which brings the family to Kansas. Starring Cameron Bancroft and Erin Cottrell as Charles and Caroline, and Kyle Chavarria and Danielle Ryan Chuchran as sisters Laura and Mary. (Until 10 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Murder Ahoy (movie). Repeated from last month. Margaret Rutherford as Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple solves a murder on a British naval-cadet training ship that’s being used to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents. From 1964; George Pollock directs. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:30 (44) El Dorado (movie). Howard Hawks’s 1966 remake of his own 1959 Rio Bravo. Howard decided he should have cast Rio Bravo with real actors instead of singers, so he substituted Robert Mitchum for Dean Martin and James Caan for Rick Nelson and made a perfectly good Þlm that still wasn’t a patch on the original. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 27

1:30 (6) Basketball. The Houston Rockets versus the San Antonio Spurs.

2:30 (12) Basketball. The other two NCAA quarterÞnal games. (Until 7 p.m.)

4:00 (44) Mystery! The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries: Death at the Opera. Repeated from last week. Diana Rigg stars as Mrs. Bradley, a 1920s woman who solves mysteries (did women like this ever actually exist?) with the help of her Rolls driver, George. In this, Bradley returns to her Þnishing school to expose its dark underbelly when a teacher is killed during a student production of The Mikado (which apparently counts as an opera — at least in England). (Until 5 p.m.)

5:00 (44) Mystery! The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries: The Rising of the Moon. Repeated from last week. When someone is slashed to death at the circus, suspicion falls on Castries the Knife Thrower. Diana Rigg, as the murder-investigating Mrs. Bradley, steps in as blame shifts to Archie the Clown. (Until 6 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nature: Ireland. The focus is on wildlife, and they don’t mean the Wee People. A look beyond the green to the complex coastal geography of the isle, plus creatures great and (mostly) small from falcons to pufÞns to salmon to otters to stoats and badgers. To be repeated tonight at midnight on Channels 2 and 44, and at 3 a.m. on Channel 44, and on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: The Ponder Heart. This "comedy" about a rich and generous man whose love for a hillbilly gal provokes everything from theft to murder is adapted from the Eudora Welty story and stars Peter MacNicol and JoBeth Williams. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m., and on Monday at 4 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Independent Lens: Sisters of ’77. Before the enemy took over, good stuff used to happen. In 1977, a bipartisan/multi-racial collection of culturally inßuential and aware people gathered at the federally funded National Women’s Conference in Houston to sort out ways to end gender discrimination in America. Lady Bird Johnson was there. So was Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter. Not to mention Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Ann Richards, Coretta Scott King, and Barbara Jordan. This Þlm by Cynthia Saltzman Mondell and Allen Mondell recounts the earthshaking events of that weekend. (And on the government’s dime, no less; ah, what might have been if not for Reagan.) (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Independent Lens: Sunset Story. A Þlm about Irja Lloyd and Lucille Alpert (ages 81 and 95 respectively), friends living at a progressive old-age home in LA called Sunset Hall. Unlike most of their Sunset neighbors, Irja and Lucille are lucid, active, and politically aware. All of which makes you feel good until Lucille is diagnosed with terminal cancer. This showed in town at the Brattle Theatre last week; Gerald Peary’s review appeared in his "Film Culture" column in the March 18 Phoenix. (Until 11 p.m.)

11:00 (44) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Trey Anastasio. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY 28

9:00 (2) American Experience: Emma Goldman. Everyone from Blair Brown to Tony Kushner to E.L. Doctorow to several noted historians contribute to this proÞle of Red Emma Goldman, anarchist queen of the early 20th century. But don’t let her nickname or the fact that the US deported her to Russia give you the wrong idea. Goldman championed labor, women, and peace when big business, male chauvinists, and warmakers were in charge. And the woman knew how to struggle. Her tombstone, near those of the Haymarket Martyrs in Waldheim Cemetery (the non-English-speaking division of Forest Home Cemetery) in Chicago, reads, "Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to Liberty." To be repeated tonight at 1 and 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44, and on Tuesday at 3 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Mystery! The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries: Laurels Are Poison. Bradley (Diana Rigg) steps in when her old friend’s cook and gardener are both poisoned. So difÞcult to get help any more. To be repeated on Tuesday at 1 p.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Mystery! The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries: The Worsted Viper. Bradley investigates a ritual murder with a familiar ring — and a smuggling ring, it turns out. To be repeated on Tuesday at 2 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 29

8:00 (2) Nova: Wave That Shook the World. Everything you need to know about the December tsunami that devastated the Indian Ocean region — how these waves happen and why this one was so destructive. To be repeated on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Ken Burns American Stories: Shadow Ball. The pretty-good edition of Ken Burns’s ultimately tedious baseball documentary covers the Great Depression, the fall of Ruth, the rise of Williams and DiMaggio, and the parallel world of Negro League ball. To be repeated tonight at 1:30 a.m. on Channel 2, and on Wednesday at 1 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Krakatoa. An in-depth proÞle of the August 27, 1883, eruption in the Sundra strait between Java and Sumatra and the subsequent tidal waves that changed the world’s weather. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 30

8:00 (44) Ken Burns American Stories: The National Pastime. The 1941 season (DiMaggio hits in 56 straight; Williams hits .400) and the less exciting World War II years. To be repeated tonight at 1:30 a.m. on Channel 2, and on Thursday at 1 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

THURSDAY 31

7:30 (44) Basic Black: Conversation with Howard Bryant. The Boston sportswriter discusses his book Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Ken Burns American Stories: The Capital of Baseball. Celebrating the days when New York ruled the diamond. To be repeated tonight at 1:30 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Live from Lincoln Center: Stephen Sondheim’s "Passion." Love gets all twisted up in this semi-staged production of the 2003 work based on the Ettore Scola Þlm Passion d’amore. With Audra McDonald, Patti Lupone, and Michael Cerveris. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 44, and at 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 11 p.m.)