BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 14

9:00 (2) American Experience: Fidel Castro. Interviews with former Cuban government ofÞcials and even Uncle Fidel’s family members as well as academics and foreign-policy experts offer a refreshing overview of the man who exiled millions and liberated millions more. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m., and on Saturday at midnight. (Until 11 p.m.)

FRIDAY 15

9:00 (44) BattleÞeld Britain: Boudica’s Revolt. Repeated from last week. The Þrst-century AD Celtic queen who revolted against the Romans is an ever-popular subject; she even has her own statue outside Westminster. This "inventive new history series from the BBC uses computer imaging and battle re-enactments to explore centuries of British warfare." To be repeated on Sunday at 5 p.m., and on Tuesday at 10 p.m. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America? Well, there are social beneÞts: it’s a clean, well-lighted, affordable place for Billy Bob to take cousin Lurleen on a date. And there may be some short-term beneÞt to segregating our least-responsible/least-appealing shoppers, but beyond that, the Mart and places like it mostly serve to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, destroy local economies, and encourage sweat-shop labor practices overseas while denying Americans jobs. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) American Experience: The Great Transatlantic Cable. Repeated from last week. Before we had satellites, electronic communications had to be hard-wired. Running telegraph lines across the US was difÞcult enough; laying a cable under the Atlantic to Europe was far more daunting. The story of businessman Cyrus Field and his unexpectedly realistic vision. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 2, and on Saturday at 6 p.m. on Channel 2, and on Sunday at 5 p.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY 16

1:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Mongolia. Repeated from last week. Trekker Ian Wright eats mutton (Mongolia’s national dish) and enjoys the otherworldly vocal prowess of some throat singers. Other adventures include a horseback marmot hunt with nomads and an archery, wrestling, and horse-racing festival in the capital city, Ulaan Bataar. The Mongolian marmot? It’s a groundhog-like critter known to carry bubonic plague. While Ian and the Mongols are merrily running their Asian cousins to ground, the Canadian version, the Vancouver marmot, is endangered; you can learn more at www.marmots.org. A marmot is more like a badger than anything else we’re going to write about this week, so let us digress and recommend a visit to www.badgerbadgerbadger.com. (Just because some things have to be shared.) (Until 2 p.m.)

3:00 (44) Tom Jones (movie). Repeated from last week. This is the Oscar-winning 1963 adaptation of the bawdy Henry Fielding classic about the title character’s misspent 18th-century youth. With Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh GrifÞth, Edith Evans, Joan Greenwood, and Diane Cilento. Tony Richardson directed. (Until 5 p.m.)

5:00 (44) Roman Holiday (movie). Repeated from last week. Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for her portrayal of the princess from an unnamed European country who ßies the coop of her good-will tour to have a little fun in Rome with a better-than-you-might-expect Gregory Peck. William Wyler directed. From 1953. (Until 7 p.m.)

7:00 (2) Mystery!: Malice Aforethought, part two. Repeated from last week. Ben Miller stars as a country doctor who decides the solution to his marriage problems is murder. With Barbara Flynn and Megan Dodds. (Until 8 p.m.)

7:00 (44) 55 Days at Peking (movie). A Nicholas Ray Þlm about the siege of the International Compound during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. With an all-star cast: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, David Niven, Flora Robson, John Ireland, Harry Andrews. From 1963, when Beijing was still "Peking" on Occidental maps. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:00 (6) Wonderful World of Disney: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. Another installment of the six-hour 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. This could, of course, have been horrible, but Disney resisted the impulse to reinvent it as a rap musical — it sticks pretty close to the real story, and the actors aren’t Simonized to too blinding a gloss. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (6) The Fast and the Furious (movie). Of which a Phoenix critic{?} once wrote, "Scantily clad babes and road-hugging hot rods abound in this speed-racing crime drama. What’s missing is plausibility and character development." We could have written that, and we never saw the movie. Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Jordana Brewster. From 2001. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:30 (44) New York, New York (movie). From 1977. Martin Scorsese made this Þlm about musician Robert De Niro and lounge singer Liza Minnelli, who meet on the day WW2 ends and struggle to make it in the Big Apple. The source of that blaring title song. Keep in mind that when this was made, the real Apple, like most American cities of the era, was rotten and on the skids and needed a reputation make-over. (Until 1 a.m.)

SUNDAY 17

3:30 (6) Basketball. The Dallas Mavericks versus the Los Angeles Lakers.

7:00 (2) Newport Jazz Festival 1954-2004: The 50th Anniversary. A half-centennial look back at the legendary acts who graced the stage at Rhode Island’s Fort Adams State Park. Plus, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, and the Brian Blade Quartet pay special tribute to John Coltrane. To be repeated on Monday at 3 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 8 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Mystery!: Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage, part one. A new series with Geraldine McEwan stepping in for the late Joan Hickson as Agatha Christie’s sharp-eyed senior-sleuth in the "surprisingly homicidal village of St. Mary Mead." Here’s hoping McEwan lives up to the role immortalized by Margaret Rutherford and ably covered by Hickson. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 44, and at 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44, and on Monday at 1 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (12) James Patterson’s Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas (movie). Adapted from the bestselling novel about a woman who learns about her lover’s (presumably devastating) past from a diary his wife kept to be read by his son. With Johnathan Schaech, Christina Applegate (Schaech’s in-real-life wife), and Kathleen Rose Perkins. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Indie Select: Last Call: Dreams, Main Street, and Search for Community. A send-up for the long-defunct Bosun’s Locker, a colorful bar on Nantucket, as an example of what happens when new money stomps on traditional community. Until 10 p.m.

9:00 (10) Revelations (movie). Likely a repeat of the Þrst hour of this End of Days mini-series in which a scientist and a nun are all that stand between the Earth and its Maker. The lack of promo info beyond the Þrst installment suggests they’re editing this mess together as they go along to suit public reaction. We’re just worried about all the Red State morons who are going to mistake it for a documentary. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Indie Select: The Diary of Sacco and Vanzetti. After World War I, the Commie Menace seemed very real, and to stem the Red Tide, Massachusetts executed two immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Þsh peddler Bartolomeo Vanzetti, for murders they may have committed during a Braintree hold-up. Brookline Þlmmaker David Rothauser created this on-location docudrama using Vanzetti’s own words. (Until 11 p.m.)

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

MONDAY 18

9:00 (2) American Experience: The Massie Affair. A not-so-famous scandal revisited. In September 1931, Navy wife Thalia Fortescue Massie alleged that she had been gang-raped on a Hawaiian beach. Two Hawaiians, two Japanese men, and one Chinese man were tried and released, but the racial divide had been deÞned. When Massie’s husband sought his own justice, defendant Joseph Kahahawai was shot dead, and now the Massies were on trial. To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 44, and at 2 a.m. on Channel 2, and at 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44, and on Tuesday at 2 p.m. on Channel 44, and on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 10 p.m.)

TUESDAY 19

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Roberto Suro. A chat with the journalist who left the Washington Post to direct the Pew Hispanic Center. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Nova: Nova ScienceNow. Nightline’s Robert Krulwich hosts a rundown of cutting-edge science, including the cracking of the genetic code, hydrogen-powered Chevys, and the Þght against aging itself. Meanwhile, out in America, public schools are refusing to teach evolutionary theory. A new litmus test to allow people to beneÞt from these breakthroughs suggests itself. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 3 a.m. on Channel 44, and at 4 a.m. on Channel 2, and on Wednesday at 1 and 9 p.m. on Channel 44, and on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Southwest USA. Trekker Justine Shapiro watches a rodeo in Gallup, rides a ridiculously large motorcycle to Taos to visit houses made from recycled materials, tours the red-rock mesas of Sedona, rafts down the Colorado River, and winds up in Vegas. To be repeated on Wednesday at 1 a.m. on Channel 2. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Frontline: Death of a Princess. Revisiting the 1980 docudrama about the public execution of a young Saudi Arabian princess and her lover for adultery. In addition to the original controversial Þlm (the Saudis didn’t care for it), we hear background stories about the production and the subsequent ßap. To be repeated on Wednesday at 2 and 10 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

WEDNESDAY 20

8:00 (10) Revelations (movie). NBC is not especially forthcoming with details; this could well be another repeat of hour one. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) BattleÞeld Britain: Hastings, 1066. More re-creations. So, how did Harold Godwineson die? Did an arrow really fall from Heaven and hit him in the eye? (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth: Invaders/The One Degree Factor. Real revelations about apocalyptic warning signs. Tonight’s dangers are displaced plants and animals that jump continents and destroy their new environments and climate changes caused by energy use that lead to selective extinctions. Does the president know about this? To be repeated tonight at 1 a.m. on Channel 44, and at 2 a.m. on Channel 2, and at 4 a.m. on Channels 2 and 44, and on Thursday at 1 p.m. on Channel 44. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (10) Revelations (movie). Hour two at last. Okay, fellow yahoos, everybody down to the Wal-Mart for one last spree. Satan’s coming; gotta look your best so God can sort you out. If the ratings for this are good and they want to drag it out for more episodes, we get two horses. If it seems this limited series lacks the legs to be renewed for a second time around, we get all four. (Until 11 p.m.)

THURSDAY 21

8:00 (2) Henry A. Wallace. Wallace was FDR’s second VP. He was also an agricultural scientist who increased world food production, and a New Deal visionary who championed national health and civil rights. And in the end, the right decided he was a Communist and dragged him in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth: Predators/Troubled Waters. More bad news. Scare away the predators and what do you get? According to this, the results could be "bands of voracious howler monkeys, a glut of iguanas, and hordes of ravenous ants." And thanks to toxins in the world’s waters, we’re losing frogs and whales and getting too many "monstrous sea stars" in Australia. Perhaps the pale horse has a vitamin deÞciency. To be repeated tonight at 2 a.m. (Until 11 p.m.)