BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 16

8:30 (6) Basketball. The Detroit Pistons versus the San Antonio Spurs in NBA championship game #4.

9:00 (10) Hit Me Baby One More Time. As of this writing, NBC hadn’t released the contestant list for week three, but we do know that sometime this summer we’re going to see Wang Chung, Irene Cara, and Sophie B. Hawkins. Get up to date at www.nbc.com/nbc/Hit_Me_Baby/index.shtml. (Until 10 pm)

FRIDAY 17

8:00 (44) Nova: World in the Balance: The People of Paradox. It’s getting so crowded, we have to stand on one foot. Repeated from last week. The paradoxes stem from global-population stats. For example: the world population didn’t hit a billion until 1804. It’s now at 6.3 billion, and we add a billion to ourselves every 12 years of so. Meanwhile, the population profiles vary drastically from country to country. This special looks at India, whose high birth rate will soon cause its population to outpace China’s; Japan, where a great many people are over 60 and the government is begging women to bear children; and sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS and other diseases are killing off people from 20 to 60 and leaving the very young and the very old to deal with things. (Until 9 pm)

9:00 (2) Great Performances: Operatunity. Repeated from last week. In America, people get jobs with Donald Trump on TV shows. In Britain, people become opera stars by similar contest. A film about the English National Opera’s nationwide search for someone with no operatic experience to sing in Verdi’s Rigoletto on the stage of the London Coliseum. (Until 10:30 pm)

10:30 (2) Speaking with Music. Repeated from last week. Behind the scenes at the first New York Piano Competition and its 22 contestants, ages 14 through 18. (Until 11:30 pm)

SATURDAY 18

3:00 (25) Baseball. The Chicago Cubs versus the New York Yankees.

4:00 (6) Basketball. The Phoenix Mercury versus the New York Liberty in WNBA play.

5:00 (44) Bananas. Repeated from last week. Woody Allen stars as a mild-mannered loser who joins a Latin American revolution to impress radical chick Louise Lasser. From 1971, when Allen was still funny. (Until 6:30 pm)

6:00 (2) Mystery: Miss Marple: The Body in the Library. parts one and two. Repeated from last week. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple — ably played by Geraldine McEwan — investigates the murder of a hotel dancer whose body is found miles away in the St. Mary Mead library of Jane’s friend Colonel Bantry. Also starring James Fox and Joanna Lumley. (Until 8 pm)

8:00 (6) Lilo & Stitch. Disney’s 2002 allegory for wicked children. Lilo is a Hawaiian orphan; Stitch is an alien failed genetic experiment programmed for destruction whom Lilo mistakes for a dog. But in Disney movies, even sociopathic aliens are redeemable. (Until 10 pm)

8:00 (64) The Wedding Singer. Adam Sandler croons his way into Drew Barrymore’s heart in this peculiar but amusing 1998 comedy. The creepiest thing about the film is the old lady who does rap numbers, and that’s the one scene they always use in the promos. Old white lady acting like a black gangster — truly not funny. (Until 10 pm)

8:00 (44) Richard III. Ian McKellen plays Edward IV’s pesky little brother Richard in this Shakespeare adaptation set in "a mythical 1930s Britain." From 1995. (Until 9:45 pm)

9:45 (44) Ocean’s Eleven. The 1960 Rat Pack version. Were these guys cool or just jerks? Cool jerks. (Until midnight.)

11:00 (2) Soundstage. Part two of a show featuring music from Sheryl Crow. (Until midnight.)

SUNDAY 19

Noon (10) Wimbledon Preview. To prepare you for next weekend’s tennis action.

5:00 (44) Battlefield Britain: Hastings. Repeated from last week. Everybody knows the date (1066) of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings, and now you can learn the strategies behind William of Normandy’s history-changing victory over British King Harold. (Until 6 pm)

8:30 (6) Basketball? The Detroit Pistons versus the San Antonio Spurs in NBA championship game #5, if necessary.

9:00 (44) Independent Lens: End of the Century: The Ramones and Joe Strummer Rocks Again. Two punkish documentaries. First we have the 2003 Ramones chronicle covering 20 years of their music and bickering, with archival footage of Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, Joey, et al. plus Debby Harry, David Johansen, Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Joe Strummer, the Stooges, Eddie Vedder, and Rob Zombie. Then an eight-minute music-video/bio-documentary put together by former Clash guitarist Joe Strummer and his friend Dick Rude shortly before Strummer’s death in 2002. To be repeated tonight at 2 am on Channel 2. (Until 11 pm)

11:00 (44) Austin City Limits. She’s everywhere (on PBS). Featuring music from Sheryl Crow. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY 20

8:00 (44) Masterpiece Theatre: Henry VIII. parts one and two. Ray Winstone stars as a rude and macho Henry in this two-part retelling of history’s most famous serial husband. Helena Bonham Carter checks in (and out) as Anne Boleyn; Emilia Fox plays Jane Seymour. Plus David Suchet as Cardinal Wolsey and Charles Dance as the Duke of Buckingham. To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channel 2. (Until 11 pm)

9:00 (6) Patch Adams. Robin Williams perpetuates his affinity for horrible movies with this biography of a doctor who thinks dressing like a clown helps heal people. Keep the guy away from us the next time we come out of surgery. (Until 11 pm)

TUESDAY 21

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Lupe Ontiveros. Mexican-American actress Ontiveros, star of Real Woman Have Curves, El Norte, and Desperate Housewives, complains that she’s played a maid 150 times in her career. (Until 8 pm)

8:00 (2) Nova: World in Balance: China Revs Up. Forget all that Chairman Mao stuff — the current ideology in China is to get rich and live like Americans. That’s too bad, because the way Americans live is sufficiently wasteful that if the entire world population consumed and polluted as much we do, we’d need four planet Earths to keep up with demand. And there are a lot of people in China, which has been waiting to become a world power since the late 1400s. To be repeated tonight at 1 and 3 am on Channel 44, and at 4 am on Channel 2. (Until 9 pm)

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: Tahiti and Samoa. Trekker Ian Wright’s fun in the sun includes acting as a judge for the Miss Tahiti Contest, tracking the crew of the Bounty, and diving with sharks off Bora Bora. (Until 9 pm)

8:30 (6) Basketball? The Detroit Pistons versus the San Antonio Spurs in NBA championship game #6, if necessary.

9:00 (2) Frontline: Private Warriors. Back to Iraq with Halliburton and other civilian contractors who play an increasingly large role in our military operations there. (Hey, the Bushies have managed to privatize war!) These are the same folks who are targeted for terror and who kick around Iraqi citizens in ways even the government hasn’t thought of. Another aspect of the quagmire. (Until 10 pm)

10:00 (2) Frontline: Al Qaeda’s New Front. That would be Europe. A look at the terrorists’ changing global strategy. (Until 11 pm)

4:00 am (44) P.O.V.: The Education of Shelby Knox. A documentary about a Christian girl from Lubbock, Texas, who though sworn to remain celibate until marriage helps fight the astronomical local teen-pregnancy rate with sex-ed projects and even a gay-straight alliance. All of which doesn’t sit well with Bible thumpers Mom and Dad. (Until 5:30 am)

WEDNESDAY 22

8:00 (44) Battlefield Britain: The Battle for Wales — 1403. Wales seems to be the docile member of the British Isles family, but back in the 15th century, it had its own king — the brave but basically unpronounceable Owain Glyndwr — who tried to break away from the English. He failed. Our father/son military historians re-create his defeat. (Until 9 pm)

9:00 (2) American Masters: Quincy Jones: In the Pocket. Anything musical, Quincy can do better than most, as his seemingly endless list of Granny, Emmy, and Oscar nominations attests. This award-winning bio-doc looks at his work and his influence on the American music biz. To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channel 44, and at 4 am on Channels 2 and 44. (Until 10:30 pm)

10:30 (2) Great Performances: John Lennon’s Jukebox. Back in the 1960s, John Lennon actually had a jukebox, which somebody bought and preserved. This oft-aired show surveys the music that influenced the early Beatles: the Isley Brothers, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Fontella Bass, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Bobby Parker, Delbert McClinton, and more. To be repeated on Thursday at 2:30 pm (Until 11:30 pm)

THURSDAY 23

8:30 (6) Basketball? The Detroit Pistons versus the San Antonio Spurs in NBA championship game #7, if necessary. If not, the movie The Mexican, which we believe is a pistol, starring not-Mexicans Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. (Until 11 pm)

9:00 (2) Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. An oft-aired dramatization of an imaginary debate between atheist Sigmund Freud and "reasoned" Christian C.S. Lewis. The idea is based on a Harvard course taught by Dr. Armand Nicholi Jr. Sounds super-heavy, but it’s not even ponderous. (Until 11 pm)