BY CLIF GARBODEN

FRIDAY 29

8:00 [44] NATURE: TRAIL OF THE COUGAR | CHASING BIG CATS | LEOPARDS OF YALA | It’s big-kitty night on WGBX. First we consider the plight of the American mountain lion, recently returned from near extinction. Then at 9 pm, we get a rare look at the nightlife of African leopards and lions, thanks to infrared spy cams. And finally, at 10 pm, we follow two conservationists into a national park in Sri Lanka to count leopards. | Until 11 pm

SATURDAY 30

1:00 [64] BASEBALL | The Los Angeles Angels versus the New York Yankees.

8:00 [6] K-PAX | movie | This 2001 sci-fi mystery has Kevin Spacey living up to his name as a mental patient who claims to be from another planet. While shrink Jeff Bridges tries to cure him, Prot (Kevin’s alien name) starts to cure his fellow patients. Mary McCormack and Alfre Woodard co-star. | Until 11 pm

8:00 [44] THE COUNTRY GIRL | movie | Grace Kelly won a Best Actress Oscar for playing Bing Crosby’s wife in this 1954 drama about a washed-up actor who drinks too much and makes his wife do all the work. William Holden is the producer who tries to bring Bing out of his funk. | Until 10 pm

11:00 [2] SOUNDSTAGE | Lindsey Buckingham with Stevie Nicks. | Until midnight

SUNDAY 31

9:00 [2] MYSTERY!: INSPECTOR MORSE: DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION | Morse (the late John Thaw) investigates the apparently motiveless murder of a young woman. This episode, however, is really about Morse’s car, a red Jaguar Mark 2, which the investigator is tempted to sell. Patrick Malahide co-stars. To be repeated tonight at midnight, and on Channel 44 at 1 am, and on Channels 2 and 44 at 4 am. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [12] I AM SAM | movie | Sean Penn is a mentally retarded man fighting the system to be allowed to raise daughter Dakota Fanning (at around age 7). Michelle Pfeiffer co-stars. | Until 11:30 pm

9:00 [44] INDEPENDENT LENS: A PLACE OF OUR OWN | A profile of the African-American community in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard from director Stanley Nelson (The Murder of Emmett Till). Nelson’s own family was part of this community of successful blacks who’d made it in the white world, and the film centers, in part, on his late mother’s role as Oak Bluff’s hostess. Plus interviews with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and other well-known residents. | Until 10 pm

10:00 [44] P.O.V.: A PANTHER IN AFRICA | Not another nature show but the story of an American political exile. Back in the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party fed and clothed the poor, advocated racial pride, and tried to organize the African-American community into a power block. But they also carried guns, and that caused the FBI to hunt Panthers down and often just assassinate them. In 1969, Kansas City Panther Pete O’Neal was caught with a gun and arrested, but he got away and moved to Tanzania, where he lives to this day. | Until 11:30 pm

MONDAY 1

8:00 [6] THE SIXTH SENSE | movie | Once you know the gimmick, there’s not much point. Meaning this is a not-too-intriguing production with a clever twist. Bruce Willis plays a depressive child shrink who tries to comfort clairvoyant child Haley Joel Osment. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [2] THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: VICTORY IN THE PACIFIC | Or how we won the war, 60 years ago. A look at the last year of World War II — the Battle for the Mariana Islands, the firebombing of Tokyo, the battle of Okinawa, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrender. Featuring interviews with participants on both sides. | Until 11 pm

10:00 [44] P.O.V.: THE SELF-MADE MAN | A family film about suicide and end-of-life choices by filmmaker Susan Stern. The focus is Stern’s father, who, facing serious illness at age 77, decides that everyone would be better off if he killed himself — a decision that he explains in a not-so-funny home video. | Until 11 pm

2:00 AM [44] HISTORY DETECTIVES: A PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON | REVOLUTIONARY WAR POEM | REVOLUTIONARY WAR CANNON | The prime-time slot for this artifacts-investigation show is Tuesday at 9 pm. We’ll remind you. Tonight’s contrived investigations include a possible Gilbert Stuart Washington portrait; the story behind a poem written by a Colonial POW in England in 1780; and a Boston-area link between a stolen cannon and the start of the American Revolution. To be repeated tonight at 4 am, and at 5 am on Channel 2, and on Tuesday at 9 pm on Channel 44. | Until 3 am

5:00 AM [44] RAIN OF RUIN: THE BOMBING OF NAGASAKI | Of all the horrible things the US military has done, dropping atomic bombs on Japanese civilians is about the worst. A look back at the horror, rehashing the debate over the decision to target civilians and reviving accounts of the crew who dropped the bomb. Plus accounts from on-the-ground survivors and some never-before broadcast footage. What a way to start your morning. | Until 6 am

TUESDAY 2

7:30 [2] LA PLAZA: CONVERSATIONS WITH ILAN STAVANS: MARICEL PRESILLA | What is the future of Latin food in the 21st century? The answer is provided by Presilla, a Cuban exile who has traveled through the Americas collecting recipes and techniques. | Until 8 pm

8:00 [2] NOVA: DEEP SEA INVASION | Caulerpa taxifolia is a killer algae that coats the ocean floor and destroys all other marine life. French biologist Alexandre Meinesz discovered the junk in the Mediterranean, but his warnings were ignored. Now there’s disaster ahead if we don’t find a way to weed the seas. To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channels 2 and 44, and at 5 pm on Channel 44. | Until 9 pm

8:00 [44] GLOBE TREKKER: WASHINGTON DC, CITY GUIDE | Trekker Justine Shapiro tours the heart of the Evil Empire, is captured by CIA agents, visits the Vietnam Memorial, watches a re-enactment of the battle of Cedar Creek, and checks in with DC’s huge African-American community. | Until 9 pm

9:00 [2] WIDE ANGLE: RED LINES AND DEADLINES | Being part of the alternative press in America is fun. Publishing an against-the grain (i.e. reformist) newspaper in Iran is a bit touchier. This film looks inside Iran’s fourth largest daily, the Shargh, just a year old and a frequent target of censorship. | Until 10 pm

9:00 [6] CMA MUSIC FESTIVAL | Four days of commercial country music from Nashville distilled into a two-hour show featuring Big & Rich, Dierks Bentley, Cowboy Troy, Alan Jackson, Sara Evans, Dolly Parton, Rascal Flatts, Wynonna, Sugarland, Trisha Yearwood, Gretchen Wilson, and more. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [44] HISTORY DETECTIVES: A PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON | REVOLUTIONARY WAR POEM | REVOLUTIONARY WAR CANNON | See Monday at 2 am. | Until 10 pm

WEDNESDAY 3

9:00 [2] AMERICAN MASTERS: GOOD ROCKIN’ TONIGHT: THE LEGACY OF SUN RECORDS | A tribute to Sam Phillips’s little recording studio on Union Avenue in Memphis. Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Live, and Third Eye Blind cover some Sun classics, and Jerry Lee Lewis himself teams up with Matchbox Twenty to do "Lonely Weekends." To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channel 44, and at 4 am on Channels 2 and 44. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [6] BRAT CAMP | For years people have been complaining that America lets television raise its children, and now it’s true. Following the success of competing shows featuring tough-love nannies who move in with families to get the kids under control, we have this reality/documentary about a group of unruly teens exiled to the high desert of Oregon to live in the wilderness and learn — one presumes through teamwork and acquiring self-confidence — to stop lying, drinking, stealing, doing drugs, having violent outbursts, etc. These are not inner-city hoodlums; they’re all middle-class kids with growing-up problems. Parents used to send this sort of offspring to military school to be abused into conformity. The self-confidence lesson is a better approach, and getting these kids away from their families is probably the best medicine, but you wonder whether the audience sees the unhappy campers’ ordeal as therapy or punishment. | Until 10 pm

9:00 [44] PEOPLE AND PIANOS — 300 YEARS | Yes, the Plimoth Colony had been in business for 80 years when a Florentine musician named Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano. He called it il gravicembalo con piano e forte, but the shorter nickname stuck. This celebration offers concert footage from Evgeny Kissin, Daniel Barenboim, Dezsö Ránki, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Katia and Marielle Labèque. Plus some archival stuff featuring Rudolf Serkin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, and Thelonious Monk. To be repeated tonight at 2 am on Channel 2. | Until 10 pm

THURSDAY 4

9:00 [2] THE SID CAESAR COLLECTION | Highlights from the dominant Saturday-night comedy shows of the 1950s, Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour, with commentary from the all-star team of writers and producers who revolutionized the medium. | Until 9 pm