BY CLIF GARBODEN

FRIDAY 9

12:30 [12] TENNIS | Live US Open action | Until 6 pm

8:00 [44] NOVA: THE WAVE THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, HUNT FOR THE SUPERTWISTER, and VOLCANO’S DEADLY WARNING | We’re very near the anniversary of September 11, which make this Fear Season, time to remind everyone how close we live to the brink of destruction. Three Nova shows; three deadly threats — a tsunami, a really big tornado, and a volcano. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [2] AMERICA REBUILDS | When New York’s World Trade Center towers came down in a shower of terror four years ago, the clean-up and the rebuilding process began almost immediately. (That stands in sharp contrast to the situation in New Orleans, where the federal government claims it didn’t even know people needed to be rescued until four days after the event. Of course, unlike New Orleans, the WTC disaster involved a lot of white people.) This documentary offers an inside look at what the engineers and construction workers faced. | Until 10:30 pm

10:30 [2] FOR THE LOVE OF THEIR BROTHER | A human-interest follow-up to September 11 focusing on the loss of heroic New York firefighter Stephen Siller, who, off-duty at the time of the disaster, returned to Manhattan by running the length of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. In Siller’s memory, his family has organized the annual Tunnel to Towers Run, which retraces his steps. John Turturro hosts. | Until 11 pm

12:27 AM [12] TENNIS | US Open highlights | Until 1 am

SATURDAY 10

Noon [12] TENNIS | Live US Open action: the men’s semifinals. | Until 6 pm

Noon [6] FOOTBALL | Notre Dame versus Michigan.

1:00 [64] BASEBALL | The Sox versus the New York Yankees.

3:30 [6] FOOTBALL | Iowa versus Iowa State, or North Carolina versus Georgia Tech.

6:00 [44] WHALE RIDER | movie | Keisha Castle-Hughes stars in this adaptation of a Maori legend about a 12-year-old girl who opts to be her tribe’s "chosen one" even though tradition preserves that honor for males. Plus some "making of" footage. | Until 8 pm

8:00 [12] TENNIS | Live US Open action: the ladies’ final. | Until 10 pm

8:00 [6] FOOTBALL | Texas versus Ohio State.

8:00 [44] MAN OF LA MANCHA | movie | A 1973 adaptation of the boffo Broadway musical derived from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote. With Peter O’Toole as the author defending his work, James Coco as Sancho Panza, and Sophia Loren as Dulcinea. | Until 10:10 pm

10:10 [44] HAMLET | movie | The 1948 edition, with Laurence Olivier as the doomed Dane. | Until 1 am

11:00 [2] SOUNDSTAGE | Part two of a concert featuring the music of Heart. | Until midnight

SUNDAY 11

1:00 [12] FOOTBALL | The New York Jets versus the Kansas City Chiefs.

1:00 [64] FOOTBALL | The Seattle Seahawks versus the Jacksonville Jaguars.

4:00 [12] TENNIS | Live US Open action: the men’s final. | Until 7 pm

4:00 [25] FOOTBALL | The Dallas Cowboys versus the San Diego Chargers.

6:00 [2] EVENING AT POPS: KEITH LOCKHART 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL | Highlight performances featuring Nathan Lane, Patti LaBelle, k.d. lang, Dawn Upshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Martin Short.

9:00 [2] MYSTERY!: FOYLE’S WAR, SERIES THREE: THE FRENCH DROP | Michael Kitchen stars as DCS Foyle in a third series of homefront-WW2 mysteries. In this one, a mysterious body (dead, we presume) lures Foyle into a web of espionage. To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channel 44, and at 4 am on Channels 2 and 44, and on Monday at 8 pm, and on Thursday at 9 pm. | Until 10:30 pm

9:00 [12] OCEAN’S ELEVEN | movie | Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 remake of the famous, if not noteworthy, Rat Pack movie. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and nine other guys star in the story of one man’s plan to knock over three Vegas casinos in one night. | Until 11:30 pm

9:00 [44] P.O.V.: IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL | Dakota Fanning and Larry Pine narrate a film about Henry Darger, a reclusive Chicago janitor who produced a 15,000-page illustrated novel that was discovered after his death in 1973. | Until 10:30 pm

MONDAY 12

9:00 [2] THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND CIVIL WAR and REVOLUTION | A look at America from 1863 to 1877, during which the Civil War ended and the rebuilding of the South began. Tonight’s edition tells how some freed slaves sought to establish their own communities while some Southern whites murdered and persecuted them. To be repeated tonight at 2 am | Until 10:30 pm

9:00 [6] FOOTBALL | The Philadelphia Eagles versus the Atlanta Falcons.

9:30 [44] AMERICAN MASTERS: SATCHMO: THE LIFE OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG | Ken Burns tried his best to turn Armstrong into an over-exposed cliché in his Jazz documentary, but there’s no denying that the raspy-voiced trumpeter has influenced, as Tony Bennett puts it, "every musician of worth in popular music or jazz." So forget Burns’s embarrassing fawning; here we have Satchmo’s life through performances, home movies, and interviews. | Until 11 pm

TUESDAY

8:00 [44] GLOBE TREKKER: ULTIMATE CARIBBEAN | A composite program with clips drawn from episodes featuring Justine Shapiro, Ian Wright, and Megan McCormick cruising the islands and Central America. | Until 9 pm

9:00 [2] WIDE ANGLE: PICKLES, INC. | The story of a group of widows in the village of Tamra, in Galilee, who broke with Muslim tradition and started their own vegetable pickling company. | Until 10 pm

9:00 [6] THE 2005 WORLD MUSIC AWARDS | The trophies are being handed out in Hollywood this year, but that won’t spare us from some interesting international acts. Among the domestic performers, we get Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, Diana Ross, Bon Jovi, and (almost domestic) Carlos Santana. | Until 11 pm

9:00 [64] HOUSE | Hugh Laurie continues to forsake his British accent for another season of medical puzzlers. | Until 10 pm

9:00 [44] HISTORY DETECTIVES: HERMANN GOERING’S SHOTGUN, CALF CREEK ARROW, and EDISON HOUSE | Tonight’s transparent excuses for investigating historical events are a shotgun that may have been looted from Hermann Goering’s castle in 1945, a possibly 5000-year-old spearpoint found in a bison skull, and a house in Union, New Jersey, that may have been designed by Thomas Edison. | Until 10 pm

WEDNESDAY14

9:00 [2] AMERICAN MASTERS: ERNEST HEMINGWAY: RIVERS TO THE SEA | A bio of the great American novelist drawn from his own words and featuring settings from his writings and his personal life. To be repeated tonight at 1 am on Channel 44, and at 4 am on Channels 2 and 44. | Until 10:30 pm

9:00 [44] PERILOUS FIGHT: AMERICA’S WORLD WAR: WRATH (D-DAY — VE-DAY) and TRIUMPH (THE PACIFIC, 1943–1945) | Part one covers the year between the D-Day invasion and the end of the WW2 in Europe. Finally, we look at America’s overwhelming efforts to defeat Japan and the post-war celebration. | Until 11 pm

10:30 [2] HEMINGWAY IN CUBA | A look at Ernest Hemingway’s life in Cuba — his passions, his influences, his women, etc. | Until 11:30 pm

THURSDAY 15

8:00 [2] IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE: THE DUTY OF POETS | Host historian Michael Wood discusses how the Bard was at his most productive during his midlife crisis — a time that saw him fall in love with a nobleman, have an affair with a married woman, lose his 11-year-old son, and get arrested for assault. | Until 9 pm

10:00 [44] SOUNDSTAGE | Music by Ringo Starr and the Roundheads. | Until 11 pm

1:00 AM [44] THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITMAN | A moving 1974 TV-movie starring Cicely Tyson as a 110-year-old Southern black woman who survives from slavery to the civil-rights movement. From a novel by Ernest J. Gaines and the winner of nine Emmys. Queen Latifah hosts. To be repeated at 4 am, and at more reasonable hours next week. | Until 3 am