blue glow
SALON'S TV PICKS FOR
WEEKEND, FEB. 19-21, 1999
BY JOYCE MILLMAN

S E R I E S

Fox is filling the slot vacated by the canceled Brimstone with a bonus X-Files rerun (8 p.m. Fri., Fox). It's a nifty one, too: "Triangle," where Mulder is shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle and time-travels back to a British luxury liner overtaken by Nazis at the start of World War II. It's filmed in one continuous shot, there are doppelgängers (and, for some reason, "Wizard of Oz" references) aplenty and the jackbooted Cigarette Smoking Man is as evil as ever. Following that, on Millennium (9 p.m. Fri., Fox), Black and Hollis make like Mulder and Scully as they stumble upon a decades-old conspiracy involving plutonium bomb experiments in 1945. Barbara Bain guests. Homicide (10 p.m. Fri., NBC) wraps up its "White House sex scandal" crossover episode with Law & Order. Bill Murray returns to host Saturday Night Live (11:30 p.m. Sat., NBC), with music from Lucinda Williams. Marge has to go to traffic school to curb her road rage on The Simpsons (8 p.m. Sun., Fox). The two-hour "Biography" Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie (8 p.m. EST/9 PST Sun., A&E) tells the story of TV's most famous working couple through home movies that have never been shown on TV before. The alien colonization of Earth having been forestalled, Mulder and Scully (reinstated to their old beat) get down to more mundane matters on The X-Files (9 p.m. Sun., Fox) -- a big tentacled thing that apparently attacked a marine biologist in his bathtub. Darren McGavin returns as veteran paranormal investigator Arthur Dales. On The Sopranos (9 p.m. Sun., HBO), Tony flashes back to his own childhood as the son of a mobster when Little Anthony is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. On The Practice (10 p.m. Sun., ABC), Bobby and Lindsay represent a restaurant owner suing a TV station for a report on unsanitary eating conditions.

S P E C I A L S

Jerry Seinfeld, Martin Short, Garth Brooks, Joe Pesci and Tom Hanks are among the guests appearing in clips on Saturday Night Live: The Best of Game Show Parodies (8 p.m. Sat., NBC). Sidney Poitier and his daughter Sydney Tamil Poitier star in the new cable movie Free of Eden (8 p.m. Sun., Showtime), a drama about an ex-teacher who helps an inner-city teen trying to get ahead. The new cable movie Passing Glory (8 p.m. Sun., TNT) stars Andre Braugher as a priest (you knew Frank Pembleton would end up wearing a collar someday) at a black Catholic high school who tries to bring the races together in 1965 New Orleans with a basketball game against an all-white school. Produced by Magic Johnson; directed by Steve James ("Hoop Dreams"). Lauren Bacall has the title role in the miniseries Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke (9 p.m. Sun., CBS), the story of the misery-prone tobacco heiress. Richard Chamberlain plays the butler who exploited her in her twilight years.

S P O R T S

Basketball:
Pistons at Suns (8 p.m. Fri., TNT)
Spurs at Lakers (10:30 p.m. Fri., TNT)
Sonics at Jazz (3:30 p.m. Sat., NBC)
Pistons at Spurs (1 p.m. Sun., NBC)
Rockets at Magic (3:30 p.m. Sun., NBC)
Lakers at Sonics (6 p.m. Sun., NBC)

Hockey:
Canadiens at Maple Leafs (7 p.m. Sat., ESPN2)
Avalanche at Stars (3 p.m. Sun., Fox)
Penguins at Flyers (8 p.m. Sun., ESPN)

T A L K

Rosie O'Donnell (syndicated) Lauren Bacall, 'N Sync
David Letterman (CBS) Chris Tucker, Lauren Bacall, Sugar Ray
Jay Leno (NBC) Calista Flockhart, wrestler Goldberg
Dennis Miller (HBO) Roseanne
Charlie Rose (PBS) President of France Jacques Chirac (or maybe not)
Politically Incorrect (ABC) Ben Savage, Monica Crowley
Conan O'Brien (NBC) Andie MacDowell, Myles Berkowitz
SALON | Feb. 19, 1999

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Blue Glow for Thursday, Feb. 18