blue glow
SALON'S TV PICKS FOR
TUESDAY, NOV. 10, 1998
BY JOYCE MILLMAN

S P E C I A L S

Brian Wilson makes a rare TV appearance on the concert series Front Row Center (7 p.m., Nashville Network); he duets with country queen Deana Carter. Ken Burns' latest documentary, Frank Lloyd Wright (check local times, PBS), takes a close look at the career and the tumultuous private life of the visionary architect.

S E R I E S

Peggy enters a beauty pageant to win a truck on King of the Hill (8 p.m., Fox). Something is transforming Sunnydale's adults (including Giles) into rowdy teens on a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer (8 p.m., WB). Rugrats (8 p.m., Nickelodeon) debuts a new Thanksgiving episode. On Just Shoot Me (9 p.m., NBC), Finch tries to trick Maya and another woman into making his most cherished sexual fantasy come true. Felicity (9 p.m., WB) begins a two-parter in which someone reveals a dark side. Sipowicz and Russell begin to crack as Simone's condition worsens on NYPD Blue (10 p.m., ABC).

T A L K

Rosie O'Donnell (syndicated) Lara Flynn Boyle, Vanessa Williams
David Letterman (CBS) Luke Perry, Tom Wolfe
Jay Leno (NBC) Pamela Anderson, singer Monica
Charlie Rose (PBS) Robert McNeil
Politically Incorrect (ABC) Robert Goulet, Gennifer Flowers
Conan O'Brien (NBC) Kate Mulgrew, Gomez

E T C.

The plot thickens: The Nov. 8 season premiere of The X-Files, which was the third part of a trilogy that included last season's finale and the past summer's movie, finally answered some big questions about the black oil, the bee-carried virus, the telepathic little boy, the alien colonization conspiracy and the nature of alien life itself. If you didn't see it, here's the main dish: The first inhabitants of Earth were extraterrestrials; human DNA carries non-functioning remnants of alien DNA; the telepathic boy's alien DNA actually functions, making him the missing link between aliens and humans; the aliens want their planet back.

The season opener also found Mulder and Scully removed from X-Files cases for good and replaced with Agents Spender (Cancer Man's son) and Fowley (Mulder's mysterious ex-partner and lover), who make an intriguing Bizarro Planet reverse image of Mulder and Scully. Spender is the skeptic, but lacking Scully's scientific background and natural empathy; he's just a rigid fool. Fowley is the believer, but without Mulder's essential integrity and sense of the greater good, she's only out for personal gain. Mulder and Scully, Spender and Fowley. This is getting good.
SALON | Nov. 10, 1998

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Blue Glow for Monday, Nov. 9, 1998