blue glow
SALON'S TV PICKS FOR
WEEKEND, DEC. 11-13, 1998
BY JOYCE MILLMAN

S P E C I A L S

The 1969 cartoon Frosty the Snowman (8 p.m. Fri., CBS) gets its annual airing, followed by the more recent sequel Frosty Returns (8:30 p.m.), in which John Goodman provides the voice of the jolly round man (there's a stretch) of snow. Ricki Lake stars in the new family TV movie Murder She Purred: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery (7 p.m. Sun., ABC), based on Rita Mae Brown's sleuthing postmistress and her talking pets. When You Believe: Music from 'The Prince of Egypt' (8 p.m. Sun., NBC) features Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, Wynonna, Amy Grant and others singing inspirational songs from the 37 different soundtrack albums to Dreamworks' upcoming Moses movie. OK, maybe not 37. But a lot. And they're all awful. Burt Reynolds stars in and directs Hard Time (8 p.m. Sun., TNT), a new cable movie about a cop fighting to clear his name after being framed for murder. Charles Durning, Billy Dee Williams and Robert Loggia co-star. A new adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (9 p.m. Sun., NBC) is set on the Mississippi bayou during the Civil War. Peter Fonda plays Gideon Prosper. That's Prospero to you. With John Glover, Harold Perrineau and Katherine Heigl. The British-made TV movie The Cater Street Hangman (9 p.m. EST/10 PST Sun., A&E), based on the mystery novels of Anne Perry, stars Eion McCarthy as Victorian policeman Thomas Pitt. In this outing, blue-collar bloke Pitt teams up with the feisty daughter of an aristocratic London family to flush out the murderer of one of the family's maids.

S E R I E S

Homicide: Life on the Street (10 p.m. Fri., NBC) concludes the two-parter in which disgraced Kellerman (Reed Diamond), now a private investigator, goes up against Falsone in the case of a teenage couple accused of killing their newborn. Kellerman knows the girl did it, but is working for her parents, so he's trying to get the girl to implicate her boyfriend; Falsone, who has now become the show's voice of morality in the absence of Pembleton, is out to see justice done, speak for the dead, do God's work; you name the cliché, little Falsone will utter it. Last week, we were supposed to be rooting for Falsone, but Jon Seda is such a charmless, annoying hot dog (a fact that seems to elude the producers), you wound up rooting for Kellerman. On the first new Martial Law (9 p.m. Sat., CBS) in a couple of weeks, Sammo and Terrell work to find Terrell's wayward niece. Bruce Springsteen is profiled on a new Legends (9 p.m. Sat., VH1), which is having an encore showing in case you missed it last week. Alec Baldwin hosts Saturday Night Live (11:30 p.m. Sat., NBC), with music from Luciano Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams. On the Christmas episode of The X-Files (9 p.m. Sun., Fox), Mulder and Scully are spooked by a pair of ghosts (guests Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin) on Christmas Eve. The firm is on the defensive as its defamation trial gets under way on The Practice (10 p.m. Sun., ABC).

S P O R T S

Football:
Cardinals at Eagles; Falcons at Saints; Bears at Packers; Redskins at Panthers (1 p.m. Sun., Fox)
Bengals at Colts; Broncos at Giants; Patriots at Rams; Raiders at Bills; Steelers at Buccaneers; Oilers at Jaguars (1 p.m. Sun., CBS)
Cowboys at Chiefs; Vikings at Ravens (4 p.m. Sun., Fox)
Chargers at Seahawks (4 p.m. Sun., CBS)
Jets at Dolphins (8:15 p.m. Sun., ESPN)

T A L K

David Letterman (CBS) Tom Brokaw, Famke Janssen, Emmylou Harris
Jay Leno (NBC) Vince Vaughn, Garbage
Politically Incorrect (ABC) Andrew Dice Clay, Eric McCormack
Conan O'Brien (NBC) Michael Caine, Trans-Siberian Orchestra
SALON | Dec. 11, 1998

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Blue Glow for Thursday, Dec. 10, 1998