What's On TV
SATURDAY 4/29
NBA playoffs (NBC, 12:30 p.m.): Spring hoopla is well on its way. Long afternoons of basketball are on the menu for hoop fans, with three first-round series today, and three more tomorrow.
SUNDAY 4/30
Solomon (Pax, 9-11 p.m.): It's one solemn Solomon, played with earnest intensity by Ben Cross. This version is mainly a love story (Solomon and Sheba), and it's highly politicized the rest of the time, with Bathsheba as an interfering mother. The first two hours are the best; the rest is a tad dull. Concludes Monday at the same time.
Take Me Home: The John Denver Story (CBS, 9-11 p.m.): You have to really like John Denver's music to watch this sentimentalized dramatization of the singer's life. The acting is mostly saccharine, but the music does have a lush quality. Chad Lowe stars.
MONDAY 5/1
PICK OF THE WEEK
American Experience: Jubilee Singers (PBS, check local listings): This poignant documentary covers a singing troop composed of former slaves from the South whose exquisite voices rang out in concert halls across the North and Europe in the 1870s, making "cabin songs," or spirituals, known for the first time to the world. It is a moving tale of privation, self-sacrifice, and eventual triumph.
Witness: Voices from the Holocaust (PBS, check local listings): Rare archival footage and interviews filmed decades ago of those who survived concentration camps, including American soldiers who suffered in the camps as POWs, and other eye witnesses, make a powerful testament. There is information here the viewer may never have heard before, given by ordinary people.
TUESDAY 5/2
Intimate Portrait: Ava Gardner (Lifetime, 7-8 p.m.): Stefanie Powers narrates this balanced view of one of the top stars of the silver screen.
Frontline: Jefferson's Blood (PBS, check local listings): The debate about Thomas Jefferson and his long-term affair with his slave Sally Hemings goes on, and the Monticello Association will address the issue May 6-7. But the question at the crux of the story is really how a man like Jefferson, who knew and wrote about the evils of slavery, could go on living with it. Blacks and whites who claim him as an ancestor have their say.
WEDNESDAY 5/3
Academy of Country Music Awards (CBS, 8-11 p.m.): It's "Hello, Dolly!" time. Dolly Parton will host the 35th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. All eyes will be on how many awards the Faith Hill-Tim McGraw household will take home.
FRIDAY 5/5
Kent State: The Day the War Came Home (TLC, 10-11 p.m.): The story of the events at Kent State (Ohio) University that led up to the shootings of several students during the Vietnam era is examined through archival footage and eyewitness interviews. It's likely to be of most interest to those who remember the event.
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