What's on TV

Saturday 6/28

Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now (HBO, 10-11 p.m.): Ellen delights a general audience in this hilarious stand-up evening. At her best, Ms. D.'s wit is gentle, goofy, and meandering (much like her character in "Finding Nemo"). The joke starts out in one place, digresses a dozen times, and then wanders home again when you least expect it. Taped live at New York City's Beacon Theatre. TV-PG

The Nazi Officer's Wife (A&E, 8-10 p.m.): Susan Sarandon narrates the story of Edith Hahn - intercut with interviews with friends, family, and Hahn herself tell the hair-raising and perhaps unique tale of survival during the Third Reich. After her mother had been sent away to the death camps, the Jewish Hahn adopted the identity of a Christian friend and ended up marrying a Nazi officer, who knew her secret. Archival footage and Hahn's own letters help re-create the era in absorbing detail. TV-PG

Maggie (PBS, 9-11p.m., check local listings): With the second most powerful Englishwoman since Elizabeth I as its subject matter and all the interviews and TV footage available on Margaret Thatcher, one could have hoped for a more involving documentary. It's so boring it seems long enough to rust iron. And The Iron Lady herself could hardly be pleased with the faint praise of its making - though it fully intends to extol its subject. In college, she learned that politics was her passion, and though she married Denis Thatcher and had twins, she never let housework slow her down. A woman of boundless energy, she fought off the chauvinism in her own party and the disrespect of the Labour Party to become prime minister of England. TV-PG

Red Cap (BBC America, 9-11 p.m.): A new contemporary mystery series from Britain is sure to keep the Yanks on the edge of their seats. Corporal Jo McDonagh (Tamzin Outhwaite) is an insatiable worker. A new recruit to the Special Investigation Branch (internal affairs) on a British military base in Germany, she spends every waking moment, when she is not doing her job, training to do it better. A lot of pompous male piggery from her superior officers can't stop her rebellious spirit or her creative investigative techniques. In the series premiere, the daughter of a general is found murdered and the obvious suspects all seem too obvious.