What's on TV
Friday 9/26
NOW with Bill Moyers (PBS, check local listings): Moyers pays a visit to the County Welfare Office in Colorado Springs, Colo., and finds something unusual: a group of welfare workers praying out loud in the middle of a government office. Religion-based groups such as Faith Partners in Colorado Springs receive taxpayers money to provide social services to welfare families, but are they also trying to push their religion on vulnerable people? And what about the separation of church and state?
Twelve Mile Road (CBS, 9-11 p.m.): In a movie about an out-of-control teenage daughter, you'd think Tom Selleck would play a tough parent. Instead, he plays a loving and understanding farmer dad who lets his daughter, raised by his ex-wife, have her own way. His idea is to let nature take its course down on the farm. It's mom who has been too rule-centered and repressive back in the big city. Yet despite the simplistic morality of this tale, there's a hint of genuine sense - kids do need both of their parents. TV-14
Nova: Infinite Secrets (PBS, check local listings): The ancient Greek scholar Archimedes, arguably the greatest mathematician of them all, discovered pi, water displacement, and calculus. But he had other ideas we are just now learning about, and many scholars believe if we'd only had these ideas earlier, we would be walking on the vast expanse of Mars. A manuscript erased in the Middle Ages and covered over with religious text is actually an original document by Archimedes. It will take years to decipher it, and great scholars are hard at work doing just that, making cunning discoveries about math every day. This is one of Nova's shining episodes - one of the most exciting works the venerable series has produced in recent years.
Karen Sisco (ABC, 10-11 p.m.): Do we really need another tough lady investigator? This one, like "Crossing Jordan," has a loving dad who watches out for her. If the gun-toting, high-heeled US marshal points a trigger at a bad guy, he better not count on her femininity to save him. Seen it before. Still, some of the wisecracks are funny. The writing this season is definitely showing signs of improvement overall. TV-PG
