Tuning in: On TV this week.
Sunday June 12
Jane Goodall's When Animals Talk (Animal Planet, 8-10 p.m.): Dr. Goodall, the famous primatologist, is an expert on how animals communicate with each other. In this show she offers insights into how they communicate with us. Scenes of a pod of killer whales who befriend a naturalist, and cat-size rats that sniff out land mines in Africa make viewers appreciate creatures great and small.
The Dead Zone (USA, 10-11 p.m.) and Missing (Lifetime, 10-11 p.m.): return for the summer. "Dead Zone" stars Anthony Michael Hall as a man who recovers from a six-year coma to find he has new psychic abilities that can help the local sheriff find crime victims. The season opener finds him zeroing in on a serial kidnapper/rapist before he has the chance to kill. The FBI thriller "Missing" lets loose its psychic (Caterina Scorsone) on the heinous kidnapping of a pregnant woman.
The Closer (TNT, 9-10 p.m.): Kyra Sedgwick stars as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, a CIA-trained detective who is investigating high-profile murder cases in Los Angeles, in what is arguably the best of the summer season's new police shows. The show depends on brilliant problem-solving to keep viewers riveted, rather than in supernatural scares. The audience is given most of the pieces of the puzzle - but snack-cake munching Johnson somehow pulls them all together.
Inside the Mafia (National Geographic, 9-11 p.m., Part Two: June 14, 9-11 p.m.): Ray Liotta narrates this powerful documentary about organized crime in all its sleazy, ghastly reality. There is nothing romantic about the Mafia, and interviews with ex-Mafioso and real-life infiltrator Joe Pistone (aka Donnie Brasco) prove it.
