What's On TV
FRIDAY 3/24
Making the Band (ABC, 9-10 p.m.): Part documentary, part "reality TV," the new series is bound to appeal to preteen girls and boys who go for bands like 'N Sync. Choosing eight among 25 handsome, talented young men to become a hot new band, producers groom, train, and encourage them before deciding who will win a place. We hear about the singers' dreams, and it's surprisingly easy to tell who will make it. The mildly entertaining show, a lot like a beauty pageant, after all, will see the guys launch their careers.
SATURDAY 3/25
NCAA College Basketball (CBS, 12 noon): The Road to the Final Four. On their way to the Sweet Sixteen, the underdogs were on a tear. "March Madness" rarely disappoints.
SUNDAY 3/26
72nd Annual Academy Awards (ABC, 8:30 p.m.): Between the lost Oscar ballots and the stolen Oscar statuettes, Billy Crystal will have plenty of material to work with this year. Hollywood's biggest night airs live from the Shrine Auditorium (see cover story, page 13).
MONDAY 3/27
The Audrey Hepburn Story (ABC, 8-11 p.m.): This homage to a great star has a decent script by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman (" 'Night, Mother"), but doesn't really quite make it as a movie (see story above).
PICK OF THE WEEK
TUESDAY 3/28
Surviving the Good Times: A Moyers Report (PBS, check local listings): This documentary, which took 10 years to make, gives us a unique view of the American economy as it has affected two working-class families (see story above).
WEDNESDAY 3/29
Major League Baseball (Fox Sports, 5 a.m.): It's Opening Day. The dawn of baseball in 2000 will occur in Tokyo, "Land of the Rising Sun." The Chicago Cubs play the New York Mets. St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire's response last Monday: "To me, to go play worldwide doesn't turn my crank.... This game belongs here."
THURSDAY 3/30
Wonderland (ABC, 10-11 p.m.): This new medical drama focuses on the men and women who run a New York psychiatric hospital's emergency-care facility. It's "NYPD Blue" meets "ER." Virtually everything that happens in the first two well-written episodes is sad, beginning with a madman who guns down cops and bystanders, believing they are monsters from another planet.
Mystery! Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (PBS, check local listings): The matronly detective solves the crimes that the police have no time for. The six episodes air on Thursdays (see story above).
Adventure Divas - Cuba: Paradox Found (PBS, check local listings): Adventure traveler Holly Morris tours Cuba in this rich documentary that spotlights several Cuban "divas," including three young women in a rap group and a producer-host of a TV interview program.
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