BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Oh boy, the networks are in trouble.
Half of my top-10 shows to watch during November sweeps, which start Thursday, are not on Big Four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox). They're not on cable, either.
The truly Must See TV is on PBS, starting with the Titanic of all sweeps specials -- a Nova film revealing some of the 450 Oscar-winning special effects in Titanic, the world's most popular film.
The Public Broadcasting Service also airs the TV premiere of the musical Cats and a Ken Burns film about architect Frank Lloyd Wright. PBS' variety of documentaries range from the last turn of the century to the first days of the Internet to a few nights at NBC's award-winning Homicide: Life in the Street.
All will help sink the competition on the commercial networks, which use the four-week ratings period (through Nov. 25) to set advertising rates.
Viewers, who have increasingly tuned to cable, will be disappointed to find only two miniseries on the Big Four (The Temptations and Moma Flora's Family), half as many as last year.
Instead, the networks will rely on theatrical films such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Twister, The Birdcage, 101 Dalmatians, Mission Impossible, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty cartoon.
Haven't we seen seen them all? Several times?
November also brings the dawn of the digital age. Expect a lot of hoopla over the first broadcasts in digital TV, and high-definition TV (HDTV) technology, billed as the standards for the 21st century. But it's just hoopla now, since nobody can afford the $7,700 horizontal-screen HDTV sets.
If you want something new and different you can actually see, then PBS is your destination station. As they say: If PBS doesn't do it, who will? My picks:
1. Special Effects: Titanic and Beyond
(8 p.m. Tuesday, Channels 48, 54, 16): Talk about movie magic. PBS' Nova reveals how director James Cameron sailed away with 11 Oscars for Titanic, without building a full-size boat. Nova shows how computers created many memorable scenes in Titanic, Flubber, Jurassic Park and The X-Files movies, and compares them with the primitive special effects in The Wizard of Oz (the twister was a muslin sock) and The Ten Commandments (the Red Sea was Jell-O).
2. Cats
(8 p.m. Monday, Channel 48): PBS' Great Performances lives up to its name (again). Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber personally supervised this TV production of Cats, with a 76-piece orchestra accompanying Elaine Paige, John Mills and Ken Page. Cats has been seen by more than 50 million people in 27 countries, including 6,800 performances at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre.
3. Frank Lloyd Wright:
(9 p.m. Nov. 10-11, Channels 48, 54, 16): America's greatest architect is profiled by Ken Burns, America's greatest documentary filmmaker. The three-hour biography captures the spectacular detail of the Fallingwater house near Pittsburgh, the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wis., and the Guggenheim Museum, completed a few months after his death at age 91 in 1959.
4. The Temptations and Oprah Winfrey Presents: David and Lisa:
I'm a guy, so I can list two Sunday movies and count them as one. I can watch both at once, trying not to miss any great Motown tunes, until my wife wrestles the remote control away from me.
The Temptations (9-11 p.m. Sunday-Monday, Channels 5, 22) dwells on the dark side of the quintet, showing that "Psychedelic Shack" was more than a song title. NBC dramatizes the drug and alcohol abuse that tore apart singers Otis Williams (Charles Malik Whitfield), Melvin Franklin (D.B. Woodside), Paul Williams (Christian Payton), Eddie Kendricks (Terron Brooks) and David Ruffin (Leon, from Cool Runnings).
David and Lisa (9 p.m. Sunday, Channels 9, 2), with Lukas Haas and Brittany Murphy, updates the 1962 film about two teens who fall in love at a school for disturbed youth. Ms. Winfrey does not appear in the film, produced by her Harpo Productions.
5. Monday After the Miracle
(9 p.m. Nov. 15, Channels 12, 7): What happened after the miracle worker's miracle? CBS explores the life of grown-up Helen Keller (Moira Kelly) and teacher Annie Sullivan (Roma Downey), and the handsome professor (Bill Campbell) who came between them.
6. Mama Flora's Family
(9 p.m. Nov. 8 and 10, Channels 12, 7): TV goes back to its Roots again. CBS' only miniseries is based on a story from the late Alex Haley, John Avnet and Jordan Kerner. Cicely Tyson stars as the mother guiding three generations of her family through the ever-changing African-American experience this century.
7. America 1900
(8 p.m. Nov. 18, Channels 48, 54, 16): While networks prepare for the 21st century, PBS' The American Experience looks back at the dawn of this one. America 1900 shows that many issues still resonate 100 years later -- race relations, immigration, the environment and anxiety over how complex new technology will change lives. Of course, "new technology" back then was electric lights, indoor plumbing, X-rays and automobiles. Now it's digital.
8. Rear Window
(9 p.m. Nov. 22, Channels 9, 2): Christopher Reeve's first leading role since his 1995 equestrian accident occurs in ABC's remake of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock chiller. Mr. Reeve plays the recently paralyzed architect who believes he has witnessed a murder from his apartment window.
9. Nerds 2.0.1, A Brief History of the Internet
(8 p.m. Nov. 25, Channel 48): Get wired with computer expert Robert X. Cringely, host of PBS' irreverent Triumph of the Nerds in 1996. He surfs the history of the Net, introducing us to nerds and geeks who became billionaires by changing how the world communicates and conducts commerce.
10. NYPD Blue
(10 p.m. Nov. 24, Channels 9, 2): Color me blue. We say so long to Bobby Simone, as Jimmy Smits leaves ABC's police drama the last Tuesday of sweeps. (Rick Schroder, former Silver Spoons child star, won't debut as narcotics detective Danny Sorenson until Dec. 1.)
And speaking of arresting TV -- Don't miss Anatomy of a Homicide: Life on the Street next Wednesday (9-11 p.m., Channel 48). (Yes, that's technically show No. 11 -- actually No. 12, I guess -- but it's my column, and I can do what I want.)
Anatomy of a Homicide offers an extraordinary behind-the-camera look at NBC's excellent drama filming the 1997 award-winning "Subway" episode, about the final hours of a Baltimore commuter (Vincent D'Onofrio) trapped by an oncoming train. The entire episode follows the 70-minute documentary.
And it's on PBS. Of course.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV - radio critic. His column appears Monday and Wednesday. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
