Here are a few programs to look out for in the upcoming week ...
THURSDAY 8 P.M. Sports Owners: Who's the Boss? The History Channel. Behind players, coaches, and managers stand the real bosses -- owners. This 90-minute history of ownership across all sports revisits the struggles of pioneers like Connie Mack and George Halas. Learn about Bill Veeck's antics and controversies surrounding Al Davis and George Steinbrenner. Meet the Packers, the NFL's only community-owned team. Sportswriters, historians and owners step up to the plate for a look at sports' more colorful figures. Of course, our local football owner is but one color.
THURSDAY 8 P.M. Science Mysteries, Discovery. "Return to Area 51." It's a super secret testing ground located in the remote Nevada desert. This program claims that the Air Force not only tested planes there, but that it is also the final resting place of several failed experimental aircraft. Knock us over with a feather. Still it would be cool to see what some of these looked like.
FRIDAY MIDNIGHT. Cleavage, A&E. No this hasn't become "Boob Tube" (so very sorry about that). This two-hour special surveys mankind's fascination with breasts and cleavage, from the goddesses of antiquity to today's silicone-enhanced TV and film stars. Offering their opinions on why two simple mounds of flesh have wielded such power through the ages will be comedian Joan Rivers; Cosmopolitan's Helen Gurley Brown; a plastic surgeon; a female body builder; and others. Narrated by Carmen Electra (a Cincinnati gal who corked her bat, by the way).
SATURDAY 8 P.M. The Junction Boys, ESPN. Tom Beringer is Paul "Bear" Bryant in this movie about the Univer-sity of Alabama's famed football coach. Roll, Tide!
SATURDAY 8 P.M. Battlebots, Comedy Central. The fifth season of this mix of robotics and pro wrestling debuts. These programs feature semi-final and final match-ups. I'd like to see C-3PO punk Robby The Robot.
SUNDAY 9 P.M. New Zealand: The Royal Tour, Travel Channel. Join New Zealand's prime minister for a royal tour of this extraordinary land of extremes. Climb the snowy Southern Alps, jet boat in just four centimeters of water, bungi jump in this sports native country and rappel straight into a lost world. That's followed by Secrets of New Zealand at 10 p.m. Thompson Twins retired there, you know. Don't know if they'll turn up on either show though.
WEDNESDAY 8 P.M. Second String, TNT. Jon Voight plays a football coach (again?). This time he's in charge of the Buffalo Bills, saddled with a group of benchwarmers and retreads or some nonsense. This is basically every worst-to-first movie with a new uniform.
NEWS & NOTES: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 7 (the final season) hits stores Dec. 31. ... Tim McGraw will sing a duet with Elton John on the American Music Awards on Jan. 13. They will sing "Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer."
-- P.F. Wilson
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