MINISERIES
Hall of Shame
MORGAN FREEMAN narrates “Slavery and the Making of America,’ a four-part series that offers new scholarship on America’s ugliest period. The show chronicles the origins of slavery, in 1619, when Virginia settlers bought 20 Africans from Dutch traders, and goes all the way to Reconstruction. Through recreations, we meet Harriet Jacob, a runaway slave, and Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship and steered it to freedom. Prominent Scholars offer their perspective as well.
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SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
Wednesday, 9 p.m., PBS
REALITY
Trains and boats and planes
ICELAND, Scandinavia, Senegal, Germany, Sri Lanka: The contestants on “Amazing Race’ have traversed the world, crossing hemispheres and rivers, hopping trains, running for planes, yelling at drivers to get to the pit stops faster. Some of their destinations have been beautiful and fascinating, with glimpses into wonderful cultures. The trip to Ethiopia and the religious sect that prays to St. George, as the devotees stood around a cross-shaped church that was dug into the earth, was the most interesting. But, in the end, the race is about money and this week we’ll find out which couple will cross the finish line and claim the show’s one-million dollar prize.
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THE AMAZING RACE
Tuesday, 10 p.m., CBS
DOCUMENTARY
Really mean girls
AILEEN WUORNOS, the serial killer whose killing spree formed the basis of last year’s film “Monster,’ had nothing on the murderous babes in “Deadly Women,’ a grisly survey of history’s most horrifying women. There’s Countess Bathory, Slovakia, a real-life 17th century vampire who murdered hundreds of girls in order to drink and bathe in their blood. Then there’s gothic Vera Renczi, from Bucharest, a gal who was so nuts about her boyfriends, she poisoned more than 30 of them and kept their bodies in the basement, for safe keeping. Most alarming may be the tale of the appropriately named Dr. Linda Hazzard, who in 1911, finished of at least 20 of her patients with her special “starvation’ diet.
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DEADLY WOMEN
Tuesday, 8 p.m., Discovery Channel
DRAMA
Middle east nightmare
TAKING storytelling cues from current events, “The West Wing’ this week tells the tale of an Iranian fighter jet that accidentally shoots down a British passenger jet. One hundred people are dead. The British prime minister wants to bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors. Everyone is freaking out. President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) learns that pilot of the jet had mistaken the passenger plane for a U.S. spy plane and calls Prime Minister Marbury (Roger Rees). The two men debate whether a strike is the perfect way to wipe out the atomic sites or if such retaliation will backfire.
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THE WEST WING
Wednesday, 9 p.m., NBC
REALITY
Gay ‘Swap’
HERE’S one for the TV record books. A Texas mom who believes gays are “depraved’ trades places with a Lesbian mother from Arizona on “Wife Swap.’ For a series that usually gets its greatest charge out of putting the messy wife into the neat freak’s home (and vice versa), this tactic should ramp up the fear factor, especially for Nikki Boone, the gay mom, as well as the stroke factor, for Kris Gillespie, the arch-conservative homophobe from Bush country. The different lives they lead pave the way for several domestic explosions that break out in next week’s episode.
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WIFE SWAP
Wednesday, 10 p.m., ABC
TALK SHOW
‘Wives’ week
THE chatty women of “The View’ take on the neurotic women of Wisteria Lane as the stars of ABC’s hit series “Desperate Housewives’ each take a turn co-hosting the popular talk show, broadcast from the El Capitan theater in Los Angeles. Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and naughty Nicollette Sheridan will take turns sitting with the winter- weary Barbara Walters, Star Jones Reynolds, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselback. Will Star discuss mammary enhancement and her wedding to Al Reynolds with the actresses? Expect ten times as much girl talk as usual.
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THE VIEW
Weekdays, 11 a.m., ABC