The stories in ABC's "Arabian Nights" may be familiar, but the Borscht Belt humor and cute Israeli star add a frisson of Peace Accord to the project.

Some of our most distinguished actors give voice to the searing oral histories provided decades ago by freed slaves, in the invaluable Unchained Memories.

Bigger even than Y2K was the great quiz-show frenzy of 1999; "NYPD Blue" returns, but do we believe Sipowicz really cares about civil rights?

Maggie Smith plays a heart-on-sleeve novelist in the deeply felt My House in Umbria; Rachael Stirling is smashing (natch—she’s Diana Riggs’s daughter) in Tipping the Velvet.

With Taken, Steven Spielberg hits every cliché in the aliens-having-their-way-with-us playbook. Do we care? Nah.

Glenn Close joins The Shield, giving the treacherous Vic Mackey his very own Lady Macbeth.

Susan Sarandon infuses HBO's adaptation of Anne Tyler's road novel "Earthly Possessions" with a comic sparkle that recalls "Thelma & Louise."

TV Notes

A super-comprehensive Broadway documentary with talking heads living and dead. Plus: Dorothy Allison, The Office, and wormholes.