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.

Bill Moyers journeys to Nelson Mandela's new South Africa, where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission seeks to make peace with the past.

What makes Eyes work so well isn’t just the snappy patter, the slick camera angles, and the surveillance technology; it’s also the smarty-pants scams.