Shelter Dogs (January 27; 7:30 to 8:45 p.m.; HBO) spends a year with America Undercover inside the Rondout Valley Kennels in upstate New York, where animal welfare includes couches, piped-in music, and psychological testing. But owner Sue Sternberg also believes that euthanasia is better than life in a cage.

Why Can’t We Be a Family Again? (January 27; 10 to 10:30 p.m.; Channel 13) follows two brothers coping with their mother’s substance abuse and failed rehab.

Acts of Ardor: Two Dances by Paul Taylor (January 28; 10 to 11 p.m.; Channel 13) combines Black Tuesday, a performance choreographed around popular songs from the Great Depression, with Promethean Fire, danced to two preludes, a toccata, and a fugue by J. S. Bach.

Just Another Story (February 2; 8 to 9:15 p.m.; Showtime) is a hip-hop musical written and directed by GQ (The Bombitty of Errors, Drumline), who also stars as aspiring rapper Stix, who must make the usual moral choices on his way to the frenetic top.

Know HIV/AIDS (February 2; 8 p.m. to midnight; Sundance) consists of four documentaries—14 Million Dreams (AIDS and children in Kenya and Malawi), It’s My Life (South Africa and anti-retroviral drugs), Mother to Child (South Africa and hospital drug trials of nevirapine), and The Gift (about gay men deliberately courting HIV infection).

Remember the Alamo (February 2; 9 to 10 p.m.; Channel 13) looks back at Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett from the point of view of José Antonio Navarro, the leader of the Tejanos—Mexicans who had lived in Texas for generations—who had warmed up for war by earlier revolting against Spanish rule and who would fight on the Anglo side at the Alamo.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Feb 2, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!