It’s filmdom’s favorite time of year — Oscar Night. What is there to look forward to?
Billy’s back! Arguably the best host of the Academy Awards since Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal returns for his seventh go-around as frontman of the 72nd annual event, which ABC has scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7.
Crystal’s wit and charm allow him to get away with almost anything, either during his opening monologue or in off-the-cuff remarks throughout the show. Crystal also might do his signature Oscar bit by inserting himself seamlessly into clips of the Best Film selections.
Geena’s not! ABC airs its pre-Oscar fest at 7 p.m., featuring arrival interviews and scene-setters. Last year’s host, Geena Davis, has been replaced with someone who knows how to interview people, “The View’s” Meredith Vieira.
Low lights! E! Entertainment Television’s Super Bowl-ish Oscar overload starts at 11 a.m. with six hours of features (and a wrapup after the show) leading up to Joan and Melissa Rivers’ two-hour preview starting at 5 p.m.
For some reason, Joan thinks ripping various folks’ sense of fashion is funny. It’s not.
Cameras! Film critic Roger Ebert hosts a live pre-Oscars special from Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. on WPWR-Ch. 50;WGN-Ch. 9 carries the syndicated “Live from the Academy Awards” at 6 p.m.; Fox News Channel also does an Oscars show at 6 p.m.; Barbara Walters’ annual pre-Oscar interview show is at 6 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7, with Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mike Myers and Ricky Martin; and “Politically Incorrect” has an Oscar party on ABC, but not until long after the telecast itself is over.
Action! You may find out whether “American Beauty,” “The Cider House Rules,” “The Green Mile,” “The Insider” or “The Sixth Sense” wins Best Picture sometime around 11 p.m. But don’t count on it.
Producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck decided enough with the dance routines, so don’t look for any.
Best Song candidate “Blame Canada” from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” features curses; will it still have them when the song is played Sunday?
Scheduled presenters include a very pregnant Oscar candidate Annette Bening (her hubby, Warren Beatty, will receive the Irving G. Thalberg humanitarian award), “The Sixth Sense’s” best supporting Oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment, Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, Samuel L. Jackson and Roberto Benigni (who hopefully won’t reach the stage by climbing over audience seats as he did last year when he joyously won two Oscars for his film “Life is Beautiful.”)
Sunday
– Among the guests on this week’s WTTW-Ch. 11-produced “CEO Exchange” at 1 p.m. is David P. Perry, co-founder and president of Chemdex Corp.
– By the time this edition of PBS’ short-film festival series “ShortCuts” airs at 11:30 p.m. on WYCC-Ch. 20, you should know whether the Oscar-nominated animated comedy “HumDrum” got the gold.
Monday
– Television doesn’t make movies anymore like ABC’s “The Audrey Hepburn Story,” an affectionate look at one of the world’s most beautiful actresses. The three-hour film feels more like it belongs in the 1980s, before TV turned salacious stories ripped from today’s headlines into entertainment.
The movie itself is pretty underwhelming, but Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Time of Your Life”) isn’t bad as the sensitive, humble Hepburn, who longed for a family full of children to partially replace the companionship she craved from her absentee father (Keir Dullea), a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. It airs at 7 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7.
– TNT’s World Championship Wrestling gets spring break fever, and tries to cure it with a special edition of “WCW Monday Nitro Live!” from South Padre Island, Texas at 7 p.m.
– FX’s wacky animated series “The Dick and Paula Celebrity Special,” a silly sendup of talk shows and the pomposity of show business, airs the first of seven new episodes at 9:30 p.m. Monday, with guest The Blair Witch. Or, as she likes to be called, just Blair Witch.
Tuesday
– Bill Moyers focuses on America’s roller coaster economic growth in “Surviving the Good Times.” Filmed over a 10-year period as part of a series of documentaries, the segment hones in on two blue-collar families in Milwaukee at 9 p.m. on WTTW-Ch. 11.
Wednesday
– If you can’t get up at 4 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday to see the Chicago Cubs historically open the season live in Japan against the New York Mets on Fox Sports Net, the cable channel will replay Wednesday’s broadcast at 7 p.m. and Thursday’s game at 3 p.m.
– Blooming couple Billie (Susan Floyd) and Aidan (Thomas Newton) together celebrate their 33rd and 23rd birthdays, respectively, on ABC’s “Then Came You” at 7:30 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7. The comedy is better than one might expect, due to the sensibilities of co-creator Jeff Strauss (“Partners,” “Getting Personal”), but it still relies too much on young-pup-dating-older-woman gags.
– VH1’s new documentary series “RockStory” looks at music events that shocked, and shaped, pop culture. “ER’s” Anthony Edwards hosts the debut, an episode on censorship at 9 p.m.
Thursday
– HBO attacks one of our deadliest diseases in “Cancer: Evolution to Revolution,” an exhaustive and highly informative 2 1/2- hour special at 7 p.m. It’s heavy on messages of being proactive in fighting the illness. The documentary, which also follows several people combating the disease, is loaded with telephone numbers and Web sites of cancer outreach groups, treatment centers and other sources of information.
– On CBS’ “Diagnosis Murder,” Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) goes undercover as a patient at a rest home specializing in murder at 7 p.m. on WBBM-Ch. 2. In what specialty did this guy do his residency?
– NBC’s “ER” gets some fresh meat … uh, new competition, from ABC’s “Wonderland,” which is set in the psychiatric ward of a New York City hospital. The series at 9 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7 was created by Peter Berg of “Chicago Hope.”
Friday
– CNBC premieres its new investment series “Market Week with Maria Bartiromo,” live from the New York Stock Exchange (6 p.m.).
– The new TV movie “Call of the Wild,” based on Jack London’s classic, kicks off Animal Planet’s first original prime-time series. The movie bows at 7 p.m.; the series settles into its regular 8 p.m. Mondays spot next week.
– Kevin Davis searches for a lost family member to claim a vast fortune in Ireland, and finds love from that relative’s widow Emma Samms, in the Romance Classics thriller “Fatal Inheritance” (7 p.m.).
– The appealing new reality series “Making the Band” lands in its regular 8:30 p.m. time period on WLS-Ch. 7. ABC is so high on the concept of following the formation of the new boy band O-Town that it gave the series a full 22-episode commitment.
Saturday
– Leslie Nielsen (“The Naked Gun”) is the new ringleader of American Movie Classics’ weekend presentation of Three Stooges shorts (7 to 9 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays).
– E! previews six hours of its fashion and beauty channel known as “style.” from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., hosted by model-actress Paulina Porizkova.
– Meanwhile, Cartoon Network sneaks a peek at its Boomerang cable offshoot, which features classic cartoons from the Hanna-Barbera library, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
It comes down to the Final Four for NCAA college basketball, and CBS covers the two matches after a pregame show at 3 p.m. on WBBM-Ch. 2; the first game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
– Country’s Trisha Yearwood is the latest in A&E’s stable of music acts who take requests live from fans through a special 800 telephone number, or by logging on to www.livebyrequest.com., at 8 p.m.
