f---ing goddamn s---!"), makes The 'Burbs look like Shadow of a Doubt.
Infotainment With segments on such celebs as Sly Stallone, Demi Moore, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Ellen DeGeneres, Extra-The Entertainment Magazine (syndicated, check local listings)-a corporate cousin of Entertainment Weekly-hopes to overtake Entertainment Tonight (no relation) as the premier electronic outlet for showbiz tidbits. But Extra's greatest challenge may be coming up with a theme song as annoyingly ear-catching as ET's immortal ditty. Maybe if they hired John Tesh to write it .
Music A profile of the singer-songwriter-antinuke activist, Jackson Browne: Going Home (Disney, Aug. 28, 9-10:30 p.m.) mixes personal photos, concert clips, and / cliche-ridden interviews. Even if you don't like Browne's music, you gotta admire a guy who-like James Brown (no relation)-picks a hairstyle and sticks with it; Browne has kept the same shaggy Prince Valiant 'do since the '70s, although he recently took a bold leap into the '80s by moving his part slightly off-center.
Documentaries It lacks the exclamation point of its ratings-stomping A&E predecessor, Dinosaur!, but APE MAN (A&E, Sept. 4-7, 8-9 p.m.) has retained the show's chief fossil, host Walter Cronkite. Who better to take us through man's development from apelike creature to modern human than the man who is a grandfather figure to us all? Helping Cronkite out are a nifty puzzle graphic that gets a new piece every time something is "discovered," the usual roundup of British-accented scientists, and, most intriguingly, anthropology students clad all in black, who reenact episodes of our prehistory. In one precious scene, Cronkite tries to convince one of these fellows, who is perched on a branch, that he should come down from the trees and evolve. Skull-and-bones lovers everywhere will no doubt dig it. -Erica Kornberg
Choice Reruns Every autumn, the leaves fall from the trees, and an actor or two falls from the lineup of Law & Order (A&E, weeknights starting Sept. 5, 11 p.m.-midnight). Now, as A&E runs old episodes of the cops-and-lawyers drama, viewers can witness the gruff-older-cop role pass from George Dzundza to Paul Sorvino, then to Jerry Orbach. Yet Order has become a better-and more popular- show each season, even as temperamental cast members have left for allegedly greener pastures. Take a hint, David Caruso.
