SUNDAY, live

Easter Sunday

EWTN At 4:30 a.m., live, Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Solemn Mass of Easter Sunday in St. Peter’s (re-airs noon); and at 6 a.m., live from St. Peter’s Square, he gives his Blessing and Message “urbi et orbi” (to the city of Rome and the world”). Re-airs 1:30 p.m., 10 a.m. Monday.

SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

ABC Host Ty Pennington, his design team, and local builders, workers and volunteers rebuild and modify the hurricane-damaged home of George and Barbara Kadzis in Tallahassee, Fla., to fulfill Mr. Kadzis’ dying wish to leave a home that is safe for his wife and six children, five of whom are adopted from China and have special needs. Kadzis, 56, a dentist who prayed the Rosary every day on his way to work, died of brain cancer two days after his family moved into the new house. Advisory: TV-PG.

SUNDAY, 10:30 p.m.

From the Top at Carnegie Hall: Star Quality

PBS Violinist Gil Shaham, a former child prodigy, performs a Bach allegro with 10-year-old violinist Alice Ivy-Pemberton, and pianist Christopher O’Riley accompanies her in a movement from Bartók’s Rhapsody No. 1 (Folk Dances) for Violin and Piano. Then pianist Ji-Yong Kim, 17, plays Robert Schumann’s “Widmung” (arr. Liszt). A re-air.

MONDAY, 9 p.m.

Doing Da Vinci

DISCOVERY CHANNEL In this new six-episode series, builders and engineers use only materials that were available 500 years ago as they try to construct, for the first time, military vehicles and weapons imagined by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

THURSDAY, 10 p.m.

Warriors

HISTORY This episode, “The Last Crusaders,” chronicles the heroic four-month resistance of 700 Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and 5,400 Maltese and others, under Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Valette, to the siege of Malta in 1565 by an Ottoman Turkish 48,000-man force. When the Turks finally withdrew, they had lost more than 30,000 men; and only 600 of the original Catholic fighters were still able-bodied.

SATURDAY, 2:30 p.m.

Dear Genevieve

HOME & GARDEN TV In this episode, “A Living Room Fit for the Whole Family,” celebrity interior designer Genevieve Gorder meets the growing Hansen family and turns the living room in their aging house into “a modern and child-friendly space.”

SATURDAY

NBA Playoffs

ABC, ESPN The best basketball of the year is on display in the NBA’s playoffs, as the 16 top teams fight to advance in best-of-seven-game rounds. This year’s initial contests are on ABC at 3 p.m. and ESPN at 8 p.m.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.