THURSDAY, Jan. 7, 8 p.m., live

BCS Championship Bowl

ABC The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Texas Longhorns, college football’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams, each 13-0, will battle it out inside Pasadena’s famed Rose Bowl.

FRIDAY, Jan. 8, midnight

Impossible Moves

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL Expert movers transport homes (midnight), giant machines (1 a.m.), an “aquatic villa” and even a small town (2 a.m.).

FRIDAY, Jan. 8, 3 a.m., 6:30 p.m.

A Hill Apart

EWTN Today, outside Siauliai, Lithuania, perhaps 100,000 crosses, large and small, brought by pilgrims, cover the Kryziu Kalnas, the Hill of Crosses — a testament to the heroic faith of the Lithuanian Catholics who, under Soviet occupation (1944-1990), risked their lives to replace crosses that the atheistic communists kept destroying.

SUNDAY, Jan. 10, 8 p.m.

Nature: Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air

PBS High-speed and infrared cameras capture real-time and slow-motion close-ups of beautiful, acrobatic little hummingbirds, which every day must consume more than half their body weight in nectar to survive.

TUESDAY, Jan. 12, 8 p.m.

Nova: Building Pharaoh’s Ship

PBS Archaeologists and boat builders construct a seaworthy replica of an Egyptian trading vessel built for the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1508-1458 B.C.). The experts launch the ship into the Red Sea and speculate about the location of the land of Punt, an Egyptian trading destination.

TUESDAY, Jan. 12, 9 p.m.

How the Earth Was Made: Ring of Fire

HISTORY This one-hour episode investigates the “Ring of Fire,” a nearly 25,000-mile-long circuit of active volcanoes and earthquake areas that rim the Pacific Ocean from near New Zealand, up to Japan, Kamchatka and the Aleutians, and down through the Cascades and the Andes.

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 3 a.m., 6:30 p.m.

Living Hope: Stories From the Crusade

EWTN This 2004 half-hour special follows Catholic pro-life college students from the American Life League’s annual summer Crusade Walk across the country as they witness in New York City.

SATURDAY, Jan. 16, 4 p.m.

Rio Grande

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES Famed Irish American director John Ford helmed this 1950 Western about the U.S. Cavalry. John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara star, and the Sons of the Pioneers sing “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.” A highlight: Rescuing a child from a chapel under Apache attack, Sgt. Maj. Quincannon (Victor McLaglen) makes sure to genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament. Advisory: TV-PG.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.