TV Picks 10.25.2009

SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

ABC The crew and volunteers build a new home for Nathan and Jenny Montgomery and their four children in Philo, Ill. Nathan gave up a career in engineering to found the Salt & Light Food Pantry in nearby Champaign and now helps feed 250 families a week. Brady Builders got Father James Ramey of Bloomington to celebrate Mass on the building site, and area Catholic students conducted a drive for the food pantry.


SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Nature: Cloud, Challenge of the Stallions

PBS Ginger Kathrens presents her third film about Cloud, the white wild horse she has followed in the Arrowhead Mountains of Montana since his birth in 1995. Cloud and his band of mares and foals face attacks by mountain lions, raids by other stallions and threats from the Bureau of Land Management, as do rival Shaman and his band.


MONDAY, noon

The Future Depends on Love

CATHOLICTV Pro-life hosts Drs. David and Angela Franks take “A Frank Look at the Vocation of Marriage” and join their guest experts in explaining Catholic doctrine about the sacrament of marriage, chastity, natural family planning and similar topics.


WEDNESDAY, 7:30 p.m., live

World Series, Game One

FOX SPORTS Asked what makes a good baseball manager, Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra replied, “Good players.” Plenty of good players will be on hand for this opening game of the 105th World Series between the champions of the American and National Leagues. Game 2 of the annual best-of-seven series is 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and Game 3 is Saturday (TBA).


THURSDAY, 10 p.m.

Keeping Score

PBS In this hour-long show, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas looks at Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and how, during a purge by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that sent millions to slave labor camps, torture and execution, he removed himself from suspicion by composing his Fifth Symphony in D Minor (1937). The work fooled the communist regime but expressed people’s heartbreak and mourning.


FRIDAY, 8 p.m.

Modern Marvels

HISTORY The night before All Hallows’ Eve and Halloween goody-giving, hour-long episodes spotlight sweets and munchies: “Chocolate” at 8 p.m., “Snackfood Tech” at 9 p.m., “More Snackfood Tech” at 10 p.m., and “Candy” at 11 p.m. Advisory: TV-PG.


SATURDAY, 10 a.m.

Direct From the Moon

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL The Japanese space agency Jaxa launched the Kaguya lunar orbiter in September 2007 and ended its mission in June of this year. The orbiter took spectacular photos of the moon and Earth and collected scientific data.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.

The Actors’ Chapel

There aren’t many churches where the person sitting next to you might be a star of stage, screen or television. But that’s the case at St. Malachy’s, the New York Times Square church known as “The Actors' Chapel.”