VARIOUS

Classic Arts Showcase

COMMUNITY CHANNELS Each week this cable program, begun in 1994, offers an eight-hour slate of five-minute-or-less video clips. Many are from early TV, with performances in the classic arts such as ballet, chamber and choral music, dance, opera, orchestral works, recitals, and vocal and instrumental solos. Check local listings for channel and airtimes.

SUNDAY, 9:30 a.m.

Breed All About It

ANIMAL PLANET St. Bernard dogs are named for St. Bernard of Montjoux, who founded hospices at an 8,000-foot pass in the Swiss Alps ca. 1050. In time, the large dogs that his followers bred there became rescuers of travelers. Adult male St. Bernards weigh 150 to 200 lbs., do best in cold weather and need lots of exercise.

SUNDAY-MONDAY, 8 a.m., live

Solemn Masses of All Saints and All Souls

EWTN On Nov. 1, All Saints’ Day, which falls on Sunday this year, Catholics honor our saints, known and unknown, and pray for their intercession. Today’s Mass re-airs at midnight. On Nov. 2, All Souls’ Day, we pray for the poor souls, the faithful departed who are in purgatory to expiate unrepented venial sins and pay the temporal penalty for all sins not atoned for during their lives. Mass re-airs at 6:30 p.m. and midnight.

SUNDAY, 5 p.m., 8 p.m.

Journey to the Edge

of the Universe

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL This two-hour show “takes off” from Earth to tour the planets, the sun, stars, black holes and the universe’s far reaches by employing a “virtual camera” of computer-generated images that build upon real-life images from NASA sources and the Hubble space telescope.

THURSDAY, 10 p.m.

Ancient Discoveries:

Airborne Assault

HISTORY This season premiere studies ancient Chinese explosive missiles and whistling signal arrows, as well as medieval projectiles that skipped across water to hit ships. The show also builds and tests the earliest known parachute and a medieval kite that could drop bombs on cities.

FRIDAY, 10 p.m.

Hallowed Grounds

PBS This 2009 documentary makes a pilgrimage to the 22 U.S. military cemeteries in Europe. There lie nearly 125,000 American military personnel who died in World Wars I and II (nearly 100,000 more were never found). Archival film and photos profile some of the fallen, as well as visitors to the cemeteries.

SATURDAY, 10 p.m.

Rise and Fall of the

Berlin Wall

HISTORY For the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov. 9), this special chronicles the building of the wall in 1961 and, after, the many freedom lovers whom communists killed trying to escape — and what led to the overthrow of the barrier.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.