All Times Eastern

SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Nature: Andes: The Dragon’s Back

PBS This sweeping documentary explores the spectacular geography and the unusual flora and fauna of the 5,000-mile-long Andes Mountains of South America. The Andes house the highest peaks outside the Himalayas, as well as the largest ice field outside the poles, and they shade both deserts and rain forests.

SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Pot o’ Gold

FAMILYLAND TV Jimmy Stewart, Paulette Goddard and bandleader Horace Heidt star in this 1941 musical comedy-romance about a man who befriends an Irish-American family, courts their daughter and takes over a radio show to promote the family’s band.

MONDAY,9 p.m.

American Experience: Race to the Moon

PBS “The Apollo program was one of the great accomplishments of our American civilization … an impossible dream,” says astronaut Frank Borman in this exciting documentary about his Apollo 8 moon-orbiting flight along with James Lovell and Bill Anders in which they read from the Book of Genesis on Christmas Eve, 1968. A re-air.

TUESDAY,9 p.m.

Ancient Discoveries: Egyptian Warfare

HISTORY CHANNEL It is little known today, but the ancient Egyptians made striking advances in weapons-making and large-scale battle strategy and tactics.

WEDS.,3 a.m., 6:30 p.m.

Rag City Padre

EWTN Pioneer missionary Father Peter Anderson, a Dominican, came to Gold Rush California in 1850 and celebrated Sacramento’s first Mass. Three months later, he died from illness and exhaustion as he heroically helped the stricken during a cholera epidemic that killed or frightened away two-thirds of Sacramento’s residents. A re-air.

FRIDAY,6 a.m.

Classroom: Apollo — The Race Against Time

HISTORY CHANNEL Astronauts Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (Apollo 11) and Gene Cernan (Apollo 17) recount their history-making walks on the moon in this documentary about current efforts to preserve spacecraft, spacesuits and equipment from our U.S. space efforts. A re-air. Advisory: TV-PG.

SATURDAY,9 a.m.

Quo Vadis

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES Finlay Currie is St. Peter and Abraham Sofaer is St. Paul in this dramatic 1951 film retelling of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s 1895 novel of Christian martyrs’ ultimate triumph over the Roman tyrant Nero. Deborah Kerr and Robert Taylor star and Peter Ustinov memorably portrays Nero’s sociopathic narcissism and cruelty.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.