What's On This Week

SUNDAY, OCT. 28

THE SILENCE OF THE BEES
TIMES MAY VARY | PBS
Disturbing episode of the documentary series Nature about the global bee crisis—hives abandoned and decimated by a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD.

BROTHERS & SISTERS
10:01 P.M. | ABC
Sarah Whedon is thrust into a custody battle for her children. This should give the formidable Rachel Griffiths—Emmy-nominated in the role last season—some juicy, powerful scenes.

MONDAY, OCT. 29

SEASON FINALE!

CALIFORNICATION
10:30 P.M. | SHOWTIME
David Duchovny's loose and sex-soaked satire about a Hollywood writer concludes its first season—the show has been renewed, probably for summer 2008—with a very messy wedding and an even messier little twist.

TUESDAY, OCT. 30

SEASON NEW!

NIP/TUCK
10 P.M. | FX
Drs. McNamara and Troy (Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon) move their practice from Miami to L.A. and become famous—as consultants on a TV show about plastic surgeons! This isn't so much jumping the shark as embracing it and letting it feast. The dependably offbeat guest list includes Portia de Rossi, Tia Carrere and, back as Dawn Budge, Rosie 'O'Donnell.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31

SEASON FINALE!

LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY
TIMES MAY VARY | SYNDICATED
The hosts put such loving care into their Halloween costumes, and this year's show will be in 3D. 3-Dreeg!

NEW FACE!

CRIMINAL MINDS
9 P.M. | CBS
With the Mandy Patinkin era now at a close for this brisk, entertaining crime drama, Joe Mantegna—an actor who never makes a false step—shows up as Special Agent David Rossi.

THURSDAY, NOV. 1

UGLY BETTY
8 P.M. | ABC
More confusion in the touching, nerdy love of Betty (America Ferrera) for Henry (Christopher Gorham), who looks like Norman Bates in accounting. Marlo Thomas guests as a powerful advertiser.

NEW SEASON!

• WHITE-COAT ANXIETY. ABC's blockbuster enters its fourth season with two formidable performers no longer walking the halls: Isaiah Washington, now at Bionic Woman, and Kate Walsh, who's gotten her own spin-off, Private Practice. As if to distract us from this power vacuum, recent episodes have been crowded with new interns flopping around like baby seals hoping for anchovies from a trainer. So far the only thing they accomplish is to make the series regulars, now mostly advanced to residents, look as old as the cast of Friends.

• GREY ON GREY. Actually, there's one intern I like: Meredith's half-sister, Lexie Grey, played by Chyler Leigh. Fresh, slender and tremulous, she could hide behind get-well bouquets as camouflage.

• DIZZY IZZIE. Finally—Dr. Stevens seems to be over her bathetic mooning for dead Denny. In fact, Katherine Heigl's performance now has a lot of the same softly insistent comic timing she showed in this past summer's movie hit, Knocked Up. Would a doctor as harried as Izzie waste time trying to save a deer hit by a truck? Well, no, but Heigl breathed sweetness into the scene.