Angela Lansbury

Though summer television fare has been on the snoozy side, there's an eclectic mixture of programming on tap for this Sunday. Angela Lansbury hosts the Disney Channel's premiere of the restored version of the 1971 family film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," at 8 p.m. The musical fantasy, set in World War II-era England, stars Lansbury and David Tomlinson of "Mary Poppins" fame. The Discovery Channel kicks off its 11th annual "Shark Week" at 9 p.m.

TV or not TV. . . . CHALLENGE: Is "Murder, She Wrote," CBS' top hit, ready to be taken? ABC thinks so--and believes it has the guns in two new series, "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Elvis." "Videos" has already shown ratings muscle in several outings. "Elvis" is about Elvis Presley as a young man. And ABC will fire the two half-hour series against "Murder, She Wrote" as a Sunday tandem starting Feb. 11. It's not the first challenge for "Murder, She Wrote."

According to Angela Lansbury, people are always asking her to name the one that got away: the role she always wanted to do but never got the opportunity. Her answer to them is always the same: "There isn't any," said Lansbury, her blue eyes twinkling. "With me, it's always, what's the next role that is going to come in the mail or that somebody is going to tell me about and I am going to fall in love with.

Here's one mystery even Jessica Fletcher might not be able to solve: How do you persuade fed-up California voters to oppose term limits for legislators? Fletcher, the earnest and friendly author on television's "Murder, She Wrote," has a knack for unraveling even the most devilish conundrums. But now California's legislative leaders have entrusted Angela Lansbury, who plays Fletcher on the popular CBS drama, with the task of saving their political futures.

If there's one thing that Broadway never runs short of, it's transcendent acting. And in a year that was marred by too much commercial dross and partly redeemed by top-drawer revivals, the following Tony nominees make it easy to see the glass as half full. I mean, who could cast aspersions on a season that brought us the following six powerhouse performances?

If you're old enough to have midriff bulge, the fashion stories emanating from television can be a major turnoff. There's no denying the spandex-and-denim set dominates the tube's style waves, from "Melrose Place" to MTV. But a few stylish, mature role models--for whom black leather motorcycle jackets are not the be-all and end-all--do exist.

With the phenomenal success of the Al Jolson musical "The Jazz Singer" in 1927, Hollywood quickly made the transition from silents to talkies. However, injecting color into movies was a much harder sell. In fact, it took the founder of Technicolor more than two decades to convince movie makers about the viability of color. The new Turner Classic Movies documentary "Glorious Technicolor," premiering Monday, examines the tangled history of color movies, as well as the life and career of Herbert T.

Twenty-two years ago, Bette Midler had a dream. It was during her first tour, and she wanted to put a few songs in the act from the musical "Gypsy," "because it was her favorite show," her friend and then-musical director Barry Manilow recalled. Few people outside of Manhattan had ever heard of her at the time, but Midler had a goal of someday playing Mama Rose, the monster stage mother of all time, a role originally created on Broadway in 1959 by Ethel Merman.

"God will get you for that, Walter." Nobody could do more with these words than Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay on the marital warpath. She could slingshot them in fury or release them in a chilling deadpan, but however she delivered them you could be sure they'd hit their mark with a prizefighter's pop. All the tributes that will be lavished on Arthur, who died Saturday at 86, will extol her impeccable comic timing.