SMALL SCREEN

Z Rock (11:30 p.m. Sunday, IFC) -- This comedy series follows the adventures of three guys who are a party-hearty rock band by night, a Wiggles-style kiddie-rock group by day. Kind of like A Hard Day's Night except with a lot more depravity and a lot fewer Beatles.

America's Toughest Jobs (9 p.m. Monday, NBC) -- A new reality competition series in which 13 contestants do really, really crappy jobs for a day. The first episode is about crab-fishing in the Bering Sea, but the contestants really wilt during the second week, when they have to come to The Miami Herald for a day eand write about Z Rock.

World's Funniest Commercials 2008 (9 p.m. Tuesday, TBS) -- You may dimly remember that back before we had TiVo, watching television entailed sitting through these loud, boring and pointless things called ''commercials.'' Well, wallow in the nostalgia with this special that draws ads from around the globe, from the profoundly funny (any ad that mixes my three favorite punchlines -- Norwegians, cows and cellphones -- has got to be hilarious) to the profoundly disturbed (a frankly Oedipal ad for razor blades).

15 Most Shocking Political Sex Scandals (8 p.m. Friday, E! Entertainment) -- All the usual gang of sleazeballs and bimbos, from Bill practicing cigar tricks with Monica in the Oval Office to John Edwards playing hide-and-seek with National Enquirer reporters a few weeks ago. And, best of all, the seamy clips are all solemnly narrated by Serious Journalists like Ashleigh Banfield and Judy Bachrach, because, dammit, this is not titillation but civics. What's that? Of course Miami is in it, silly. Doing a documentary about political sexual sleaze without our gal Donna Rice would be like doing a documentary on 15 Most Famous Blonds Who Always Forget To Wear Underwear (E!'s next searing expose, I'm sure) without Britney Spears.

How The West Was Won (8 p.m. Saturday, Encore Westerns) -- This last of the epic Westerns is one of only two feature films ever made in Cinerama, which in the early 1960s was the ultimate wide-screen process. (Actually, wide-screens, plural; showing the film required three screens and three projectors.) Warner Home Video has spent six years remastering the film for TV screens, so now you can finally watch John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds and the other 6,000 or so stars in your own living room.

-- GLENN GARVIN

BIG SCREEN

Traitor (PG-13) -- Funnyman Steve Martin conceived the original idea for this dead-serious thriller about a CIA operative (Don Cheadle) who gets a little too close to the terrorist group he's investigating.

Transsiberian (R) -- While riding aboard a train from Beijing to Moscow, an American couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) befriend a pair of strangers (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) who may not be who they say they are.

Baghead (R) -- Clever, engaging indie about a quartet of aspiring filmmakers who hole up in the woods for a weekend to come up with an idea for a movie. They settle on a horror film about a group of friends stalked by a killer. Then someone starts stalking them.

Babylon A.D. (PG-13) -- Vin Diesel is a mercenary in the near-future assigned to smuggle a young woman (Melanie Thierry) from Kazakhstan into New York City. A strong supporting cast that includes Gerard Depardieu, Michelle Yeoh and Charlotte Rampling wasn't enough to convince distributor 20th Century Fox to screen this one in advance for critics.

College (R) -- Three high-school seniors visit a university campus and endure the humiliations of frathouse hazings. Meanwhile, the audience's collective I.Q. drops a few points.

Disaster Movie (PG-13) -- From the folks who brought you Epic Movie and Date Movie. You've been warned.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

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