Hbo

Give HBO four stars for its classy, spicy and very satisfying documentary about the once legendary New York eatery, Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven. The filmmakers have structured it as an operatic drama with a capital D. Viewers follow the four-star French restaurant as it flourishes in the 1970s and '80s under owner Sirio Maccioni - up through its closing in 2004, and reopening two years later. Watch as the owner, his wife and three sons engage in family combat worthy of Wagner as they struggle to find a new style for a new century.

All too often, the prime-time depiction of rape makes this most despicable of crimes a bit too simple and caricatured.The victim is a wholly admirable member of an upper economic realm in society. The attacker is a wholly loathsome piece of disgusting trash. The police are insensitive louts. That they could possibly think of not pursuing and prosecuting such crimes is seen as ridiculous and criminal in itself."Rape: Cries From the Heartland," an HBO documentary that will premier tonight at 10 p.m., shows that the reality is a bit murkier than a made-for-TV movie scriptwriter might have you believe.

One of the byproducts of Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy is the opening of a wide-ranging discussion on race in TV. Exhibit A: Last month's Black in America documentary on CNN. And now comes HBO's The Black List, Vol. 1 featuring interviews with 22 prominent artists, academics, authors, athletes and activists. From guitarist Slash, the child of a white father and black mother, describing himself as "half black or whatever," to author Toni Morrison recollecting with poetic precision her first job in the kitchen of a white home, the 90-minute documentary is consistently thought-provoking.

And you thought it was expensive watching The Wire on Comcast. Try tuning in via $42,000 a year at Middlebury College, which began offering a course on the late, great HBO series this semester. The Middlebury price includes a whole year's education at the esteemed Vermont college but, alas, no access to the Food Network. A better bargain can be had at UC Berkeley, which charges $7,000 (in state) and just launched a Wire course of its own. "As far as I know, [Berkeley's Linda Williams]

There is a moment in "When It Was a Game," HBO's elegiac tribute to baseball, that might capture what is is that is so special about the DiMaggios, Williamses, Ruths and Gehrigs, those galloping white-flanneled steeds who always seem to run faster, swing harder, field smoother and play tougher than the pampered millionaires who take the field every spring these days.It's during a section about the old ballparks. One of the commentators mentions that in the era covered in this documentary -- roughly the mid-'30s to 1950 -- the only way you could see a game was to go to one of these stadiums.

HBO has set premiere dates for its two big-ticket political projects filmed in Maryland last year. "Game Change," the made-for-TV movie starring Ed Harris as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, will premiere March 10, according to Stuart Levine in the Hollywood trade publication Variety . "VEEP," the half-hour political satire that finished filming its first season in December in the Baltimore area, will debut April 22....

HBO Monday announced that it is picking up Aaron Sorkin's"The Newsroom" for a second season, along with "True Blood" for a sixth. I love the way "The Newsroom"  calls out the press for losing its sense of purpose. Some members of the press didn't like being called out that way. (See my other blog posts about "The Newsroom" to the left of this post.) A couple of pieces of very good news from HBO.  

For the second week in a row, Baltimore got some prime-time, Sunday-night love on high-end cable TV. Two weeks ago, Lutherville got a mention on "Mad Men. " Granted, it was a throwaway line, but a mention is a mention in self-conscious Baltimore -- and its north county cousins. This Sunday, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and running back Ray Rice got the shoutout on HBO's "VEEP," which is made in Maryland. The mention came when Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

The audience for HBO's Baltimore-based crime drama The Wire continued to shrink last week, dropping to a season low of 846,000 viewers. That is down 339,000 viewers from the previous week's audience of 1.185 million - a loss of 29 percent. While HBO attributed the drop to competition from the New York Giants/Green Bay Packers football game, the cumulative audience for the series is also down this season - 23 percent from last year, according to figures provided by the cable channel. Cumulative audience includes all viewers for every play and replay of an episode on any HBO channel.

May, the month when the television season ends, is reserved for supposedly important programs. Few, however, can match the power, humanity and true value of Baghdad ER. This splendid documentary, making its debut tonight on HBO, follows U.S. soldiers injured in the Iraq war and the medical personnel who care for them. Baghdad ER treats the topic with a remarkable mix of respect, intelligence and understatement. BAGHDAD ER / / Tonight at 8 / / HBO