Summer Programs Demand Modified Viewing Habits

Let’s twist the TV dial again, like we did last summer. Right now the trendy shows of our work and school year - “X-Files,” “Friends,” ” ER” - are stuck in rerun, so it’s time to slam dunk our minds with sophisticated, unconventional viewing fare on cable and public TV. Stay loose, however, because some of the following air times are subject to change.

At July 17, HBO delivers the best miniseries of the summer - in fact one of the best of the year - with “Band of Gold,” a starkly gripping British-made murder mystery whose heroes are streetsmart prostitutes in blue-collar Bradford, England. When one of their colleagues is killed on the moors, they band together to trap the perp.

What’s cool about “Band” is the way it mixes genres - cops ‘n’ crime with thriller with “EastEnders”-style soap - into moods that are quirky and new. Performances are superb. And these hard-working girls are hardly stereotypes, in part because scriptwriter Kay Mellor researched her story in consultation with the English League of Prostitutes.

Then on Aug. 26, HBO flies high with the original movie “The Tuskegee Airmen,” about the World War II exploits of the first squadron of black U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilots. The film stars Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher (“Homicide”), Malcolm-Jamal Warner and John Lithgow.

Summer’s most unsettling program is undoubtedly “Hiroshima,” a three-hour Showtime docudrama on America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945. It debuts Aug. 6. This is a Canadian-Japanese co-production, so its take on the controversial bombing decision is bound to be complicated.

Koreyoshi Kurahara (“Antarctica”) directed the Japanese sequences in Japan, with Roger Spottiswoode (“And the Band Played On”) helming U.S. scenes in Montreal. Toshiro Ishido (“Black Rain”) and John Hopkins (“Smiley’s People”) co-wrote the part fictional-part factual script.

Also this summer, Showtime launches a full frontal assault on original programming, with four new half-hour comedy series. First on July 14 is “The Howie Mandel Show,” a 13-episode sketch comedy series that Showtime calls “a cross between ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ and ‘This Old House.”’ That’s followed at midnight by stand-up showcase “Full Frontal Comedy,” hosted by Dom Irrera.

On July 16, Showtime invades suburban Southern California with “Sherman Oaks,” a chuckler about a filmmaker who moves in on a middle-class-but-nutty family. “Twisted Puppet Theater” follows, featuring sock puppets, shadow puppets and marionettes for adults, all with a “slightly sick” sense of humor.

Blind cowgirl Diane Starin of Orland, Calif., is determined not to be a stereotypical sightless “goody-twoshoes.” So she says in her excruciatingly candid autobiographical “Out of Sight,” on independent film showcase “P.O.V.” on PBS. “Sight” makes Starin’s convoluted domestic life seem way beyond “Melrose Place.” Starin’s relentless openness and filmmaker David Sutherland’s probing camerawork make this stranger-than-soap documentary eerily hypnotic.

For a more conventionally crafted, but just as arresting documentary, catch “The Language of Life With Bill Moyers.” It’s all about poetry - often mixed with music - and the medium never roared and rapped so eloquently.

MTV continues to hone voyeurism to a fine art. Beginning June 28, MTV’s “Real World” revs up for a new season with a new cast of real-life roommates in London. Details are under wraps until shooting ends June 18.

Also on MTV, the new verite series “Road Rules” premieres July 12. This is “Real World” on wheels, with a testy new twist. “Road’s” assembled cast of strangers isn’t just forced to live together. They have to travel together and do stuff like get jobs - yuck - too.

Increasingly, Nick at Nite is the hippest, most pop-culture-drenched channel going. Where else can you dream along with “Jeannie,” “Lucy,” or “Mary Tyler Moore”? Nightly at 8 p.m. June 26-30, Nick celebrates its 10th anniversary with a blow-out marathon of 37 kitschy TV classics, including single episodes of “Mr. Ed,” “Route 66,” “The Monkees,” “Green Acres,” the Coneheads on - remember its glory days? - “Saturday Night Live,” and “Fernwood2-Night.”