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Every five years, PBS celebrates "Sesame Street's" apparent TV immortality with a something-ith anniversary. Sadly, that is all it has to celebrate--that a bunch of variously-talented do-gooders have kept their jobs, and their funding.

What has the national literacy rate done over these last 30 years of "Sesame Street"? It has gone *down*. Mathematical acumen of our students? Down. Familiarity with history and civics? Down. Behavior problems? Up. (Ask the teachers themselves, who at the drop of a hat go on strike about anything. Why don't they go on strike about *that*?)

And so, every five years, PBS celebrates... what?

"If PBS won't do it, who will?" So the pitch goes. But what exactly do they claim to be doing?

Long, but worth it! A blessed antidote to MTV's Tom Green and the rest of the scumbag-chic that passes for culture these days. Based on the brilliant history of the same name by Dava Sobel.

In the days when ships measured themselves by yardage of sail and bank of cannon, knowing your north-south latitude was easy. Finding your east-west longitude however (and keeping your ship off the reefs) was hit-and-miss. That could get you killed. The cure was to know the time in London, precisely, but keeping time accurate on a rolling ship was tougher than keeping milk fresh; pendulum clocks need stable ground, and pendulum clocks were all they had.

Queen Anne (Br., 1665-1714) had another idea: a 20,000 pound-sterling prize to anyone who had a solution. Problem was, no one expected a country carpenter cum-clockmaker to do it. John Harrison (Michael Gambon) was that carpenter, and it became *his* problem--a three-decades-long problem. It would also pose one for Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons) two centuries later, as a marriage-busting, sanity-breaking obsession over restoring Harrison's neglected prototypes: clocks that could keep time at sea better than the quartz-timed digital you might be wearing now.

"Longitude" weaves seamlessly--almost--between the two eras, tracking the exertions and miseries of John Harrison and Rupert Gould with the same kind of synchronicity Harrison spent half his life pitching to astronomers who had scarce respect for the tinkerings of a hayseed. Michael Gambon's passionate performance as John Harrison is truly Oscar-calibre, eclipsing Irons--but only because the tunnel-visioned Rupert Gould is hardly a vehicle for the memorable. Too bad this was "only" a TV mini-series. As a theatrical release it would have lent due reknown to a scarce-remembered true epic of genius.

Watch this when you get the chance. Then go punch Tom Green in the nose.

"Sleepy Hollow" is a pretty accurate moniker for this version of Washington Irving's classic tale--it can make you sleepy, and it is hollow.

Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane is way out of his depth here; whether by sheer inexperience, bad direction or bad writing, it is hard to tell. Likely one of the last two, as the accomplished actress Christina Ricci scarcely comes off any better and it is such a shame. There is too much melodrama, too much glowering and too much over-acting, all of which crushes any attempt at subtlety, if any was intended. Some of it is plain ridiculous, and none of it scary for anyone over age ten or with an I.Q. over 70. (Its good points: lavish scenery, and an impressive but-all-too-brief appearance by a very evil-looking Christopher Walken as the head-hungry Hessian Horseman.)

And that's just the first hour. I simply could not bother to watch the rest.