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The Splendid American (ABC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). A retort to The Ugly American, the fictionalized exposé of ineptitude in the U.S. foreign service. This dramatic documentary tells the accomplishments of Thomas Dooley, Ras Johnson and Clyde Searl in Red-menaced Laos. Narrated by John Daly.
Mon., Sept. 28
Continental Classroom (NBC, 6:30-7:30 a.m.). The new semester starts. First lecture: the University of California's Nobel Laureate Dr. Glenn Seaborg on The TV Chemistry Course. Color.
Shirley Temple's Storybook (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The child star has grown into a storyteller with a special appeal for children. She starts her new series with All Baba and the 40 Thieves. Nehemiah Persoff plays Ali.
Show of the Month (CBS, 8:30-10 p.m.) An old standby, Body and Soul. Ex-Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey, as technical adviser, will try to make Ben Gazzara look like the middleweight champion of the world.
Steve Allen Plymouth Show (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). New time, same old sparkle from Steve. With at least one engaging visitor: Pat ("Guido Panzini") Harrington Jr. Color.
Tues., Sept. 29 The Many Loves of Doby Gillis (CBS, 8:30-9 p.m.). Max Shulman's hot-shot teen-ager is right up with the times. He even has a beatnik pal. But anybody who loves money, cars and girls cannot be all bad. The Caper at the Bijou gives the new series a fresh start.
The Bing Crosby Show (ABC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). The Groaner could fill up the time by himself. But he has Louis Armstrong, George Shearing and Frank Sinatra to help him out.
THEATER
On Broadway
A Raisin in the Sun. There is no sun in this Chicago Negro tenement, but the characters who live there light up Lorraine Hansberry's first play with love, humor and dreams of escape.
J.B. Archibald MacLeish's anguished reappraisal of God's way with man, in a slam-bang staging by Elia Kazan.
La Plume de Ma Tante. This French revue is as funny and almost as silent as a Keystone Cops movie.
My Fair Lady still leads the musical field, with The Music Man a close second, and Redhead (Gwen Verdon up), followed by Flower Drum Song, just about rounding the box-office turn.
BOOKS
Best Reading
The Siege at Peking, by Peter Fleming. A vivid re-creation of the Boxer Rebellion, when a thin, red line of 400 defended the foreign compounds at Peking from 25,000 screaming besiegers for 55 days.
The Restlessness of Shanti Andía, by Pio Baroja, translated by Anthony Kerrigan. Hemingway claims to be a disciple of this late great Spanish novelist who tells a tale of high 19th century adventure (duels, mutiny, piracy) along the Basque seacoast in a dry, direct style full of stoic understatement.
John Paul Jones, by Samuel Eliot Morison. He had a murderous temper, the morals of a tomcat and a colossal ego, but he could fight a ship. A biography of the great naval hero by the ablest living chronicler of U.S. sailormen at war.
The Mermaid Madonna, by Stratis Myrivilis. Life is harsh, but the living of it sweet, in this island idyl of the wine-dark sea by one of Greece's finest novelists.
Lover Man, by Alston Anderson. Many an established author might envy this new writer these 15 expertly crafted stories about Negroes in a small Southern town.