The big event on television this week, if all goes as planned, is the Gemini-Titan 4 space shot scheduled to blast off from Cape Kennedy Thursday at 9 a.m °All three networks plan extensive coverage of the launch (which NBC will broadcast in live color), frequent reports from the space craft during the 63-orbit, four-day flight, a generous assortment of specials and summaries and even an attempt to have a pool reporter with audio gear aboard one of the recovery helicopters. Elsewhere on TV:
Wednesday .June 2
SHINDIG (ABC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Actress Patty Duke, who at 18 has already chalked up an Oscar and a successful TV series, now takes on rock 'n' roll, introducing songs from her first record, just released.
Thursday. June 3
KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Ethel Merman and Larry Blyden play a landlady and her tenant who conspire to steal a $2,000,000 jeweled scepter once wielded by Louis XIV. Color.
Friday. June 4
BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Bob Newhart appears as a scientist whose electronic computer has a nervous breakdown. Color.
FDR (ABC, 9:30-10 p.m.). Coal strikes, race riots, congressional feuds and Thomas E. Dewey—in short, the events of 1943.44.
MISS U.S.A. BEAUTY PAGEANT (CBS, 10-11:30 p.m.). Live from Miami Beach, the selection of the U.S. entry for the Miss Universe competitions in July.
Saturday. June 5
THE BELMONT STAKES (CBS. 5-5:30 p.m.). The last race of the Triple Crown, at Aqueduct.
Monday. June 7
GEMINI-TITAN 4 (ABC, CBS, NBC. beginning about 9 a.m.). Re-entry and recovery of GT-4.
Tuesday. June 8
THE LOUVRE (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). A rerun of last fall's excellent special on the Paris museum with narration by Charles Boyer. Color.
WHO CAN VOTE? (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). An NBC News special on the voting rights of minority groups in the U.S.
THEATER On Broadway
THE GLASS MENAGERIE. The texture of Tennessee Williams' 1945 family drama remains unfrayed. a tight weave of poignancy and poesy. The cast is rather lack luster, but the play is by far the best on Broadway.
HALF A SIXPENCE. A musical-corned version of H. G. Wells's Kipps, Sixpence trips the fantastic ever so lightly. Tommy Steele smiles all the while as a cockney lad who blithely gains and loses fortunes.
THE ODD COUPLE. Art Carney and Wal ter Matthau are riotous roommates in Neil Simon's hilarious study of two men who thought they couldn't live with their wives—until they tried living with each other.
LUV. Three super-self-aware characters, dizzy from watching the way their little worlds turn, are given a satiric whirl by Playwright Murray Schisgal. Alan Arkin, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach are the comic dervishes.
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT. A righteous busybody (Alan Alda) causes a neighboring prostitute (Diana Sands) to be evicted from her place. She puts him in his—to the audience's delight.
Off Broadway
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENTIRE WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF COLE PORTER REVISITED. The distilled wit and pleasant melodies of seldom-heard Porter songs are consistently entertaining in this campy revue. Kaye Ballard heads a sprightly cast.