What to watch this week (Aug. 20-26)

A gripping 9/11 docu and the news special Peter Jennings never finished.

All times Central

MONDAY

Can it be? The fall season is upon us with the return of “Prison Break” at 7 and the debut of “Vanished” at 8 on Fox 4. (Why so early? Blame baseball, which forces Fox to set aside most of October for the playoffs.)

In “Prison Break” the inmates are on the lam and have scattered across the country. But you just know something will bring them back together — namely, the show’s writers, who would otherwise be compelled to keep 12 versions of “The Fugitive” going at once.

In that same vein comes “Vanished,” a suspenseful serial that opens with the kidnapping of a senator’s wife. Over the next season we’ll learn about the nefarious conspiracy that surrounds her abduction … unless, of course, the ratings tank. (So that you’re not in suspense, look for my fall TV preview in these pages in three weeks.)

Don’t be confused by its appearance on a cable channel: “On Native Soil: The 9/11 Commission Report,” airing 9 p.m. on Court TV, might be the most powerful, well-produced video you’ll see about the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks.

The 90-minute special, narrated by Kevin Costner and Hilary Swank, features interviews with victims’ families and security experts and riveting video from the commission hearings. This film may appear to cover familiar ground: the warnings missed, the red flags unnoticed in the months before the attacks. But that only makes more damning that so little has been done, other than create the boondoggle that is Homeland Security.

THURSDAY

Peter Jennings had begun work last year on “Out of Control: AIDS in Black America,” airing at 9 p.m. on KMBC-9. Then illness overcame him. But lest you think that is the reason for the delay of this report, Terry Moran, who completed it, says the real reason is that “we” — meaning not just ABC but the news media on the whole — “missed the story.”

Namely, that in recent years African-Americans, who make up 13 percent of the population, have accounted for half the new AIDS cases reported in the U.S. Black women are getting AIDS at 22 times the levels of white Americans.

These, Moran correctly notes, are “stunning and disproportionate numbers.” This special investigates the reasons, both obvious and not, why it happened. Too bad ABC didn’t do its late anchorman the honor of featuring this program on a competitive night during the regular season, the way PBS did with its two-parter on AIDS in May.