Off the Wall: Soar with Superman, shake with fear

Off the Wall spotlights shows that are super, subversive, scary or sacred.

Super stuff

Tune in to the 1952 premiere of "The Adventures of Superman" (Saturday at 5 p.m., MeTV), explaining how George Reeves' Clark Kent morphed from alien baby into Man of Steel. Stay tuned for a two-part crossover from '60s sensation "Batman" (Saturday at 6 p.m., MeTV), featuring "The Green Hornet" star Van Williams and his butt-kicking sidekick -- young martial-arts hotshot Bruce Lee. Full channel schedule at metv.com

Hallo-horrors

If you were there when it all began, if you're a regular Frankie fan, catch Saturday night's new London staging of the original stage musical "The Rocky Horror Show" (midnight, BBC America). Also on the fright front: AMC's 19th annual FearFest starts Sunday with "Resident Evil" (11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m.); ABC Family's 17th annual 13 Nights of Halloween gets going with "Hocus Pocus" (Monday at 9 p.m.). Literary chillers fill an overnight festival led by Spencer Tracy's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Friday at 8 p.m., TCM). Titles/times at tcm.com/schedule

Marathons old & new

Sophistication in the '60s was defined by "The Rogues" (Saturday 1 p.m.-Monday at 7 a.m., Decades), featuring three debonair con men played by movie stars David Niven, Charles Boyer and Gig Young. Up-to-the-minute is the 15th-century tale of "Da Vinci's Demons" (Saturday noon-8 p.m., Sunday noon-10 p.m., Starz Edge), returning fresh next weekend for its final season. Also returning soon, on Halloween, is eerie French series "The Returned." Catch up on last season (Sunday 6 a.m.-3:45 p.m., Sundance) for this tale of a small town that reels from the reappearance of people long dead. More at sundance.tv

Eight is enough

It lasted eight hours in its 1988 network premiere, but ad-free cable makes a quicker binge of Robert Duvall's western miniseries classic "Lonesome Dove" (Sunday 10 a.m.-4:20 p.m., Encore), with Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Robert Urich, Diane Lane and Ricky Schroder. Four plus four equals the first eight big-screen incarnations of "Star Trek" (Monday 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday 8 a.m.-6 p.m., IFC) -- the first day featuring Khan and the whales (1979-1986), the second moving from Kirk's crew to Picard's (1989-1998). More at ifc.com/schedule

Sweet inspiration

Oprah Winfrey's "Super Soul Sunday" (Sunday at 7 p.m., OWN) hosts the Dalai Lama. Their chat precedes Oprah's seven-night docuseries "Belief" (Sunday-Oct. 24 at 8 p.m., OWN), exploring the human drive for deeper meaning through history and around the world. Delve deeper at oprah.com/belief

Holy Houdini!

Legendary escape artist Harry Houdini was also a movie star. He's featured as Turner Classic Movies spotlights century-old films once thought lost, until recently found. Houdini's 1919 silent "The Grim Game" (Sunday at 8 and 11:45 p.m.) runs twice, with different musical scores. In between comes 1916's early appearance of "Sherlock Holmes" (9:30 p.m.), with longtime stage Holmes specialist William Gillette. Houdini info, clips at wildabouthoudini.com