In the month of August, the tv to watch is the conclusion of J. Michael Straczynski's Crusade and the rerun of the conclusion of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine. Also, keep an eye out for reruns -- at a date not yet announced -- of the two best X-Files episodes of this season, "One Father" and "Two Sons."

Crusade is growing on me. Most of the shows are character driven, though, oddly, major characters appear and disappear. Captain Lockley of Babylon 5 was not in the earlier shows, and Galen, the technomage, has not been in the more recent ones. I'm even getting used to the strange music by Evan D. Chen. I still don't like it. But I'm getting used to it.

Here is an episode guide to Crusade. All episodes are written by J. Michael Straczynski except "The Well of Forever" and "Patterns of the Soul", by Fiona Avery, and "Ruling From the Tomb", by Peter David.

War Zone

The Long Road

The Well of Forever

The Path of Sorrows

Patterns of the Soul

Ruling From the Tomb

The Rules of the Game

Appearances and Other Deceits

Racing the Night

The Memory of War

The Needs of Earth

Visitors From Down the Street

Each Night I Dream of Home

The list here is in the order shown, which is not the order in which they were filmed. The last episode to be shown was the fifth episode filmed, back when it looked as if the series might be continued. The last episode filmed, "Appearances and Other Deceits", is in no way a conclusion to the story. Will this story arc simply break off in the middle? Only time will tell. "Each Night I Dream of Home" airs on September 1. After that, we Straczynski junkies will have to get our fix at our local comic book store, where the first episode of his new comic book series, Rising Stars (****), is now on sale -- and very likely sold out.