M U S I C
HUMAN CLAY Creed Scott Stapp, front man for the Florida band Creed, sounds like Eddie Vedder, front man for the Seattle band Pearl Jam, reincarnated. Which would be fine except that Vedder isn't dead, so Stapp's vocal style comes across as a sort of ripoff. Still, Creed has its fans: the band's first album, My Own Prison, sold nearly 4 million copies. Its new CD, like Prison, features pile-driving hard rock and lyrics about spiritual longing. A few songs are agreeable in a middle-of-the-road sort of way. But that road is about as well traveled as I-95. BY CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

P H O T O G R A P H Y
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY: A CENTURY OF IMAGES PBS, Oct. 13 Instead of the usual parade of great photographers, this is more the story of pictures themselves, how they conquered the world and filled every last inch of psychic space. It travels from the Kodak Brownie, the memory toy that let everyone commemorate the everyday, to the computer manipulations that turn pictures into smooth lies. This is history that gives more time to mass-market phenomena and socially concerned work than anything formalist, unengaged or inward. So life magazine, tabloids and the child-labor photos of Lewis Hine are all nicely served. Minor White, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus and William Eggleston rate less than a shutter click of mention. That's not the whole picture. BY RICHARD LACAYO

T E L E V I S I O N
LOUIS THEROUX'S WEIRD WEEKENDS Bravo, Fridays, 8 p.m. E.T. In the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed to America and thought he had the young nation figured out. But Tocqueville never tried out for a porno film. In this documentary series, English-raised Louis Theroux (son of novelist Paul) samples the strangest fruits of freedom, from pitching infomercials to breaking bread with right-wing survivalists. This sort of participational filmmaking can become cute or self-satisfied, but Theroux maintains a curious, never smug attitude, even toward the most bizarre colonists. BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK

WASTELAND ABC, Thursdays, 9 p.m. E.T. You could base a drinking game on how many times someone makes a sweeping generational statement in this postcollege soap from Kevin Williamson (Dawson's Creek). Dawnie (Marisa Coughlin) is writing her anthropology thesis on the "second coming of age" of her "lost" demograph--sorry, "generation"--and the ensemble illustrates it, suffering romantic and career woes and showing how sad it is to be young and gorgeous in the city. Reminiscent of Melrose Place's earnest, unfortunate first season, Wasteland adopts Dawson's chatty self-awareness but lacks its flashes of sweetness and magic. BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK

B O O K S
THE DANGEROUS HUSBAND By Jane Shapiro Those looking for evidence that women have passed men on the evolutionary scale need look no further. The narrator of this dark satire is a sophisticated, self-aware photographer who, at 40, meets the perfect man: a charming, wealthy novelist. Shortly after their marriage, though, she finds he has turned into an oaf, banging around the house like a bull, routinely inflicting accidental injury. He never comes into focus, but the anger he arouses in his wife is all too clear. BY ELIZABETH L. BLAND

C I N E M A
BOYS DON'T CRY Directed by Kimberly Peirce Teena Brandon blew into town, stuck a sock in her crotch and said she was a guy: Brandon Teena. Who believed her? Everyone, especially the lonely girls dazzled by the notion of a sweet, sympathetic man. This true-life Nebraska fable --M. Butterfly mixed with In Cold Blood --proved that love is blind and hate is too. Boys Don't Cry, a fiction film, underlines the awkwardness of cowgirl court-ship as Brandon (Hilary Swank) and best friend Lana (Chloe Sevigny) probe for each other's guilty secrets. But the movie lets down the material. It's too cool: all attitude, no sizzle--horror under glass. This time, art can't measure up to real life, love and death. BY RICHARD CORLISS