MY FIRST thought when I saw "Sex and the City's" Kim Cattrall in Sunday's "Masterpiece" presentation, "My Boy Jack" was: What's she doing here?

I'd forgotten that Cattrall, who's not exactly known for the British costume drama, is a Liverpool native, and perhaps the casting director had, too, because in "Jack" she plays Caroline, the all-too-American wife of British writer Rudyard Kipling.

I'm afraid she sounds exactly like Samantha.

David Haig, who also wrote the screenplay and the play on which it's based, is Kipling, whose enthusiasm for Britain's involvement World War I led him to use every bit of influence he could muster as one of the country's most famous writers to find a place at the front for his son, John.

It's a mindset that seems almost unfathomable nearly a hundred years later - we don't hear much about powerful people fighting to put their children in harm's way (though Prince Harry might disagree).

Young John's played by Daniel Radcliffe, who's doing everything he can these days - including getting naked onstage in "Equus" - to remind us he's not just the boy wizard Harry Potter.

So it's more than mildly ironic that it's John Kipling's need for glasses, a no-no in the British military then, that's standing between him and a commission.

All three do their best with the great tragedy of Kipling's life, but it's a rock running downhill, and you won't need glasses to see what's coming.

Bidding 'Adams' farewell

HBO's "John Adams," which draws to a close this Sunday (9 p.m., HBO), doesn't shrink from old age and death any more than it did from smallpox earlier.

"Peacefield" covers the period from roughly 1802 to 1826, years that included some of the saddest episodes in Adams' (Paul Giamatti) life, as well as one of its high points - the election of his son, John Quincy Adams, as president.

But it also deals with the rekindling of the friendship between Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a relationship conducted entirely by letter in which "Adams" manages to find some drama.

It doesn't hurt that history wrote an ending for both their stories that's truly too strange for fiction, and if you've come this far with "John Adams," you won't want to miss it.

Not so 'Terrifying'

Just ask Stephen Colbert.

(Or John Hodgman, that guy who plays PC on those Mac commercials.)

"Daily Show" correspondent and writer John Oliver takes a baby step away from the mothership Sunday (10 p.m., Comedy Central) in the standup special, "John Oliver: Terrifying Times," in which the British comic empathizes with America's inheritance of the mantle of imperialism while crowing that Britain's own era as a superpower at least occurred before the advent of 24-hour cable news.

He also has some ideas about energy independence, noting that "we were the first nation on earth to use Catholics as a fuel" (before switching to witches) and extols the wonders of Wikipedia.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but if you like your silliness to come with an accent and a self-deprecating grin, Oliver could be your guy. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.