Any similarities between "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior" (8 p.m., Disney) and the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are strictly intentional. Like Buffy, the young Wendy (Brenda Song) is a spirited teen who discovers that she has been endowed with supernatural powers and is the only thing standing between mankind and the forces of evil. This comes at an inconvenient time for Wendy. She’s locked in a close election for homecoming queen against her rival, Jessica Dawson (Ellen Woglom). The spirit of a 1,000-year-old Chinese fighter may animate Wendy, but Jessica seems to have taken her cues from Reese Witherspoon’s character in "Election."

Like every Disney movie, "Wendy" wants to have it both ways. It celebrates valley girl self-absorption and materialism while at the same time imparting "lessons" about the need to keep one’s heritage.

For a kids’ movie about martial arts and fighting evil, "Wendy" is painfully slow to build and noticeably short on action.

* "Best of Crossroads" (8 p.m., CMT) looks back at the show’s most interesting sets of musical pairings, including Elvis Costello and Lucinda Williams; Bonnie Raitt and Lyle Lovett; Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson; James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks and many more.

* On two episodes of "24" (WXXA Ch. 23), Jack returns from the shadows (11 p.m.), and plunges into a hostage crisis (midnight).

Fox is doing a smart thing by giving viewers another chance to watch last season’s "24," the series’ most exciting "day" to date.

* The "fair and balanced" folks strike again. A year or so ago, the host of "The O’Reilly Factor" (8 p.m., Fox News) went on a weeklong rampage when radical professor Ward Churchill said hateful and hurtful things about the victims of the Sept. 11 bombings. Some of Bill O’Reilly’s troglodyte viewers really got caught up in the spirit of his vitriol and called in death threats to Hamilton College, where Churchill was scheduled to speak.

But last week, after author and professional vulgarian Ann Coulter said and wrote hurtful and hateful things about victims of Sept. 11, O’Reilly merely questioned her tactics. He invited author David Horowitz to come on and defend her, and he did so by calling Coulter "a national treasure." But neither O’Reilly nor Horowitz would specify exactly what nation would treasure her.

Other highlights:

* Mere subjects tiptoe around the matriarch after Flower’s daughter gives birth on "Meerkat Manor" (8 p.m., Animal Planet).

* A farmer (Mel Gibson) fears that crop circles in his fields may portend doom in the 2002 shocker "Signs" (8 p.m., TNT).

* A Parisian shopping spree proves stressful on "Windfall" (9 p.m., WNYT Ch. 13).

* "Greatest Moments: Willie Nelson" (9 p.m., CMT) profiles the country-music maverick.

* Scheduled on "20/20" (10 p.m., WTEN Ch. 10): how to avoid credit-card scams and unhygienic restaurants.