Amid reality shows, some actual reality

There is ''reality," and then there is reality. In the first category, the fall TV lineup ranges from salty to saccharine; NBC offers ''The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," in which the unchained diva presides over firings, and ''Three Wishes," in which goodhearted singer Amy Grant does goodhearted things.

Thankfully, true reality programming -- that would be real, unfettered nonfiction -- has been a source of deeper imagination across the TV dial. This fall, PBS presents a Martin Scorsese film about Bob Dylan. The Sundance Channel premieres an eight-part series on transgendered college students. MTV stays serious about Africa. Here are some highlights of the season:

The fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brings a bounty of documentary retrospectives. The History Channel airs five of them on Sept. 10 and 11, from ''Brotherhood of Terror" (Sept. 10 at 7 p.m.), about the roots of Al Qaeda, to ''Grounded on 9/11," (Sept. 11 at 9 p.m.) about how the nation's air traffic control system handled the events of one frightening day. Also on Sept. 11 at 9 p.m., the Discovery Channel presents ''The Flight That Fought Back," a detailed look at doomed United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field amid passenger heroics.

His ''Nightly News" days are done, but Tom Brokaw remains an NBC franchise, contributing periodic reports on Important Things. This month, he takes on America's religious revolution in ''Tom Brokaw Reports: In God They Trust," which airs Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. Here, Brokaw reports from Colorado Springs, where the head of the National Association of Evangelicals announces that he speaks regularly to the White House and that he hopes to ''advance God's will through government."

The Discovery-Times Channel aims to turn New York Times reporter Charlie LeDuff into a TV personality. ''Only in America With Charlie LeDuff," a 10-part series that premiered on Friday and airs on subsequent Friday nights at 10, follows the Morgan Spurlock mold of inserting the reporter into the action. It features LeDuff -- who is not buttoned down in that timeworn, Timesian way -- taking part in an Oakland fight club, riding in a gay rodeo, and strutting down a runway in a New York fashion show. The press materials draw special attention to LeDuff's (also unTimesian) biceps.

For ''Rikers High," a verite documentary filmed during a semester at the Island Academy, Showtime takes a digital camcorder into the high school at New York City's Rikers Island Prison for a look at creativity and rehabilitation. The film, which airs Sept. 13 at 8:30 p.m., follows three teenagers in the prison: an aspiring rapper, a would-be cartoonist, and a gifted 17-year-old who committed robberies at gunpoint to prove he wasn't uncool.

Yes, MTV is generally out to boost Diddy's ego and pad Beyonce's bank account, but the so-called music network still has ambitions to save the world. To that end, MTV presents ''The Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa," premiering Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. Jolie accompanies Sachs, the economist and United Nations adviser, to a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. The half-hour special is timed to coincide with a United Nations summit about ending poverty and hunger.

Even by the standards of tell-all TV, this one is pretty bold: The Sundance Channel's ''Transgeneration" examines the lives of four college students undergoing gender transitions. The series, premiering Sept. 20 at 9 p.m., follows four students, including Lucas, a Smith College neuroscience major who is becoming a man. The series follows its characters through medical decisions, hormone treatments, and family confrontations. In the winter, it will re-air on the gay-themed network Logo.

PBS has generated significant buzz over its two-part retrospective on Bob Dylan, directed by Martin Scorsese. ''No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," which airs Sept. 26 and 27 at 9 p.m., includes previously unreleased footage from concerts and recording sessions, interviews with some of Dylan's folk and beat contemporaries, and rare cooperation from the singer-songwriter himself, who talks about his life and work from 1961 to '66. It's part of PBS's ''American Masters" series, which will also presents documentaries this month about Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather.

HBO continues its string of can't-look-away documentaries with ''I Have Tourette's, But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me," premiering Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. The film focuses on children who have learned to live with the neurological disorder that causes involuntary vocal and motor tics. It was produced in association with the Tourette Syndrome Association.

PBS's ''American Experience" presents ''Two Days in October" on Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. It's the parallel story of soldiers in Vietnam and antiwar protesters in Wisconsin in the fall of 1967, based on David Maraniss's book ''They Marched Into Sunlight." On Nov. 14 and 15, timed to the city's 100th anniversary, ''American Experience" offers ''Las Vegas," which recounts the rise from frontier waystation to ganster paradise to the nation's fastest-growing city.

The upcoming release of Peter Jackson's ''King Kong" gives Turner Classic Movies a reason to look back at Merian C. Cooper, the man who conceived the original 1933 film. ''I'm KING KONG!," slated to air Nov. 22, examines Cooper's life as a bomber pilot, aviator, and adventurer-filmmaker. It traces his idea of a marauding gorilla -- it stemmed from an exploration book he had read as a child -- and his use of stop-motion animation (so innovative! so old-school!) to bring the fantasy to life.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com