New SFist contributor and longtime virtual TV pundit Rain Jokinen offers her Bay-area-centric TV picks of the week, for your viewing pleasure.

We at SFist love the City. But did you know we love it so much that when we aren't outside exploring and enjoying it, we are inside exploring and enjoying it on TV? Hell, sometimes we even prefer the TV version. It's only on those Streets of San Francisco reruns (Sundays at 10:00pm on KBHK channel 44) that the streets are relatively free of cars, and full of available street parking. Not to mention the fact that Michael Douglas and Karl Malden aren't afraid to pair plaid jackets with firearms, a combo that would no doubt lead to their severe beating these days.

Speaking of the City in the 1970s, Mal Sharpe was a bit of a TV icon back in the day, known for his man-on-the-street pranks and perennial PBS specials. Local channel KCSM channel 60 is digging out one of his award-winning specials this week in honor of Columbus Day. It's called Hello Columbus and it chronicles the City's preparations and celebration of Columbus Day, focusing on local icon Joe Cerrveto, a man unafraid to don tights year after year in order to  portray Christopher Columbus. You can catch it on Wednesday at 2:30am.

Of course, no show about San Francisco can resist at least one shot of a cable car rolling up a hill. And while those fake cable-cars-on-wheels may fool some tourists, we know real cable cars can't actually pass double-parked cars on Nob Hill. If you've always wondered just how miles and miles of cable could possibly be running under the streets of the City, you might find the answers to all your cable car-related questions answered when KRCB channel 22 airs an episode of the PBS series Tracks Ahead which focuses on the history of those rolling landmarks. It's set to air Wednesday the 13th at 10:00am.

And then you can just step outside your own door and hop on board a piece of San Francisco history. The City: Turning your TV-viewing dreams into reality!