M A S H

Quantico, Va.--It's no wonder actor Scott Glenn, who portrays the FBI's expert on serial killers in the movie "The Silence of the Lambs," still has nightmares.He and co-star Jodie Foster spent a week at the FBI Academy with John Douglas -- the real-life expert on serial killers and the head of the FBI's National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime -- and got a taste of what Mr. Douglas does for a living.For starters, Mr. Douglas, 45, and far more engaging and jollthan the movie character based on him, played audio and video tapes for Mr. Glenn of killers torturing their victims.

LOS ANGELES -- Michael Landon's last movie, a reunion of the gang from "M*A*S*H" and Francis Ford Coppola directing live television dramas were among the major programming moves announced by CBS yesterday.* "Us" is the two-hour movie pilot for a new series that Landon had been working on for CBS before his recent death. It will air during the fall premiere week of Sept. 16, Jeff Sagansky, the president of CBS Entertainment said yesterday at a press conference here.In the film, Landon plays an innocent man convicted of murder, who is released from prison after 18 years.

An audience of 25.4 million viewers tuned into NBC Thursday night for the finale of Frasier, according to preliminary overnight ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That means the long-running sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane drew only about half the audience that tuned into NBC May 6 for the end of Friends (52 million). While 25.4 million is a fairly large audience, it is certainly not one for the record books. The finale of M*A*S*H on CBS was seen in 1983 by 105 million viewers - the largest audience for a final episode in network history.

Based on overnight ratings from major cities, NBC is estimating that 76 million people watched the final episode of "Seinfeld."The "Seinfeld" finale had a 43.2 rating and 57 share in Nielsen Media Research's overnight ratings of 39 major markets, NBC said yesterday.The final episode of "Cheers" in 1993 had a 45.9 rating and 72 share in the national ratings, with an estimated 80 million viewers.The all-time champ of final series episodes is M*A*S*H, which had a 60.2 rating and 77 share, with an estimated 105 million viewers, when it went off the air in 1983.

Glen Buxton,49, a guitarist in the Alice Cooper band who retired to an Iowa farm, died Sunday in Clarion, Iowa, of pneumonia.William J. McGill,75, a psychologist who served as chancellor of the University of California San Diego in the late 1960s, died Sunday in San Diego of heart failure.Daniel E. Provost III,78, a tobacco industry executive who got Arthur Godfrey and Ronald Reagan to endorse Chesterfield cigarettes, died Oct. 13 in Palm Springs, Calif., of heart failure.Hy Averback,76, a one-time announcer for Bob Hope and Jack Paar who was a producer-director on "M*A*S*H," "F Troop" and other television shows, died in Los Angeles Oct. 14 after heart surgery.

It was simultaneously endearing and appalling, this idea of requiring a potential mate to pass a test of football trivia as a condition of matrimony. The concept forms a climactic scene in the movie Diner, when a character solemnly submits his fiancee to a rigorous exam on Baltimore Colts history. The bit delightfully conveyed the struggle between maturity and immaturity that is the crux of the film. It is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, which was released 20 years ago and made pop culture heroes out of a clique of Forest Park High School grads upon whom the film was loosely based.

CBS will try out six new series this summer -- two comedies and four dramas, the network has announced.The sitcoms first."Cutters" stars Dakin Matthews and Robert Hays as a father-son barbering team forced to merge with a hip beauty salon. A production of Allan Burns ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and Burt Metcalf ("M.A.S.H."), "Cutters" will launch in early June for five episodes."Grapevine," the brainchild of David Frankel ("Doctor, Doctor"), stars Jonathan Penner, Lynn Clark and Steven Eckholdt as Miami friends who "take an intimate, 'fly on the wall' look at relationships and go on to tell us all the dirt."

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar - another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: DESICCATED A recipe may call for the use of desiccated coconut, that is, dehydrated, dried coconut. The word (pronounced DES-uh-kate-ed) comes into English from the Latin verb desiccare , "to dry up. " If you desiccate something, you remove the moisture from it. If you use a chemical agent to dry something up, the agent is a desiccant . As is so often the case, the literal sense of the word has taken on a figurative meaning.

To the many goodbyes said Sunday at Memorial Stadium, add one: Baltimore Orioles radio announcer Ken Levine.Levine has resigned to be closer to his family and television writing work in California, Jeff Beauchamp, vice president and station manager of WBAL Radio, the Orioles' flagship, said last night.Levine, whose writing credits include "M*A*S*H" and "Cheers," just finished his rookie season as a major-league sportscaster. He was hired to replace Joe Angel, who left for the New York Yankees after 1990.

Valentin M. Berezhkov, 82, a Russian diplomat who translated for Josef Stalin and other Soviet officials during crucial World War II conferences, died Friday of a heart attack in Claremont, Calif., two months after undergoing heart surgery.Before World War II, Mr. Berezhkov was an assistant to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and first secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Berlin, where he translated for officials in their meetings with Nazi leaders.Dick O'Neill, 70, whose nearly half-century in entertainment included roles ranging from Santa Claus on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" to Detective Chris Cagney's father on "Cagney & Lacey," died Nov. 17 in Santa Monica, Calif.