Matlock

"The Politician's Wife" is one of those "Masterpiece Theatre" offerings from Britain that make you want to scream, "Why can't the American television industry make this kind of exquisite social drama for literate adults?"Oh, we can do quality cop show drama almost as well as the British. "Homicide," "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order," in their own way, are comparable to series like "Prime Suspect," "Cracker" and "A Touch of Frost."But "The Politician's Wife," a two-part, three-hour film that starts tonight at 9 on PBS, is more like the English equivalent of an American made-for-television movie.

Probably the smartest thing the Sex Pistols ever did was break up.It happened on Jan. 14, 1978, immediately after a fractious, chaotic performance at Winterland in San Francisco. Johnny Rotten, fed up with the media circus that had trailed the band through its seven-city American tour, decided he'd had enough and announced that he was leaving and that the band was, for all intents and purposes, over.Or so we thought. But early last year, Rotten appeared at a press conference with his old band mates -- guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and original bassist Glen Matlock -- to announce that the Sex Pistols were planning a summer-long reunion tour.

FROM "The Chechen Tragedy," by Jack F. Matlock. Mr. Matlock, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote about Chechnya in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books:. . . The trip [to Chechnya] turned out to be one of the most memorable of the many I made during my 11-year stay in the Soviet Union. Not that Grozny was a particularly picturesque city; filled with the nondescript architecture of the post-World War II Soviet Union, it looked much like other Soviet provincial cities.

Fans of "Beverly Hills, 90210" have a tough choice tonight: Do they watch a Monday edition of the series on Fox or an NBC movie, "She Fought Alone," that features two of the show's stars?* "Melrose Place" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Amanda (Heather Locklear) trades one problem for another. She gets Jack (Antonio Sabato Jr.) out of her life but faces a blackmail scheme from Sydney (Laura Leighton). Fox.* "In the House" (8:30 p.m.-9 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Isn't this cute? Sibling rivalry rears its ugly head as former "Cosby" star Phylicia Rashad makes a guest appearance as Jackie's (Debbie Allen's)

On the evening of Dec. 25, 1991, in a small Moscow apartment, friends of mine drank the night away. Stoked by vodka and herring and pickled mushrooms, they cried and sang old songs and indulged themselves in heart-broken nostalgia. That night had brought the anti-climactic end of the Soviet Union. The big hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered for the last time at the Kremlin, and all across their worn and ragged country, millions of Russians were, like my friends, giving a thought to the country that had been theirs.

It's a day for changes and surprises. The changes include the return of ABC's "Matlock," which, with its two-hour premiere, has the unfortunate side effect of pre-empting "My So-Called Life." There's also the continued earlier-evening showing of "Chicago Hope" on CBS. The major surprise? An entertaining made-for-TV movie from the USA Network.* "Matlock" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., Channel 13) -- Grampa Simpson will be thrilled: Andy Griffith returns as Matlock, in a two-hour episode that also marks the return of another familiar TV face.

It's "put up or shut up" time, as NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street" presents its last original episode of the season. It's a terrific series, and has a superb closing episode, but whether NBC renews the show depends upon audience figures for tonight's show and whether NBC figures the weekly lures of ABC's "PrimeTime Live" into its equations and expectations. (Last week, with "PrimeTime" landing Tonya Harding, "Homicide" was skating on thin ice.)* "The Simpsons" (8-8:30 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45)

Since I'm rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies, I hope the Atlanta Braves didn't win last night and force a seventh game in the National League playoffs tonight. If that's the case, that's the place to be in prime time tonight, beginning at 8 on CBS. Otherwise, there are these options, worthy and otherwise:* "The Simpsons" (8-8:30 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Homer goes to college? Just for one course, and just for this one episode -- which was written by Conan O'Brien, before he left "The $H Simpsons" staff to become late-night TV talk-show host.

Is NBC presenting another repackaged "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" special tonight? You bet your sweet bippy. And CBS is presenting the premiere of what may prove to be the last new weekly series premiered by a major network in 1993: a new serial drama called "Second Chances."* "Seinfeld" (9-9:30 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- In this very funny repeat episode, George (Jason Alexander) proves himself quite handy at a new career -- as a "hand model." This also is the episode that introduced a new catch phrase to the "Seinfeld" vernacular: the "puffy shirt."

There's a full-course meal of prime-time sitcoms served up tonight by NBC, as well as a fresh "Simpsons" and some fairly noteworthy nonfiction offerings.* "Mad About You" (8-8:30 p.m., WMAR-Channel 2) -- They've already had one flashback on this series, showing how Paul (Paul Reiser) and Jamie (Helen Hunt) first met. Now, in a bit of revisionist history, another flashback hints at a previous meeting -- decades earlier. NBC.* "The Simpsons" (8-8:30 p.m., WBFF-Channel 45) -- Marge, along with a character whose voice is provided by Pamela Reed, pulls a "Thelma & Louise" in this episode and runs from the law. One big bonus: The narrator at the end of the show, intoning the fates of the various "criminals," is George Fenneman, who did the same job all those years on "Dragnet."

The shooting deaths of two sisters in the southern Anne Arundel community of Lothian on Wednesday are just the latest tragedy for a grieving family. One of the sisters spoke in February at a funeral for her nephew, who was killed fighting in Iraq. Cheryl Timmons read a letter that the soldier's wife, Breon Matlock, had written to Army Spc. Michael Benson Matlock Jr. After the couple's first date, she wrote, "from then on it was us. ... You said, 'If we love each other we can make it work.

It is quite possible I've turned into that most dreaded of entertainment consumers: the movietalker. I first became aware of the movietalker years ago while watching TV after dinner with my family, including my Grandma Fricke, the Grande Dame of movietalkers. We were watching Matlock, which, for those of you unfamiliar with classic TV, was an early mystery/courtroom drama; a precursor to CSI only without the kinky deaths and creepy characters. Matlock was the Little House on the Prairie of crime-solving shows, featuring the wholesome Andy Griffith.

When friends recalled Marshall Shure yesterday, they compared him to Matlock, a folksy, down-home attorney who could lull people into thinking he was their friend while he was tearing their testimony apart. He could equally play the part of father confessor and social worker. Mr. Shure, an assistant state's attorney who prosecuted vagrancy, car theft, spouse beating and drug possession cases in Baltimore's neighborhood courts - mostly in the Southern District - died of lung cancer Wednesday at the Levindale Hebrew Center and Hospital.

An organ played as mourners streamed down the aisles of an Annapolis church yesterday toward the flag-draped coffin holding the body of Army Spc. Micheal Benson Matlock Jr. Specialist Matlock, less than three years out of Glen Burnie High School, died last week in Iraq. Yesterday, he was remembered for his devotion to both the high school sweetheart he married barely a year ago and their baby boy - and for the bravery that enabled him to sign on for battle. "It takes courage to do what he did. Nobody joins the Army during wartime," said the Rev. Kaipha Downs, who delivered the eulogy, and who had known the soldier since he was a young boy. "Mike did," she said, to rousing applause from hundreds at the service at the First Christian Community Church.

A Glen Burnie soldier was one of three men killed in Iraq this week after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the Pentagon said yesterday. Spc. Micheal B. Matlock Jr., 21, an infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division, died Wednesday from wounds suffered when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in Baghdad, where the soldiers were responsible for security. Also fatally injured in the Tuesday explosion were Sgt. Conrad Alvarez, 22, of Big Spring, Texas, and Cpl. Albert Bitton, 20, of Chicago.

55 Paul Reubens Actor 51 Glen Matlock Rock musician 31 Sarah Chalke Actress 21 Mario Singer 19 Alexa Vega Actress

See Weil's work at Historic Oakland Carol Weil, a Howard County interior decorator, has completed the design and installation of draperies in four rooms of Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, Columbia. Weil submitted a winning bid to drape 23 windows in the renovated 1811 mansion. Her work can be seen in the main foyer, two meeting rooms, the library and the men's and women's lounges. Weil is principal of CLW Designs Inc. Brzozowski's design appears in magazine Susan Brzozowski of Ellicott City, a freelance designer, has had her design, "Halloween Bash," included in the September issue of CardMaker magazine.

In the back yard of his Walkersville home, Ray Matlock sits in a gazebo as two Siamese cats spar. They'll be all right, he says. They make him smile, even today. The midday is perfectly weathered: a sneak of full fall in the air, football weather. Matlock wears a Ravens visor and talks so softly you wonder if he is always this soft-spoken, or whether the death of his boy has knocked the words out of him. A 1968 Oldsmobile is in the garage; his son had restored the classic. The car is a surviving point of pride.

It's a long road from Perry Mason, who won nearly every case of his career - often by extracting confessions on the witness stand - to The Practice's conflicted Bobby Donnell (Dylan McDermott), whose firm's innocent clients - and even its lawyers -seem more likely to go to jail than his guilty ones. TV prosecutors may have the limelight now, but for decades, we've watched their opponents. Among them: Lawrence (E.G. Marshall) and Kenneth Preston (Robert Reed), the father-son team from The Defenders (1961-1965)

Probably the smartest thing the Sex Pistols ever did was break up.It happened on Jan. 14, 1978, immediately after a fractious, chaotic performance at Winterland in San Francisco. Johnny Rotten, fed up with the media circus that had trailed the band through its seven-city American tour, decided he'd had enough and announced that he was leaving and that the band was, for all intents and purposes, over.Or so we thought. But early last year, Rotten appeared at a press conference with his old band mates -- guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and original bassist Glen Matlock -- to announce that the Sex Pistols were planning a summer-long reunion tour.