Quantum Leap

The quirky inhabitants of fictional Cecily, Alaska, have worked their oddly charming wiles on members of the Viewers for Quality Television advocacy group. The CBS Monday series "Northern Exposure" (on hiatus for a couple weeks because of the Olympic Winter Games) bumped "Murphy Brown" as the most watched show in the group's latest viewer survey."Isn't that surprising? Murphy's been there a long time," notes VQT president Dorothy Swanson of the survey results. In the mail-in poll, 600 members of the national group shared their viewing habits during the week of Jan. 6-19.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's triumphal appearance at Tokyo's Suntory Hall last weekend, Japan's equivalent of Carnegie Hall, established it as a world-class ensemble before one of the world's most discriminating audiences.By all accounts it was a climactic event in a whirlwind series of performances that has captured the imagination of audiences across East Asia and lifted their estimation of our hometown orchestra to dizzying heights.The Sun's Stephen Wigler described the BSO's Tokyo concert last Friday under Music Director David Zinman as "perhaps the greatest concert in their history together" and a defining moment that marked a "quantum leap" to a new level of artistic and technical accomplishment.

These are heady times for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.Last Wednesday, the orchestra won two Grammys for its collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma on "The New York Album," a recording of concertos by Bela Bartok, Ernest Bloch and Stephen Albert. The orchestra won a Grammy four years ago for another recording with Mr. Ma, and Music Director David Zinman has collected another couple of Grammys for his work with other orchestras.Bravos are in order. If the BSO and Maestro Zinman keep it up, this could become a regular thing.

Comcast Cablevision has agreed to spend $5 million over the next three years to bring interactive video capabilities to Anne Arundel County schools, fire stations and other government buildings and to add two cable channels dedicated to public, education and government programming. The pledge is at the heart of a six-year franchise deal that the Philadelphia company and county officials have tentatively reached. The County Council is expected to approve the pact next month. "I think it's a quantum leap forward," County Executive Janet S. Owens said yesterday.

After three and a half months on the job, Baltimore city School Supt. Walter G. Amprey has begun to get a feel for the system and what ails it, but has yet to state explicitly where he wants to take it. He concedes that "the system needs major reform," but insists that changing "attitudes" is more important than shuffling chairs on a bureaucratic organization chart.A large, soft-spoken man whose quiet words belie an inner, almost messianic intensity, Amprey's public comments on the state of the schools so far have inspired a curious mixture of confidence and puzzlement: confidence in the sincerity of his commitment and ability to lead by sheer force of personality; puzzlement over the precise shape of the reforms he is contemplating.

Thanks to planners of rail proposal Congratulations to Gov. Ehrlich and state transportation officials for earmarking $1 million to study a potential extension of Washington's Metrorail to Laurel, Fort Meade, and BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport. It is the crucial first step in linking the Baltimore and Washington transit systems. However, I would be very much remiss if I did not give credit where credit is due. It was Sam Heffner and Mitch Weber of H&W, who had the vision and saw the good sense advantage in tying the Baltimore and D.C. transit systems together by using the existing transit system.

Carol Burnett returns with a new variety special -- lending some variety to an otherwise too-quiet night. During the day, though, two new series premiere that are welcome offerings for pre-school viewers. They're arriving in the Nick of time, as part of the Nick Jr. lineup on Nickelodeon.* "Melrose Place." (8-9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Some of the hospital staffers take a modeling job -- which might mean a temporary relocation to "Models Inc." That spinoff show is in desperate need of some ratings help, so it wouldn't surprise me. Fox.* "Danielle Steel's 'Family Album.

Outrage! That's our first reaction to the bill to give Harford County Council members a $5,000 raise next year. It's our second reaction, too, recalling the 30 percent pay hike that the council voted for itself in 1990.Over four years, that would be a 65 percent increase. What working stiff has seen that kind of raise? Many have endured pay freezes (Harford County's non-elected employees, for example) and the slim consolation of avoiding unemployment.It doesn't stop there. The bill drafted by Council President Jeffrey Wilson and two councilwomen proposes further increases to hike their pay another 20 percent between 1994 and 1996.

There has been much to enjoy this season from Gisele Ben-Dor's Annapolis Symphony Orchestra: a high octane, pedal-to-the-floor "Eroica" Symphony of Beethoven; an exceptionally well-played anthology of arias from Mozart operas and a splendid collaboration with visiting French hornist William Ver Meulen in concertos of Mozart and Richard Strauss.Today and tomorrow at 8 p.m., Ben-Dor brings her Maryland Hall audiences a pair of towering masterpieces from the symphonic repertoire -- the Fourth Symphony of Gustav Mahler and the C-minor Piano Concerto of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Dennis Hopper adds to his credits for fascinating, loopy characters, but Jodie Foster is not likely to be up for any more Best Actress awards from their co-starring roles in "Backtrack," an edgy, erotic film premiering on the Showtime network tonight.Although it saw brief theatrical release in Europe, the film has been re-edited by director Hopper for its domestic premiere. But evidence of much editing is the last thing to be found in "Backtrack." (It premieres at 8 o'clock, with future screenings Thursday and Dec. 23.)