NBC's `I'll Fly Away' Needs Time To Land A Steady Audience

Like ABC's "Homefront," NBC's "I'll Fly Away," a dramatic series that premieres with a two-hour pilot at 9 tonight on KING-TV, is an attempt to combine good TV drama with a sense of time and place. The former is set in a small Midwestern city at the close of World War II; the latter is set in the South in 1958, just as the civil-rights movement is beginning to take shape.

The focus is on a district attorney (Sam Waterston), his three children and the young black woman hired to manage their home (because the attorney's wife is in a mental institution). While the stories are ostensibly about their daily lives, the thread running through them is the changes beginning to take place in the Southern way of looking at life.

It's a worthy idea, and the series has been beautifully cast. Waterston is a fine actor, and his performance, while still stiff, may eventually become easier. The attorney's three children are Nathaniel, 15, played by Jeremy London; opinionated, exuberant 13-year-old Francie, portrayed by Ashlee Levitch; and John Morgan, 6, appealingly played by John Aaron Bennett. Deborah Hedwall plays the attorney's wife.

But the real star of the series is Regina Taylor. She plays Lilly, the new housekeeper, with such quiet dignity and inner strength that she dominates every scene in which she appears. Her character, because of Taylor's presence, becomes the central force of the series (although she nearly meets her match in young

Bennett). Kathryn Harrold plays a fellow lawyer attracted to Waterston.

The series was created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, creators of "Northern Exposure," but it more closely resembles their "A Year in the Life." Not all details of the stories in "I'll Fly Away" ring wholly true - there's a tendency to write them from the perspective of 1991 rather than 1958 - but the potential for a memorable series is in place. "I'll Fly Away," which has a second episode at 8 p.m. tomorrow on KING-TV (its regular time slot), needs time to find an audience and to come up with more polished, sensitive scripts. Let's hope NBC will stick with the show until that happens.

On call: Dr. Joel thinks he's got it tough in Cicely, Alaska, on CBS' "Northern Exposure," but life there is a holiday compared to what medical school is really like. For an eye-opening look at that challenge, don't miss the two-hour "Nova" PBS airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on KCTS-TV. Titled "So You Want To Be a Doctor?," it's a splendid film that follows seven (out of 167) students through four intensive years at Harvard Medical School. (A film about their first year aired in 1988.)

It's also a documentary about a new experimental approach to medical training that puts students in contact with patients far sooner than previously. Michael Barnes' film not only enlightens us about how tough medical school is, but profiles the young students so we eventually feel we know them - and root for them to make it. The camera never flinches (although you may), whether the subject is cut-up cadavers or sexually transmitted diseases. But just as many scenes show us that a sense of humor is imperative for making it through those four years.

Incidentally, the program's host is Neil Patrick Harris, star of ABC's improbable medical series, "Doogie Howser, M.D." What's amazing is that one of the Harvard students chosen for the film (Jay Bonnar) is practically a Doogie Howser double!

He's back: Indefatigable consumer specialist Herb Weisbaum is back with another special for KIRO-TV, scheduled for 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. True to form, it's a balanced mixture of the serious and the entertaining, ranging from a look at dangers to children from lead poisoning to some new toys, with those two grown-up kids, Weisbaum and Steve Raible, having a fine time with them. There's also a too-short look at those financial seminars that promise you great wealth without having to invest your own money. This segment could have been longer and probed more deeply. Maybe next time.

Video notes: In case you missed that outstanding five-part series on NBC last summer featuring former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (it was produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions), they're being aired on PBS, starting at 7 tonight on KCTS-TV. The first program is an engrossing look at the impact soaring costs are having on health care. . . "Music: Inner City," hosted by Gordon Curvey, is now airing at 10 p.m. Mondays, starting tonight, on cable's Public Access Channel 29.

John Voorhees' column appears Sunday, Monday and Thursday in The Times.