Good News: `I'll Fly Away' Soars Home

It's good news/bad news time again as both NBC and CBS unveil some new series - but the best of the good news is that NBC is finally bringing back "I'll Fly Away," the quality series it kept pre-empting after its debut last fall.

The series is moving to Friday nights, starting at 8 p.m. tomorrow on KING-TV, and this episode continues where we left off - Forrest (Sam Waterston) is still campaigning to become the state's attorney general, while trying to deal with a rebellious Francie, and Lily (played by the wonderful Regina Taylor) investigates the intricacies of registering to vote. "I'll Fly Away" is one of the three new series this year worth viewers' time. (The others are CBS' "Brooklyn Bridge" and ABC's "Home Improvement.")

On to the new: NBC's "Nightmare Cafe," which premieres at 9 p.m. tomorrow on KING-TV, is also part of the good news. It's from the imagination of Wes Craven, best known for the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series and it manages to be nicely creepy without going over the edge. It also has the virtue of being unlike anything else on TV (although there are times when it will remind you of "Twilight Zone," "Outer Limits," "One Step Beyond," "The Hitchhiker" and "Alfred Hitchcock," but without being a carbon copy).

The first episode is given over to establishing the premise and meeting the leads - Lindsay Frost, Jack Coleman (from "Dynasty") and Robert Englund, best known as Freddie Krueger in the "Nightmare" series. Englund is the proprietor of the cafe, situated somewhere in limbo. Frost and Coleman arrive there after having taken unusual dips in the ocean and eventually learn they're set to work in the cafe where the special du jour is second chances.

Don't expect "Nightmare Cafe" to make any sense - it's even farther out than "Quantum Leap" and has lots of technological gimmicks - but once you accept that anything can happen (and usually does), then "Nightmare Cafe" is great fun - at least the two episodes available for preview. Part of the promise comes from the three personable leads, all of whom make the characters as interesting as the spooky plots.

CBS is premiering "Boys of Twilight" at 10 p.m. Saturday, "Scorch" and "Fish Police" at 8 and 8:30 p.m., respectively, tomorrow night, on KIRO-TV.

"Boys of Twilight" features those two sly character actors, Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Brimley, as lawmen in an unidentified ski resort town. Louise Fletcher plays Farnsworth's wife, and the cast includes Ben Browder as the requisite young hunk, playing an inept deputy working with Farnsworth and Brimley. The mystery in the pilot is pretty dull stuff; clearly the creators are more interested in turning these two old coots into lovable characters. "Boys of Twilight" seemed to me to have been watching "Northern Exposure" pretty closely. This show isn't anywhere near that good - but it has potential.

"Scorch," which is about a dragon, was unavailable for previewing - probably just as well - while "Fish Police" is possibly THE worst animated half-hour I've ever seen, not even fit for the Saturday morning cartoon ghetto. ABC's dismal "Capital Critters" seems brilliant by comparison.

Short takes: PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" returns to the familiar genre its fans know and love - first-rate dramatizations of classic novels, in this case George Eliot's "Adam Bede," airing in two one-hour episodes, starting at 9 p.m. Sunday on KCTS-TV.

It's the familiar story of the innocent young woman wronged by the worldly aristocrat - except that Elliot did it better than Barbara Cartland. As always, the dramatization is performed by a first-rate cast that includes Iain Glen in the title role, Patsy Kensit as Hetty, the young woman who gets into trouble, and James Wilby as the young squire who is charmed by Hetty. Giles Foster, who directed the "Silas Marner" that was a past standout on "Masterpiece Theater," did a similarly fine job with "Adam Bede." Kensit, incidentally, also starred in "Silas Marner."

Any fans of the great "Blackadder" series do not have to be told what a talented actor Rowan Atkinson is. But if you want to see another side - make that several sides - of the English actor's talent, watch Atkinson's first HBO "Comedy Hour" special, premiering at 9:45 p.m. Sunday on cable (with additional airings March 5, 7, 15, 18 and 26). It's a collection of sketches with Atkinson playing various characters, some in pantomime, some with dialogue, that range from the Devil greeting new arrivals in Hell, to a headmaster with an unruly class of boys, to a man stifling a sneeze in church, to the delivery of a Biblical parable. The latter is the funniest sketch in a consistently terrific hour.

Video notes: PBS' "Firing Line" looks at TV's role in politics at 6 tonight on KTPS-TV. . . . Fox treats fans to two episodes of "The Simpsons" at 8 tonight on KCPQ-TV. . . . If you missed the "Nova" episode about TV ratings when it aired on Channel 9, see it at 8 tonight on KTPS-TV, followed at 9 by the fine Jan Peerce profile, "If I Were a Rich Man." . . . The episode of PBS' "Washington Week in Review" at 8 p.m. tomorrow on KCTS-TV will be a special celebrating the series' 25th anniversary. . . . NBC has another new "Perry Mason" TV movie, "The Case of the Posthumous Painter," at 9 p.m. Sunday on KING-TV, but it's pretty tired stuff. It's time to retire Perry for good. . . . At 7:30 p.m. Saturday on cable's Public Access Channel 29, "Backstage with Two Seattle Choreographers" will air, spotlighting Wade Madsen and Robert Davidson, followed at 7:45 p.m. by "In the City of Rain," a new work by Mary Scott...At 9:30 p.m. Saturday on Channel 29, five documentaries by Alfonso Doce will be shown in succession, beginning with a splendid profile of video pioneer Virginia Brookbush, whose life story, as she details it, seems suitable material for a miniseries. It's followed by documentaries on the Mazeltones and the late Bob Wilmot and two documentaries, about a machine-shop instructor and the workers in a cafe, that previously aired on "Washington Works."

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