`Bonanza: The Return' Lacks Personality, But . .

"Bonanza: The Return," world premiere movie, 9 p.m. Sunday, Channel 5. ------------------------------------------------------------------- NBC has been promoting this Sunday night as "Bonanza" night, beginning with a one-hour special tribute, "Back to Bonanza," at 7, then airing a two-hour movie at 9 that's obviously a pilot for a whole new series of "Bonanza" adventures.

It's true that the first "Bonanza," of which there were 428 episodes that ran from Sept. 12, 1959, to Jan. 16, 1973, was one of TV's most popular series - and one that continued to be popular in syndicated reruns. It made major stars of Michael Landon and Lorne Greene and lesser stars of Dan Blocker and Pernell Roberts, the latter leaving the show in 1965.

All of this will doubtlessly be related to viewers in the "Back to Bonanza" special, which is designed to serve as a kind of memory-jogger for those who watch "Bonanza: The Return" since it is a second-generation story featuring Little Joe's children, Benj and Sara; Adam Jr. and Josh, son of Hoss. As an NBC press release puts it: "The Ponderosa is now brimming with a new generation of Cartwrights."

The problem is that none of the new Cartwrights have been blessed with the kind of charisma Landon, Greene, Blocker and Roberts had; at least it's not evident in this pilot film.

The flashbacks, featuring the original characters, are kept to a minimum in the movie, which is a good thing, for it may well be that watching "Back to Bonanza" will set viewers' expectations too high.

Viewers tuned in from 1959 to 1973 not because of the great storylines - "Bonanza" was no "Dallas" - but because of a great affection for the guys of the Ponderosa: Ben, Little Joe, Hoss and Adam. (NBC says that "Bonanza" "celebrates the life and times of one of America's most enduring families," although women were seldom on view and in reality it was about four guys who lived together on a ranch.)

Michael McGreevey wrote the script for "Bonanza: The Return" and the best that can be said is that it is serviceable. The biggest problem is that it uses every familiar Western cliche in two hours - unscruplous tycoons, rapacious miners, shifty lawyers, kidnapping, barroom brawls, the runaway wagon that goes over the cliff, horseback riders leaping aboard a speeding train and assorted explosions and gunfights. What would be left for subsequent episodes?

The fact we've seen all this before wouldn't matter if the new Cartwrights were a personable lot. Michael Landon Jr., who plays Benj, is, at best, likable; Emily Warfield, who plays his sister, Sara, is the kind of long-limbed tomboy one expects; Alistair MacDougall, an Australian actor who plays Adam Jr., looks like any other young teenage hunk from Central Casting.

The most personable of the newcomers is Brian Leckner, who plays Josh, son of Hoss. (It's also an interesting bit of casting since Dan Blocker's real son, Dirk, who looks very much like him, is in the film - but playing a newspaper reporter, an underwritten role that goes nowhere.

The times "Bonanza: The Return" does hold your interest is when such veterans as Ben Johnson and Jack Elam are on camera, along with Richard Roundtree and Dean Stockwcll, the latter playing the evil tycoon who wants to buy the Ponderosa for nefarious purposes. Also in the cast is Linda Gray, in a kind of Miss Kitty role.

With the new interest in Westerns, perhaps a new "Bonanza" could make it - it would be at least as welcome as yet another action drama like "South of Sunset"! - but the performers playing the younger Cartwrights are going to have to develop some personality before this sequel comes within shooting distance of the original's popularity. An excellent alternative ------------------------------------------------------------------- "There Are No Children Here,"

"ABC Theater," 9 p.m. Sunday, Channel 4. -------------------------------------------------------------------

It you'd prefer a healthy dose of reality, instead of nostalgic escapism, I heartily recommend "There Are No Children Here," an in-your-face adaptation (by Bobby Smith Jr.) of Alex Kotlowitz's non-fiction book about one woman living in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes housing project with her five children.

Under Anita Addison's capable direction, the movie is a little slow to start. But once you sort out the characters and your ears become accustomed to the homeboy patois, this becomes an affecting and powerful film.

Its story is as familiar as the plots of "Bonanza" - a scrappy, loving mother, trying to hold her family together, with little or no help from a mostly absent father, living in a project where shootings, drugs, unsympathetic white police, gangs and the lure of easy money are every-day facts of life.

What keeps you glued to the screen is a quietly effective performance by Oprah Winfrey as the mother and especially by Norman Golden II as her youngest son, Pharoah; Mark Lane as his older brother, Lafayette.

There are also strong performances from Keith David as John Paul Rivers, the husband who finds life a series of disappointments; Maya Angelou as the kind of advice-giving grandmother one expects in dramas like this, and Vonte Sweet as one of Lafayette's role models who meets a tragic end. A large and talented cast of African-American performers bring a sense of both authenticity and immediacy to the drama.

"There Are No Children Here" has all the punch and grit of an evening newscast from Sarajevo - only this is Chicago, depicted in a wake-up letter to the rest of America, one that deserves the widest possible audience.

Winfrey deserves kudos for championing the film, as well as delivering a fine performance that is in no way a "star turn" and ABC deserves kudos for airing the drama in prime time.