BUFFALO GIRLS

The goodwill we felt for TV adaptations of Larry McMurtry's fiction in the wake of the marvelous 1989 CBS version of Lonesome Dove dissipates rapidly while watching BUFFALO GIRLS (CBS, April 30 and May 1, 9-11 p.m. each night), a remarkably lifeless version of another McMurtry novel. As Cynthia Whitcomb has adapted it for the small screen, Buffalo Girls tells of the long friendship between Calamity Jane, played by Anjelica Huston, and Dora DuFran, played by Melanie Griffith. Jane is, of course, the legendary rough, tough cowpoke; DuFran is a softhearted brothel keeper. Jane swaggers around and puffs on little cee-gars; Dora wears tight, revealing clothes that look like leftovers from Griffith's recent feature-film role as a softhearted hooker in Milk Money. Buffalo Girls is the sort of vaguely fact-based TV movie in which Calamity Jane can look up and murmur, ''I'll be damned -- Sittin' Bull,'' and there, sure enough, is the famous Native American, played with grim ferocity by American Indian Movement leader Russell Means. The actors don't so much portray real- life people as they embody the cliches that surround them. Think, for example, of Wild Bill Hickok, and what comes to mind? Droopy mustache, long hair, and buckskin jacket, right? Well, there's the king of droopy mustaches, Sam Elliott, decked out in full Wild Bill regalia, mumbling his lines into his upper-lip hair until they're nearly unintelligible. Gabriel Byrne was somehow convinced to play Teddy Blue, whom we are to think is Calamity Jane's true love. The pair engage in witty byplay like this: Teddy says, ''I'm just too old to start drinkin' whiskey at 10 in the morning,'' and Jane ripostes, ''Yeah, well, I'm too old to stop.'' The men in the lives of Jane and Dora love 'em and leave 'em, but the gals always have each other for emotional support. Country star Reba McEntire bites her lower lip when she aims her rifle as Annie Oakley; Peter Coyote looks like he's doing a Wild Bill Hickok parody, but it turns out he's Buffalo Bill Cody; and Jack Palance plays a slack-jawed beaver hunter with frightening conviction. Director Ron Hardy maintains no sense of drama or momentum, and Huston seems to have decided the only way to keep herself entertained is to do a four-hour impersonation of Walter Brennan. Buffalo Girls, won't you stay home both nights. Grade: D -Ken Tucker