BEST 'MELROSE PLACE' ALTERNATIVE THE MARSHAL (ABC): On Mondays, this now-cancelled Jeff Fahey actioner was funnier and more exciting than Melrose. All this and music by Van Dyke Parks, one of the year's more discreet pop secrets.

BIGGEST 'CHEERS' CAREER FEARS Ex-cast members in need of a project where everybody knows their names: SHELLEY LONG, sheepish in episodes of Lois & Clark and Murphy Brown; and GEORGE WENDT, blustering to no avail in The George Wendt Show and in the TV movie Bye Bye Birdie.

FINEST FORGOTTEN FAMILY DRAMA UNDER ONE ROOF (CBS): Family values in eloquent abundance, with a wily patriarch played by James Earl Jones.

MOST APPALLINGLY BAD TALK-SHOW GUEST DAVID LEE ROTH on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. With his awful Vegas singing/dancing act and excruciating jokes, Roth redefined washed-up.

BEST PROOF OF TV'S LEFT-WING BIAS Both THE SIMPSONS and LAW & ORDER featured plots based on fugitive radical Katherine Ann Power's years in hiding.

BEST PROOF OF TV'S RIGHT-WING BIAS RUSH LIMBAUGH is still on the air.

MOST WEARISOME SITCOM TREND Women boozing to excess, first on the overrated ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, then on the suddenly unfunny CYBILL, and currently on the almost funny HIGH SOCIETY. This overkill is sobering.

BEST TRASH TV MOVIE TEXAS JUSTICE (ABC): Heather Locklear in hot pants and go-go boots, wearing a gold necklace that says ''Rich Bitch.'' 'Nuff said.


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