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Sitcoms Just how long does ABC plan to continue airing two installments of Home Improvement (ABC, March 23, 8-8:30 p.m., 9-9:30 p.m.) on Wednesdays? Week after week, the official press releases claim that the 8 p.m. episode is ''a one-time-only airing of Home Improvement in this time period.'' But by replacing the lackluster Thea with high-rated Home reruns, ABC gives its 8:30 program a ratings boost. This gimmick helped The Critic get off to a raging start, yet as soon as Thea returned at 8 p.m., The Critic's numbers plunged and the show left the air. With Thunder Alley (ABC, March 23, 8:30-9 p.m.) now on the schedule, ABC seems intent on supplying two doses of Tim Allen each week. The network is clearly aiming to please Thunder's executive producers- probably because they also created Home Improvement. ''Felines Nothing More Than Felines,'' the cloying title of the latest Dream On (HBO, March 23, 10-10:30 p.m.), is only one of a multitude of flaws afflicting this once-witty series. Here's another: too much Toby, not enough Gibby. Denny Dillon's dumpy secretary hogs the show-her beloved cat dies in this one-while the gleefully oily Aussie publisher (Michael McKean, who directed this episode and just joined the cast of Saturday Night Live) gets relegated to a pointless subplot about signing ''biosploitation'' queen Kitty Kelley. Worst of all, the divine Wendie Malick does not appear this week. The good news: Next week's season finale clears the way for the long-overdue reunion between Malick's Judith Stone and her ex-husband, Martin Tupper (Brian Benben).
Dramas A few years ago, Hope (Mel Harris) discovered a World War II- era diary in a memorable thirtysomething. A few weeks ago, Paul and Jamie (Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt) found a cache of World War II-era letters in a not-so-memorable Mad About You. Beverly Hills, 90210 (Fox, March 23, 8-9 p.m.) updates the concept as Brenda (Shannen Doherty) stumbles across the diary of a teenage girl who lived in the Walshes' house in the 1960s. Brenda then imagines her pals-who are away skiing-acting out the incidents described in the entries. The extra-arty atmosphere comes courtesy of amateur auteur Jason Priestley, who was behind the camera on this episode.
Desperately clinging to life several seasons after it should have been put out of everyone's misery, l.a. law (NBC, March 24, 10-11 p.m.) reaches for ripped- from-the-headlines relevance with an aftershock plot: Born-again lawyer Jane Halliday (Alexandra Powers) represents a shaky client (The Hogan Family's Edie McClurg) in a quake-related lawsuit. The show also rips a plot off the best-seller list, as Eli Levinson (Alan Rosenberg) takes the Disclosure-esque case of a female exec (Charlie's Angels' Shelley Hack) sued for sexual harassment by a male employee. And for good measure, Law introduces a little racial tension-David Morales (A Martinez) threatens to quit the firm, crying discrimination.
Movies The top-notch cast of NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street doesn't go back to its beat until next fall, so in the meantime they're scattered all over TV land. Two of Baltimore's finest turn up in new TV movies as-you guessed it- cops. Richard Belzer, who also has a recurring role as a flatfoot on Lois & Clark, helps Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers find the villain who has been sabotaging a Broadway production in Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart (NBC, March 25, 9-11 p.m.). And Yaphet Kotto plays a veteran Miami police-officer pal of journalist Elizabeth Montgomery in the fact-based drama The Corpse Had A Familiar Face (CBS, March 27, 9-11 p.m.). But the Homicide guys haven't been uniformly typecast: Ned Beatty is reprising his role as John Goodman's traveling-salesman dad on Roseanne, and Kyle Secor is Sherry Stringfield's new boyfriend, a doctor, on NYPD Blue.
