'HELP' UNWANTED

In television's never-ending search for a novel disease of the week, A Child's Cry For Help (NBC, Nov. 14, 9-11 p.m.) brings us MBPs-Munchausen by Proxy syndrome-an apparently real-life phenomenon in which a parent mistakenly believes the child is ill and gives the child frequently dangerous doses of inappropriate medications. The wrong-headed parent in this case is Mork & Mindy's Pam Dawber, who meets her match in Hill Street Blues' Veronica Hamel, who begins to suspect that the medical problems of Dawber's 8-year-old son are due to MBPs. Because Dawber's character seems so erratic and neurotic right from the start, and Hamel's doctor is so serenely level-headed, there's little doubt where this story is heading. Lacking any sort of suspense other than the extent to which the boy will suffer, A Child's Cry for Help is little more than a masochistic viewing experience. D+