THE WEEK

24 WEDNESDAY AMERICAN MASTERS: D.W. GRIFFITH: FATHER OF FILM (PBS, check local listings) This portrait of the controversial director of The Birth of a Nation (1915) includes an interview with the film's late star, Lillian Gish.

BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 (Fox, 8-9 p.m.) Kelly (Jennie Garth) is rushed to the hospital after downing too many diet pills; Brandon (Jason Priestley) and Steve (Ian Ziering) compete on a teen dating game show.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (NBC, 9-10 p.m.) Howard (Melissa Leo) and Bayliss (Kyle Secor) quit smoking, to the dismay of their nicotine-addicted partners, Felton (Daniel Baldwin) and Pembleton (Andre Braugher).

25 THURSDAY

MOVIE: STOLEN BABIES (Lifetime, 9-11 p.m.) Mary Tyler Moore stars in this fact-based drama as the sinister mastermind behind an illegal 1940s adoption ring. Is this where little Richie came from?

ABC's WORLD OF DISCOVERY: POWERS OF THE RUSSIAN PSYCHICS (ABC, 9-10 p.m.) The Untouchables' John Rhys-Davies-what, Yakov Smirnoff wasn't available?-narrates this documentary uncovering secret Soviet experiments with mental telepathy and mind control.

26 FRIDAY

FAMILY MATTERS (ABC, 8-8:30 p.m.) Laura (Kellie Shanygne Williams) sneaks into a male strip club, and guess who winds up on the runway-Urkel (Jaleel White)!

27 SATURDAY

DR. QUINN MEDICINE WOMAN (CBS, 8-9 p.m.) Down about having to celebrate her birthday without a mate, Mike (Jane Seymour) agrees to go on dates with Sully (Joe Lando) and Reverend Johnson (Geoffrey Lower).

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOUR, WARNER BROS. (TNT, 8-10 p.m.) TNT's second studio salute (after 1992's MGM: When the Lion Roars) features clips, outtakes, and screen tests of Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, and Bette Davis and commentary by Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand, and Goldie Hawn.

DENNIS MILLER LIVE FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.-THEY SHOOT HBO SPECIALS, DON'T THEY? (HBO, 9:30-10:30 p.m.) His talk show died, but the former SNL anchor resurfaces on cable with a live hour of political barbs from George Washington University.

28 SUNDAY

MOVIE: LETHAL EXPOSURE (NBC, 9-11 p.m.) An amazingly bland, cheap-looking new TV movie, Lethal Exposure stars Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) as an Amer- ican photographer who teams up with a French policeman (Francois Eric Gendron) to track down a killer. Much of Lethal was filmed in Paris, which here looks about as picturesque as a postcard left out in the rain. Many of Gendron's lines seem to have been dubbed, and Sheedy's notion of portraying a lovably cranky and charmingly cynical person unfortunately omits the lovableness and charm. Howard Hesseman, of all people, shows up briefly as a Paris-based American photo editor who, lame and using a cane, refers to himself as ''your favorite gimp.'' That's not a bad leg he's hobbled by-it's the script. D-

MASTERPIECE THEATRE: HEDDA GABLER (PBS, 9-11 p.m.) This new version of the Ibsen play may receive more attention than many recent Masterpiece entries due to the presence of Stephen Rea, star of The Crying Game. Rea takes the part of the morose, eccentric scholar Lovborg, whose studies in the past have included Hedda, played by Fiona Shaw (My Left Foot). Hedda, newly married to Jorgen Tesman (Nicholas Woodeson), is thoroughly unnerved by a visit from Lovborg-but then, of course, Hedda is unnerved by everything. Indeed, director Deborah Warner presents her protagonist as a woman flirting with insanity, forever suppressing rage-at herself and at the suf-focating, sexist 19th-century world around her. ) Warner takes care to bring out all the humor, both dry and damp, in Ibsen's play. As Woodeson plays him, for example, Gabler's husband is a brilliant caricature of a petit bourgeois careerist. And Rea's long poker face makes him a perfect Lov-borg, the self-absorbed romantic. As for Shaw, she manages to give frazzledness some dignity, force, and a certain tragedy. When Lovborg mutters some platitude about courage, Hedda says softly, ''Courage-if one only had that.'' ''What do you mean?'' asks Lovborg. ''Well, perhaps one could even live, at last,'' replies Hedda. We know that it's not long until, her courage failing, Hedda will be using the gun we've seen her holding earlier-on herself. A-