THE BOYS OF TWILIGHT (CBS, 10-11 p.m.) Richard Farnsworth (The Grey Fox) and Wilford Brimley (Cocoon and all those Quaker Oats commercials) are both veteran actors who radiate warmth, wisdom, and stubborn individualism. The Boys of Twilight draws upon their familiar charms, casting them as lawmen in a rustic mountain town called Twilight. Farnsworth is the calm, wise sheriff; Brimley is his eccentric, obstreperous deputy. Their byplay provides light relief in this weekly crime drama-we're supposed to be amused by these crusty old duffers even as we admire their mystery-solving skills. The cast is rounded out by Oscar-winning Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) as the sheriff's wife, Amanda McBroom as Twilight's mayor, and Ben Browder as a young hunk of a new deputy who faints whenever he hears a loud sound. The Boys of Twilight is, as you might imagine, way too cute, and the crime plots already seem recycled from old episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Jake and the Fatman. If Boys draws a sizable audience, it will probably be due to the low- key comic chemistry between Brimley and Farnsworth. C
1 SUNDAY
MUHAMMAD ALI'S 50TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION (ABC, 9-11 p.m.) A tribute to "The Greatest," with speeches and performances by Dan Aykroyd, Howard Cosell, Hammer, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Billy Crystal, and Ella Fitzgerald. Also with seldom-seen footage from Ali's career.
THE CLONING OF JOANNA MAY (A&E, 8-11 p.m.) Many of the people who brought us the superlative 1987 British television version of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil are together again here: star Patricia Hodge, director Philip Saville, and Ted Whitehead, who has once again written the teleplay for a Fay Weldon novel. And like She-Devil, Joanna May mixes feminist satire with barbed fantasy. In this production, Hodge portrays Joanna, a middle-aged beauty recently rejected by her big-time financier husband, Carl (Brian Cox), in favor of a young trollop played by Siri Neal. But then we learn that there's a level on which Carl is still in love with his wife. He dreams of having a younger version of Joanna, and, using his vast wealth to tap into experimental technology, he orders up three biological variations on Joanna-three beautiful clones, all apparently in their 20s, played by Emma Hardy, Helen Adie, and Laura Eddy. Up through the unveiling of the clones-about midway through this three-hour production-Joanna is good, mean-minded, man-hating fun. But once the clones are out and about, the movie loses steam-it has nowhere to go with its premise, other than to prove over and over that Carl is a weasel. Cox, so chilling as the Dr. Lecter of the 1986 cult hit Manhunter, makes an excellent weasel, but that doesn't prevent Joanna from eventually becoming a tiresome satire. C+
4 WEDNESDAY
QUICKSAND-NO ESCAPE (USA, 9-11 p.m.) A new TV movie about a workaholic architect (Tim Matheson) who gets sucked into blackmail and murder. Also starring Donald Sutherland.
