THE WEEK

10 SUNDAY WIFE, MOTHER, MURDERER (ABC, 9-11 p.m.) It's a fact-based lollapalooza, and not a minute of it rings true. Wife, Mother, Murderer stars Judith Light (Who's the Boss?) as Marie Hilley, a small-town Alabama woman who poisoned her husband; tried to kill her daughter; was arrested, jumped bail, and established a new identity in Florida; married again and convinced her new husband that she had a fatal disease; left him; then came back, claiming that Marie had died and that she was Marie's own twin sister-and the poor sap believed her! The way Light plays Hilley-widening her eyes with innocence until they look as if they'll explode, pushing her Southern-belle charm like a bulldozer (this woman couldn't have fooled the dumbest person on earth)-she positively glows with phoniness. Given David Eyre orid screenplay, there may have been no sensible way to play this character, but Light seems permanently, exasperatingly over-the-top for two hours. At least David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H) is convincingly gullible as Hilley's second husband, and David Dukes in this context is a veritable Olivier of subtlety as an assistant DA determined to get this malevolent matron behind bars. D

MY SON JOHNNY (CBS, 9-11 p.m.) Rick Schroder adds to his list of impressive TV-movie roles with Johnny Cortino, a drug-dealing little weasel who abuses his younger brother, Anthony (Parker Lewis Can't Lose's Corin Nemec). Anthony can finally stand it no longer, and shoots his big brother dead. Knots Landing's Michele Lee plays their mother, Marianne, as a dowdy working-class woman with a strong Italian accent. As skilled as she has been on Knots, Lee isn't very convincing here. After the killing, we're supposed to think that she's torn: Anthony is on trial for murder, and Marianne has to testify on his behalf, to confirm that Johnny bullied and beat his brother, but Marianne adored Johnny despite the fact that he was a creep. This all seems ridiculous; Schroder is so good at portraying the evil Johnny-he lets his bright eyes grow dim and his bright smile curdle into a menacing smirk-that Marianne's crisis seems absurdly overstated: How could she remain loyal to this coldblooded monster? A CBS press release listed Michael Gross (Family Ties) as playing the part of Anthony's lawyer; it's actually performed by Rip Torn. That character doesn't appear until nearly halfway through the film, and I like to imagine that the person writing the release was so bored by the movie that he or she just wrote down the first name that came to mind and said the heck with it. I was tempted to do the same thing. D

THE RETURN OF ELIOT NESS (NBC, 9-11 p.m.) Robert Stack reprises his role as TV's most famous G-man in this new TV movie set in post-WWII Chicago. Ness comes out of retirement to clear the name of a former colleague.

PUBLIC ENEMY 2 (Showtime, 10-10:40 p.m.) Dave Thomas has had a tough time finding the right vehicle for his prodigious comic talents ever since SCTV went off the air-neither his movie roles nor his short-lived CBS variety series offered him a proper showcase. But this intricate, tightly written comedy special does. In Public Enemy 2, Thomas plays two roles-Wynn Dalton, a struggling actor, and Dwayne Gary Steckler, a serial killer. Dalton is hired to play Steckler in a crime dramatization for an America's Most Wanted-like show called All Points Bulletin (it's hosted by Mannix's Mike Connors in a nice bit of self-parody). Steckler watches the show and is outraged at the mediocrity of Dalton's portrayal (''Ted Bundy got Mark Harmon. Who do I get? The king of dinner theater!'') and, figuring he can play himself in the follow-up episode, pushes Dalton off a cliff and shows up at the taping. Steckler plays Steckler to spectacular effect-he's so realistically weird and scary, the ratings go through the roof. A Steckler segment becomes a weekly feature of All Points Bulletin, and this criminal, still passing himself off as Dalton, becomes a millionaire superstar. Why, he's even nominated for an Emmy in a new category: ''Best Actor in a News Broadcast or News-Related Series.'' But then it turns out that Dalton isn't really dead Public Enemy 2 takes about 20 more twists and turns than your average TV comedy, and Thomas makes the most of them. Writers Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland have created a near-perfect critique not just of so-called reality shows but of the television industry itself. The result is a very nice cable- TV surprise; you'd do much better to watch this than any of the big, empty, sweeps-period movies the networks have planned for you on this date. A-