IS THERE A FUTURE FOR ‘THE WEEK THAT WAS’?

This is the weekend that “That Was the Week That Was” returns.

For one night anyway--with David Frost from the original cast as co-host and co-producer of the new version. But if the hourlong pilot airing Sunday at 8 p.m. (Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) is well received, ABC may bring the news satire back as a weekly series next season.

Frost thinks the time is ripe for a new edition of “That Was the Week That Was.”

“I think laughing at the news and laughing at people’s pretentions is

essentially an enjoyable and healthy exercise,” he maintains. “When you see the funny side of things, I think you can see a way through difficult situations.”

Even if ABC doesn’t order a series, the special alone ought to prove interesting to TV buffs too young to have seen the original.

For such is the exalted reputation of “That Was the Week That Was” that today, 20 years after it went off the air, it is still part of the television lexicon, used in the industry as an identification reference for any show that attempts to be topical and satirical.

“Not Necessarily the News” on Home Box Office, for example, has been described as having been influenced by “That Was the Week That Was.” “The News Is the News,” a comedy series that ran on NBC during the summer of 1983, was said to have been derivative of “That Was the Week That Was.”

You’d think a reputation that has survived that long in an industry with a notoriously short memory must have been sparked by a lengthy run with dazzling ratings. Not so. The truth is, “That Was the Week That Was” lasted only 1 1/2 seasons on NBC, from January, 1964, to May, 1965, expiring after failing to make much of a dent against ABC’s “Peyton Place” and CBS’ “Petticoat Junction.”

At that, however, the U.S. edition lived longer than the British version that inspired it, which was canceled at the end of 1963 by the BBC after 13 months on the air.

Why has the memory of “TW3,” as the series came to be called, outshone its actual performance?

“I don’t know that I can fully answer that,” says Frost, who helped create the show in England and later moved with it across the Atlantic. “I suppose it’s probably due to the fact that irreverence and political satire--political jokes, even--were something of a breakthrough at the time. Television was very bland in those days.”

“TW3” did make its share of waves with jokes and sketches about religion, politics, civil rights, social issues and government officials--and with the brilliant satirical songs of Tom Lehrer, such as “Smut,” “Pollution,” “The Folk Song Army” and “The Vatican Rag.”

In fact, the Republican Party helped to undermine the show as it tried to get off the ground at the beginning of the fall ’64 season by buying its time slot during four of the first six weeks to run political programs promoting Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. “TW3” staffers were convinced that the GOP was trying to keep the program from lampooning its candidate. The series was preempted another week for a news special, and again in the seventh week for election coverage.

“TW3” also suffered for political reasons in England, where the BBC admitted with unusual candor that it was taking the program off the air at the end of 1963 “for one reason only: 1964 will be a general election year.”

But if the show was not successful in surviving itself, it nevertheless proved significant by “paving the way for irreverence on television,” as Frost puts it. “It gave other people a little more freedom.”

“TW3” was also notable for another reason: It launched Frost’s career. He was 23 and just 13 months out of Cambridge University when the pilot for the show was done. Its success in England earned him a shot on the U.S. version, and that, he recalls, “started my love affair with the States--and with the airlines.”

Frost’s famous globe-hopping schedule does not seem to have abated with the years. At 46, he continues to host a weekly interview show on British TV, hosts and co-produces occasional “Guinness Book of World Records” specials for ABC, is developing a miniseries for CBS with author Frederick Forsyth, has several film projects in development, is writing another book and is keeping an eye out for potential interview spectaculars, such as his sessions with former President Richard Nixon in 1977 and another with the deposed Shah of Iran in 1980.

Nor has a family slowed him down. Married to the former Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, Frost boasts that their 10-month-old son Miles made his first transatlantic flight--complete with his own passport--at the age of six weeks. The couple is expecting another child in August.

The new edition of “That Was the Week That Was,” taped Thursday night to make it as topical as possible, features Anne Bancroft as co-host and sports a supporting cast of eight, who would be regulars if ABC orders a series. Frost says it’s faster-paced than the old show and won’t feature the top-of-the-show song highlighting the week’s news (which Nancy Aames sang) because the producers feel it necessary to get into the show quicker.

Frost believes “TW3” may be better suited to 1985 because its previous run in 1964 “was kind of a shaky time for the republic, with the trauma after Dallas. There were questions about whether America would survive. Well, obviously America did survive and is stronger than ever. There has scarcely been a more stable time in its history.”

And perhaps best of all, Frost notes, there isn’t another presidential election scheduled for more than three years--so a “TW3” series would be in no danger of political preemptions.