WAS LATEST ‘WEEK THAT WAS’ REALLY NECESSARY?

There are some revered television shows that, like old lovers, you ought not to see again, no matter if they have a new wardrobe and hair style, lest even the memories of what once was be compromised by the shock of the new encounter.

The updated “That Was the Week That Was” that surfaced Sunday night on ABC thrust me back a couple of decades to the London original. It aired on Saturday nights at, I think, 10:30, which made it the late, late show--customarily in those days British television had said its prayers and played “God Save the Queen” before American anchor types had cleared their throats for film at 11.

“TW3,” as the headline writers were soon calling it, gained a kind of built-in naughtiness before a word was said, in fact, by being allowed to stay up late--after curfew, so to speak. It emptied the streets and dictated British social life on Saturday nights for the rest of its run, just as “The Jewel in the Crown” and a handful of other TV events have done here.

Its presiding genius was the producer, Ned Sherrin, who recruited the young Cantabrigian David Frost as compere, chose the large and marvelous supporting players, including patter-singer Millicent Martin, and found a boatload of young writers to sustain them.

I was still abroad when the early American version of “TW3” went on the air, but, as Lee Margulies reported in these pages a few days ago, it was only fitfully successful, and short-lived. The new “TW3” thus seems a trial balloon hoping to catch the same winds that gave the original Britannic “TW3” such a merry ride.

But, and not for the first time, a great deal seems to have got lost in translation. David Frost (seeming a bit more intense and executive than in his postgraduate days), his co-host Anne Bancroft and their fellow farceurs were discovered standing on what looked like concrete lily pads. Frost & Co. also resembled life-size chess persons, awaiting all the right moves.

(The past is not invariably a guide, but “TW3 (Mark I)” took place in a cluttered space that was a cross between a city room at the end of a hard day and a rehearsal stage between productions. The sense that it was a real working space and not a proscenium-framed set--despite the presence of an audience--gave the proceedings an aura of immediacy and spontaneity that was central to the spirit of the show.)

The prevailing spirit of “TW3 (Mark III)” the other night actually owed more to “Laugh In” in its look, pacing and contents than to the original “Week That Was.” Like “Laugh In,” it calls for a batting average instead of a grade, although an average--let’s say .320--would conceal some groaning foul-outs. I think specifically of a sort of biblical bloopers skit that would have dismayed a confirmed atheist.

The great delight of the show was Bancroft, delicious as Nancy Reagan in a bedroom skit, grandly raucous as an ecology-minded hash-house waitress in another skit. She is a comedienne of warmth and charm, and of intelligence carried lightly, like a stiletto.

There was some nice invention in the skits, including a Dan Rather newscast in a day when Ted Turner had won CBS and the center of the universe had moved to Atlanta, the question about nuclear winter being whether it would foul up the Braves’ playing schedule.

The young supporting cast would need several more outings to let their individual personalities emerge from the material, but they are clearly gifted.

Brian Bradley as a papal tour roadie and Jan Hooks in that and other skits appear particularly promising.

What was disappointing about “TW3” this time around was that it seemed relentless, calculated and old hat. The fearless and rather relaxed undergraduate verve of the original made its mark and left its spiritual heirs, including “Saturday Night Live,” which at its best has had the same tonic irreverence and this-is-now immediacy.

The turf “That Was the Week That Was” could once call its own has become, if not crowded, at least busier, and cable’s “Not Necessarily the News,” uneven but often dazzling in its doctored news footages and other graphics, sometimes seems like Monty Python and “TW3” rolled into one.

You have to be grateful for the alternative point of view, although the new “TW3” seemed very prime-time circumspect in its balance, making sport of the Reagans but of liberals as well, just to keep things neat.

There’s a wonderful old line from the theater about a director looking at his chorus line in rehearsal and saying, wearily, “Please, girls, a little more virginity if you will.”

A little less earnestness, and fewer lily pads, I’d have thought.