‘FROST’--BRISK AIR OF REASON IN MURKY AIDS ARENA

AIDS may become this season’s TV disease.

Cancer used to be the hottest ticket, starting with “Brian’s Song” on ABC in 1971. Prime time later went on a “fatal disease of the week” binge, producing a torrent of teary movies about illness, each usually climaxing with a manipulative deathbed finale intended to leave viewers limp but uplifted.

Though diminished, the genre is still not exhausted; witness “A Time to Live,” NBC’s movie two weeks ago about an admirable young muscular dystrophy victim. It’s apparently impossible to be terminally afflicted these days without also being inspirational.

And now, following the lead of the news media, prime time has discovered AIDS, the alarming virus that destroys the immune system, leaving the body defenseless.

AIDS was the focus of a “St. Elsewhere” episode on NBC in December, 1983. An AIDS patient was central to an otherwise routine “Trapper John, M.D.” story on CBS last week. And cable’s Showtime recently gave America its first AIDS story within a comedy series, a well-intentioned but preachy and clumsy episode of “Brothers,” in which a burly former pro-football lineman reveals that he has the disease.

“There’s nothing to look forward to. I’m dying. I’m dead,” the afflicted man in “Brothers” said. Some comedy.

But these were small, inconsequential nibblings around the edges compared with “An Early Frost,” at 9 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39.

The first of TV’s AIDS movies is here, moved up a week for competitive reasons, a two-hour NBC job that hangs a fictional exclamation point on the Rock Hudson tragedy. Members of the media, in spite of their exploitive, opportunistic selves, inadvertently transformed Hudson’s death into a positive for society through their mostly obsessive, sensational, all-focusing news coverage.

All of that publicity about Hudson brought AIDS respectability. And “An Early Frost” may carry that positive still farther.

You hesitate to use “landmark” in connection with two hours of TV. But if NBC’s “Adam” marked a turning point in a campaign to alert the nation about missing children, “An Early Frost” may just as effectively define the AIDS peril for millions of Americans who inexplicably may still remain apathetic and ignorant of reality.

Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, working from a story by Sherman Yellen, have written a wise, honest and tender drama about a young gay lawyer who informs his parents that he is terminally ill with AIDS. In other words, Michael Pierson delivers a double whammy: He is dying and he is gay.

Trying to continue fooling his family about his sexuality would have been pointless, as AIDS unmasks its victims and strips away their privacy and some of their dignity. The exceptions are rapidly growing, but for the most part, the rule of thumb still applies: AIDS equals gay.

Michael knows the prejudice and ignorance that he will face from strangers who believe that AIDS is God’s punishment for being “queer.”

“An Early Frost” even more eloquently articulates the AIDS victim’s isolation and fear of rejection from those he trusts and loves. AIDS remains largely a mystery affliction that--contrary to prevailing medical opinion--many believe can be transmitted by osmosis or by touch, as if it were the bubonic plague.

“I wonder how many . . . people,” Michael asks, “will want to shake my hand when they find out what I have?”

Too few, unfortunately. His live-in lover of two years instinctively refuses to drink from the same cup as Michael. His pregnant sister won’t allow her small son to approach Michael and won’t be in the same room with him herself, fearing contamination to her unborn child.

His mother and grandmother are supportive. But Michael’s greatest rejection comes from his macho father, whose anguish over Michael’s inevitable fate is initially overshadowed by his anger and revulsion concerning his son’s homosexuality.

“An Early Frost” represents one of those rare meshings of talented writing, directing (by John Erman) and acting, where everyone seems in tune and also where a network is determined to air an important story without distortion or deception. This is integrity time.

The performances by Aidan Quinn as Michael, Gena Rowlands as the mother and Ben Gazzara as the father are heartfelt and achingly true. You believe them and share their perplexity and pain.

It’s true that “An Early Frost” is predictable because, unfortunately, AIDS is predictable. No happy endings yet. The story’s only notable flaw, though, is a failure to convey the long-range physical suffering and life-sapping deterioration of AIDS victims. It’s simply terrible.

You can bet that this will not be prime time’s last word on AIDS, and that few succeeding stories on the same subject will travel such a high road. Rock Hudson’s illness and subsequent death became the media roar heard around the world. “An Early Frost” is the softer voice of reason.