Two new TV movies will be battling...

Two new TV movies will be battling one another for viewers next Sunday at 9 p.m. CBS will broadcast “Circle of Violence: A Family Drama,” in which Tuesday Weld plays a woman who abuses her aging mother (Geraldine Fitzgerald). NBC serves up Ted Danson of “Cheers” in “When the Bough Breaks,” about a psychologist who gets involved in a murder investigation.

Another star of an NBC series, Justine Bateman of “Family Ties,” steps to the forefront the following night, Oct. 13, to star in “Can You Feel Me Dancing?” It’s a two-hour TV movie about a 19-year-old blind woman struggling to get free of her overprotective family. Bateman’s brother, Jason, who is a regular on “Valerie,” plays her brother in the film.

Lynn Whitfield has the title role in “Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI,” a new TV movie that CBS plans to broadcast Oct. 14. It’s about a female FBI agent. Howard E. Rollins Jr. also stars, playing a fellow FBI agent with whom she works on an undercover assignment.

Last season “The Cosby Show” did an episode featuring some great jazz musicians. The show on Thursday will feature the Count Basie Orchestra performing “Shiny Stockings” and “April in Paris.” Frank Forster leads the band.

John Denver and Cindy Williams are teamed in “Leftovers,” a TV film that will appear on ABC’s “The Disney Sunday Movie” this season. They play the operators of an orphanage that a group of developers is trying to put out of business.

NBC already has a miniseries in the works about a New York socialite who convinced her son to murder her father, and now CBS is planning one too. Stefanie Powers has the central role in “At Mother’s Request,” with E. G. Marshall, Frances Sternhagen, Doug McKeon and Corey Parker in other prominent parts. The drama will run four hours on CBS. NBC’s is the six-hour “Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder,” with Lee Remick.

William Inge’s play “Picnic” will be performed on Showtime cable later this year with an all-star cast. Starring are Gregory Harrison, Michael Learned, Rue McClanahan, Dick Van Patten, Dana Hill and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

The Pointer Sisters are starring in a special for NBC that will feature selections from their upcoming album, “Up All Night.” A telecast date hasn’t been set, but joining them on the show will be Bruce Willis of “Moonlighting” and Whoopi Goldberg from “The Color Purple.”

“The Facts of Life” traveled to Paris for a special movie-length show in 1982, and now the NBC comedy series is on the road again. This time cast and crew have gone to Australia to shoot “The Facts of Life Down Under,” in which the young ladies participate in a cultural exchange program.