Independence (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.), a...

Independence (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.), a new made-for-TV Western, stars John Bennett Perry, who gets a chance to avenge his family, massacred by marauding renegades.

The James Bond series got off to a rousing start 24 years ago--can it have been that long?--with Dr. No (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), which found Sean Connery’s incomparable 007 taking on his first master villain (Joseph Wiseman).

Suzanne Pleshette stars in the new TV movie A Stranger Waits (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.), a suspense drama about a beautiful widow endangered by her affair with a mysterious younger man (Justin Deas).

The “Disney Sunday Movie” (ABC at 7 p.m.) Double Agent stars Michael McKean in a dual role as a superspy and his unsophisticated twin who replaces him on a dangerous mission.

The new TV movie Stone Fox (NBC Monday at 8:30 p.m.), which has the unenviable challenge of going up against the Academy Awards, stars Buddy Ebsen and Joey Cramer in a story about an orphan who enters a dog-sled race to raise money to save his ailing grandfather’s farm.

Frank Gilroy’s taut and unsettling Desperate Characters (Channel 11 Tuesday at 9 p.m.) finds Shirley MacLaine and Kenneth Mars as an overly insulated Manhattan couple who have an increasingly difficult time in coping.

Tracy Pollan and Akosua Busia star in another new TV movie, A Special Friendship (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.), which is about two women--one a plantation owner’s daughter, the other her former slave--and their extraordinary friendship during the turbulent years of the American Civil War.

Doc (Channel 5 Wednesday at 8 p.m.), director Frank Perry and writer Pete Hamill’s engrossing retelling of the Gunfight at O.K. Corral, belongs to that provocative cycle of demythologizing Westerns of the early ‘70s. Stacy Keach and Faye Dunaway star.

In his glowing film of Ed Graczyk’s play Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.) director Robert Altman fused an extraordinary cast, headed by Cher, Karen Black and Sandy Dennis, into a near-peerless ensemble. Shifting between 1955 and 1975, it tells of the 20th reunion of the Disciples of Jimmy Dean in a Woolworth’s in a flyspeck of a town. In a uniquely challenging role, Black plays a mysterious stranger who comes onto the scene as the reunion is getting under way; what ensues becomes a reflection upon sexual identity, the cruelty of small towns, self-delusion and the danger of worshiping false idols. Strong and highly entertaining.

Also airing Thursday: Alfred Hitchcock’s dazzling, experimental Under Capricorn (Channel 11 at 9 p.m.), starring Ingrid Bergman as a fragile wife in 19th-Century Australia.

Destination: America (ABC Friday at 9 p.m.), yet another new TV movie, stars Bruce Greenwood as a young man, estranged from his rich family, who returns home only to find himself accused of killing his father.

W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (Channel 5 Saturday at 6 p.m.) finds Burt Reynolds playing a small-time con artist who intends to exploit a struggling little country-western band; the result is a very funny and surprisingly touching little film.

Selected evening cable fare: The Official Story (HBO Sunday at 8); Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Showtime Sunday at 8); Violette (Z Monday at 7); Black and White in Color (Movie Channel Monday at 7:30); Citizen Kane (Cinemax Tuesday at 8); Letter from an Unknown Woman (Z Tuesday at 9, Wednesday at 6); Back to the Future (HBO Wednesday at 8, Showtime and Z Friday at 9, HBO Saturday at 8, Movie Channel Saturday at 9); The Third Man (Bravo Wednesday at 9); Pilgrimage (Z Thursday at 7); The Verdict (SelecTV Thursday at 8); Henry IV (Bravo Thursday at 8:30); Time Bandits (HBO Saturday at 6); The Great Gatsby (1949), (Z Saturday at 6); Always (Z Saturday at 9).