The 10 Best, Worst Moments of February

1. The Winter Olympics: The thrill of victory overcame some bad weather and bad commentary to provide some mesmerizing human drama: the faces of the U.S. bobsled team after missing a bronze medal by .02 seconds; Brian Boitano’s grateful look toward the heavens after his spectacular figure skating performance; Matti Nykanen soaring off the 90-meter ski jump hill. And Katarina Witt’s costumes!

2. Bronson vs. Bronson vs. Bronson: In what had to be the most violent four hours of local TV ever, three indies shot it out by scheduling Charles Bronson films opposite each other on two consecutive nights.

3. Best Prime-Time Make-Up: The make-up artist who worked overtime to disfigure the face of the vain and beautiful Blair on “Facts of Life” finally turned the show into something worth laughing at.

4. “The Oprah Winfrey Show”: A segment featuring “skinhead” white supremacists was highlighted when one young skinhead decreed that all blacks--including his talk show hostess--are “monkeys.” The sentiments were ugly but the confrontation made for pretty good TV.

5. “Late Night” Meets Prime Time: David Letterman’s sixth anniversary special on NBC featured an all-star band, all-star comedy, and the host’s Peter Pan-like ascent into a giant wall of Velcro. It was, as Dave might say, tons of fun.

6. Ratings Losers but Still Champions: Episodes of CBS’ “Frank’s Place,” NBC’s “A Year in the Life” and ABC’s “thirtysomething,” when they weren’t preempted by sweeps extravaganzas, made us thankful that sweeps only come four times a year.

7. “Smothers Bros. Comedy Hour 20th Reunion”: The brothers Smothers were superb in their return to CBS some two decades after being thrown off the network. The only disappointment: Pat Paulsen didn’t launch another Presidential bid.

8. “Elvis and Me”: This ABC two-parter’s use of news footage to establish chronology provided a haunting walk through recent U.S. history as it pertained to rock ‘n’ roll. It was almost enough to overshadow the miniseries’ tendency to paint Priscilla as an angel of mercy (albeit a sexy one) sent to save the King.

9. Best Mini-Doc: Judd McIlvain’s four-part KTTV Channel 11 series on fake newscasts filed by radio and TV “helicopter” reporters proved that local news doesn’t have to be “sensational” to get on the air.

10. Best One-Liner: After showing videotape of a charity auction in which a woman donated $10,000 for a date with KNBC anchor John Beard, KNBC’s resident comedian/weatherman Fritz Coleman jested that his station planned to do a five-part series called “Anchor Escorts: Public Service or Private Service?”

And the 10 Worst

1. The Winter Olympics: Flurries of commercials raced across American television screens faster than Pirmin Zurbriggen could fly down a mountain, prompting some viewers to point out that rather than skates, skis and sleds, these Olympics were really about Coke, Chrysler and K mart.

2. “Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis”: Dobie, Zelda and Maynard returned with tongue in cheek for an overdue reunion, but somebody forgot to include old clips that could have saved everyone the embarrassment. Whoever approved this sweeps fiasco deserves to be handed his own head.

3. KABC’s “Eyewitness News”: Channel 7’s Paul Moyer “teased” Olympics viewers with “story at 11” promises of a man who gave himself a lobotomy and lived. The report consisted of Tawny Little reading 20 seconds of wire copy about a mentally ill man who shot himself in the head.

4. “Moonlighting”: Maddie’s return from the land of the pregnant failed to punch up a show that seems to have lost its magic. Maybe executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron should ax David, Agnes, Herbert and the rest of the gang and create a new series about Cybill and her twins?

5. “Today” Show: In the month’s most blatant example of TV news serving as network publicists, NBC News’ Jane Pauley wished actress Deborah Raffin good luck from everyone in her “NBC family during this important time of sweeps” at the end of an interview about the NBC miniseries “Noble House.” Pauley had better be careful or she could find herself an object of ridicule in her husband’s comic strip.

6. Worst Mini-Doc: KNBC’s Jim Giggan’s report on how to marry a millionaire proved little more than an excuse to show a series of wealthy and well-dressed women shaking their bodies in exclusive nightclubs. KABC’s recycled and inane report on women body builders was a disreputably close second.

7. More Local T & A: KNBC’s series on people who legally satisfy sexual fantasies--including phone sex services, strippers and pornographic book store owners--seemed a desperate attempt to salvage the month’s ratings. Even Channel 4’s anchors seemed embarrassed.

8. Worst Print Ad: In advertising its series on phone sex et al, KNBC used a photograph of a male actor, pressing a phone to his ear while leering at the high-heeled, gartered and otherwise bare woman’s leg entwined in his phone cord.

9. “Noble House”: NBC should have left it with the barrage of promos and put on its regular programs instead. Neither fires, the Hong Kong skyline, sex scenes nor an improbable mud slide could save this one.

10. “The Main Event”: Professional wrestling came to prime-time TV for the first time in 30 years and the industry laughed. Critics laughed. Viewers laughed. Calendar laughed. So did NBC as the presentation put a “figure four leg-lock” on its Friday night time-slot.