TV REVIEW : ‘Walter Cronkite at Large’ Is Too Small for Most Tastes

The third episode of “Walter Cronkite at Large” (Saturday at 10 p.m. on CBS Channels 2 and 8) could just as well have been called “One on the Town.” It has a lazy, travelogue feeling in two of its three main segments--and the exception, an initial piece on the environment, is just as lifeless.

Actually, comparing this to “2 on the Town” may be unfair to that local program’s world-spanning travelogues, which, when they aren’t contemplating navels and other epidermis, at least come across as lively and unpretentious.

On the other hand, when Cronkite goes to Macao, as he does in one segment here, it isn’t to see the sights but to focus on the question of whether the now-Portuguese colony will continue to have legal gambling after being turned over to Communist China. It’s a non-burning question (for most American viewers, anyway) and it gets a lukewarm presentation--all talking heads and typical location shots.

An opening segment on the problems of the U.S. environment is almost as dull. The subject may be as important as ever but has been covered to death on TV; it calls for a fresh approach. Instead we get environmentalists such as Barry Commoner and Paul Ehrlich repeating the same old dire warnings. The piece delivers a strong message regarding the need for bold political action, but the show needed some boldness itself in finding a reasonably involving way to present that message.

In the last major segment, Cronkite goes ballooning with Malcolm Forbes . . . and suddenly we’re in pure “2 on the Town” territory. Pleasant stuff, especially at the end when we see hot-air balloons in the shape of everything from Faberge eggs to French chateaus--and credit to Cronkite for keeping the pleasantry from becoming a commercial for the sport by showing a brief but harrowing example of a fatal ballooning accident.

The hour finishes with a short, ineffective piece on how Athens’ Acropolis is being eroded by pollution. Here Cronkite managed to combine two apparent pet projects--shaking his gray head over pollution and traveling about with a camera crew. But it’s hard for a viewer to be thrilled with the tired result. Unlike those hot-air balloons, “Walter Cronkite at Large” fails to soar.