“Head of the Class” will be educating...

“Head of the Class” will be educating viewers this week with a look at the Soviet Union. The ABC comedy taped an hourlong episode there with Howard Hesseman and his young student charges; it airs Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. Among the sites where scenes were shot: Kremlin Square, Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral and Gorky Park.

Robert Conrad and Jennifer O’Neill are cast as husband and wife in “Glory Days,” a TV movie for CBS. Conrad, who also is directing the film for his production company, plays a retired executive who, according to CBS, “returns to college to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing football.” Conrad’s real-life son Shane co-stars as his reel-life son.

The new season of “Masterpiece Theatre” has only begun, yet the PBS series already has next year’s lineup in the works. In production in France is a new treatment of Charles Dickens’ classic “A Tale of Two Cities.” Adapted by Arthur Hopcraft, whose current dramatization of John Le Carre’s “A Perfect Spy” is running on “Masterpiece,” the four-part miniseries will star James Wilby as Sydney Carton and Xavier Deluc as Charles Darnay.

And speaking of foreign production, Zurich and Paris are the locations for a revival of “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” which is being done as a movie for NBC. Robert Young reprises his role as the knowledgeable physician, with Alexis Smith cast as a romantic interest.

The comic strip Cathy is making another trek to television. The character created by Cathy Guisewite will star in “Cathy’s Last Resort” on CBS Nov. 11. In it she gets stood up for a romantic weekend by her boyfriend but decides to go to the Passion Paradise Resort anyway.