Lane Smith (on the cover) plays Richard...

Lane Smith (on the cover) plays Richard Nixon in The Final Days (ABC Sunday at 8 p.m.), a new TV movie based on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book on the last months of the Nixon Administration.

The original 1951 version of The Thing, a sci-fi/horror classic set in the Arctic Circle with James Arness in the title role, airs in a colorized version Sunday at 8 p.m. on Channel 5.

The Lady Forgets (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.) is a new TV movie starring Donna Mills as an amnesia victim accused of murder.

Another new TV movie, Double Your Pleasure (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.), stars Jackee (of NBC’s “227”) in dual role as a waitress who reluctantly agrees to impersonate her twin sister, an FBI agent.

David Cronenberg’s 1981 Scanners (Channel 5 Monday at 8 p.m.) is intelligent and artful yet truly horrifying in its effects. It concerns a small band of men and women whose ESP has developed to inhuman levels.

Chiller (Channel 13 Monday at 8 p.m.), a so-so 1985 Wes Craven TV movie, imagines what happens when a young man (Michael Beck) is thawed out after 10 years frozen in cryogenic suspension.

Settle the Score (NBC Monday at 9 p.m.), a new TV movie, stars Jaclyn Smith in a suspense drama about a Chicago policewoman who, having been raped as a teen-ager, returns to her hometown 20 years later to discover that similar assaults are still being committed.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Channel 5 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) provocatively links ancient magic and modern electronics, but this promising premise is overwhelmed by gore. Not a sequel, this 1982 release features Dan O’Herlihy as a mad toy maker with a plan to destroy the children of America on Halloween Eve.

The 1982 Some Kind of Hero (Channel 13 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) gave Richard Pryor a long-deserved solid starring role as a returning Vietnam vet, one of the longest-held POWs, who must deal with the overwhelming repercussions of his signing a “confession” for the Viet Cong in return for care for his desperately ill buddy (Ray Sharkey). Although the film is highly uneven, Pryor makes it worth watching.

The White Buffalo (Channel 5 Wednesday at 8 p.m.), an offbeat take on Wild Bill Hickok, is the first of three Charles Bronson movies screening on KTLA this week. The others are less impressive: Assassination (Thursday, again on Saturday at 8 p.m.) and Murphy’s Law (Friday).

John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween (Channel 11 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) has become a horror classic and a seasonal perennial, but it’s nevertheless pretty morbid business. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as an endangered baby sitter.

Burt Reynolds’ Malone (Channel 13 Wednesday at 8 p.m., again on Saturday at 1 p.m.) is the Mysterious Stranger, strong and silent, who happens upon some decent, ordinary folk in need of a larger-than-life Good Guy to defend them against a big-deal Bad Guy. It’s a familiar genre piece, but done with respect and care.

Thomas Hart Benton (Channel 24 Wednesday at 8 p.m., Channels 28 and 15 at 9, Channel 50 at 10), a documentary on the late American artist, is the newest work from the talented Ken Burns, whose previous documentaries on American subjects include the incisive “Huey Long.”

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (Channel 11 Friday at 8 p.m.) was a not-as-scary sequel to the hair-raising original, which screens Thursday on Channel 11 at 8 p.m. The original film poses the question: When a film is designed to drench the screen in blood--with maximum violence directed, as usual, mainly toward women--rather than to give a good, fun fright, what finally does it matter how well it is made? Anyway, this is the film in which Robert Englund created Freddy, the hideous ghoul who attacks boys and girls in their sleep.

Silent Rage (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.) is a nifty Michael Miller-directed 1982 release in which Chuck Norris, cast as the sheriff of a small Texas town, is pitted against a contemporary Frankenstein’s monster.

Breaking Away (Channel 28 Saturday at 10 p.m.) merges the spirits of Booth Tarkington and “American Graffiti” in a 1979 sleeper directed by Peter Yates and written by Steve Tesich, which chronicles the adventures of four Bloomington, Ind., pals (Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley and Daniel Stern).

The ratings checks on movies in the TV log are provided by the Tribune TV Log listings service.