TODAY’S NEWS TOMORROW’S TELEVISION

SERIES

“Law and Order,” a one-hour drama series for NBC, starring Michael Moriarty and George Dzundza, has begun filming in New York City. The new episodic series, which is scheduled for the 1990-91 season, is about cops and lawyers. The continuing stories will cover the entire legal process, from the commission of a crime on the street to its resolution in court. Other cast members for the series include Chris Noth and Richard Brooks.

MINISERIES

TBS has acquired U.S. broadcast rights to the French miniseries “For Those I Love,” starring Michael York as Nazi war camp survivor Martin Gray. Adapted from his autobiography, the miniseries depicts Gray’s survival as a prisoner in Treblinka, his arrival and financial success in America and the ultimate loss of his wife and children to a forest fire. The miniseries is scheduled for June.

MOVIES

NBC’s movie “Last Flight Out,” a fact-based drama about a small group of heroic Americans who risked their lives to take 500 Vietnamese civilians and American citizens to safety aboard the last commercial flight out of Saigon in 1975, has received an air date on May 20. The movie stars James Earl Jones, Richard Crenna, Haing S. Ngor, Arliss Howard, Eric Bogosian and Elizabeth Lindsey.

James Woods and John Lithgow will headline “The Boys,” an ABC movie about two men, lifelong friends and writing partners, who are suddenly confronted with terminal illness. Lithgow portrays an obsessive chain-smoker with a family. Woods plays a loner with a penchant for trendy health foods who is diagnosed with lung cancer-an illness that may be due to breathing his partner’s cigarette smoke for 20 years. The two-hour ABC movie will air in May or next season.

After screening an early cut of “Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story,” executives of the NBC programming department “were so impressed” that they decided to push back the air date of the fantasy TV movie starring John Ritter from its scheduled fall premiere to December. The network said that the holiday season is more appropriate for the special effects-packed family drama, about the author of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” The movie co-stars Rue McClanahan, Annette O’Toole, Charles Haid, David Schram and Jerry Marin, one of the original Munchkins from the 1939 movie classic.

HBO Picture’s “Josephine Baker,” a biographical drama-musical about the controversial 1920s entertainer, starring Lynn Whitfield, begins production in April. The project reunites director Brian Gibson, producer John Kemeny and writer Ron Hutchinson, who collaborated on the award-winning cable movie “Murderers Among ‘s: The Simon Wiesenthal Story.”

SPECIALS

The “Mrs. America Pageant” will be going to Moscow this Christmas, where the “Mrs. America” and “Mrs. U.S.S.R.” pageants will be produced as a two-hour television special for the holidays. “The Mrs. America/Mrs. U.S.S.R. Christmas Pageant” will feature separate competitions between 50 housewives from each country and celebrate Christmas in both countries. Creator David Marmel is now in network negotiations.

Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade will star in “Flicka and Friends: From Rossini to ‘Show Boat’ With Jerry Hadley and Samuel Ramey” in a nationally televised “Live From Lincoln Center” presentation April 18 on PBS. The singing trio will begin with a concert of arias and ensembles from a repertory of great French and Italian opera and progress through musical selections from the American musical “Show Boat.”

Dinah Shore will return to her Tennessee roots for a live, star-studded music and comedy special from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House. Some of the scheduled guests for “Dinah Comes Home Again,” which airs April 17 on TNN, are singers Glen Campbell and Joe Williams and comedian Norm Crosby.

Jean-Michel Cousteau continues his circumnavigation of the planet with “Out West Down Under,” in which the Cousteau team explores the vast coastline of western Australia, laden with valuable rock lobsters and some of the largest pearls in the world. Aussie Mel Gibson narrates the TBS special, which debuts April 29.

Earlier this year, Jacques Cousteau took six children-from North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia-to Antarctica. Their expedition, captured on film in “Lilliput Conquers Antarctica,” is designed to show future generations the beauty of an untouched land. The special premieres on Earth Day, April 22, on TBS.

CABLE

Movietime will change its name to E! Entertainment Television when the basic cable network service is re-launched June 1. The network is expanding its coverage from movies to include general entertainment, such as television, music, books, magazines, theater, fashion and art. The advertiser-supported basic service provides viewers with news and feature segments highlighting celebrities and the entertainment industry. The network will be known as Movietime on air and for administrative purposes until the re-launch.

USA Network is developing plans to produce a multipart, anti-drug course to be seen by high school and junior high school students across the United States via a national cable feed. The program is part of “Operation CableCares: A Commitment to a Drug-Free USA,” an aggressive public service campaign that will eventually enlist the resources of 10,100 cable systems across America.

SOAPS

The conniving new couple that joined the Port Charles cast last week on ABC’s daytime drama, “General Hospital,” are both Hollywood newcomers. In their American television debuts, Danish actor Anders T. Hove plays the diabolical Faison, and Eurasian actress Chi-en Telemaque portrays the sinister Desiree. Also new to the show: Bradley Lockerman as a mysterious stranger who must assume a false identity.