The problem with the 1985 The Falcon...

The problem with the 1985 The Falcon and the Snowman (Channel 13 tonight at 8), based on a true story of two young men who sell government secrets to the Russians, is that we never get to understand fully the motivation of the leader of the two (Timothy Hutton). Nevertheless, Sean Penn is sensational as his frenzied, out-of-control partner.

The 1983 Octopussy (ABC tonight at 8:30), starring Roger Moore as Agent 007, proves to be business as usual. This time out a zealous Soviet general (Steven Berkoff) has hatched a diabolical scheme to force Western Europe to surrender to the Soviet Union. Mixed up with Berkoff, in ways that become increasingly difficult to unravel, are ace smuggler-entrepreneur Octopussy (Maud Adams) and an exiled Afghan prince (Louis Jourdan).

A considerable step above the standard TV movie comedy, the 1988 Maybe Baby (NBC Monday at 9 p.m.) stars Dabney Coleman and Jane Curtin, both in top form, as middle-aged careerists who suddenly face parenthood.

Neil Simon’s largely impressive and somewhat autobiographical 1979 Chapter Two (Channel 5 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) stars Marsha Mason (who in a sense is playing herself) as a woman whose only rival for her new husband’s love is a haunting, guilt-inducing memory of his late wife, a remarkable portrayal in its range and depth. James Caan is also effective in the more opaque role of the husband.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1970 feature film debut in the heavy-handed comedy Hercules in New York (Channel 11 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) has him journeying from Mt. Olympus to mix it up with wrestlers and gangsters.

Jean-Claude Tramont’s All Night Long (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.) is a wickedly irreverent 1981 fable that advocates changing everything in midstream--wife, life, the works. The man who’s married to a very proper Diane Ladd, in his mid-life crisis, is drugstore chain executive Gene Hackman, who gets buried on the late shift at one of the company’s all-night stores--until he crosses paths with a suburban swinger (Barbra Streisand, an odd casting). With Randy Quaid, Annie Girardot.

Barbra Streisand made a notable 1983 directorial debut with Yentl (Channel 5 Friday at 7:30 p.m.), a warm, loving adaptation of the Isaac Bashevis Singer story about a young Eastern European Jewish woman who, at the turn of the century, dresses as a man in order to get an education.

Death on the Nile (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.), an elegant and suspenseful all-star Agatha Christie adaptation in which Peter Ustinov played for the first time Hercule Poirot, who applies his famous little gray cells to solving a shipboard murder.

In Orpheus (Channel 28 Saturday at 9 p.m.), Jean Cocteau’s 1949 reworking of Greek myth to celebrate the redemptive power of love and art, Jean Marais has the title role as a celebrated poet who is pursued by Death in the form of a beautiful woman (Maria Casares).