TV REVIEWS : Whither L.A.? 2 Specials Offer Opposing Views : KABC’s ‘A Tale of Three Cities’ is guardedly hopeful while KTTV’s ‘Tag Bangers’ is alarmist and sensationalistic.

In a display of unwitting prescience, two local TV stations have scheduled specials this weekend dealing with unrest in Los Angeles’ inner city, just in time to have the well-publicized preparations against a hypothesized second round of rebellion as a promotional tie-in.

The approaches taken by these two specials differ decidedly, though: “A Tale of Three Cities” (Sunday at 2 p.m. on KABC-TV Channel 7) focuses its guardedly hopeful local coverage mostly on the efforts of the organization Rebuild L.A. But “Tag Bangers” (tonight at 7 on KTTV-TV Channel 11) has as its less savory subject the kids who are still busy deconstructing L.A.

Two specials treading the same tense turf could hardly be more different in tone and conclusion--one optimistic about our recovery, one near-apocalyptic. So is the Molotov cocktail glass half empty or half full?

First, the bearer of bad news. “Tag Bangers”--a “Fox Undercover” special--is alarmist, sensationalistic and, of course, highly watchable. The pitch here is that graffiti tagging crews, who used to want nothing more destructive than to de-beautify your local liquor store and render freeway signs unreadable, are in large numbers setting aside their spray cans and picking up arms. Now, many of these marker-wielding youth identify themselves as “tag bangers”--basically turning into just your garden-variety gangbangers, albeit with a greater love of advertising.

And this special gives them more free exposure than a thousand defaced bus stops ever could. These apparently parentless teens--from suburbs as spread out as Lynwood, Reseda, Carson and Compton--proudly wave their newly acquired weapons at the camera, sharing ominous aphorisms like “We’re tired of writing on walls. Now we’re gonna get down to business.”

Some of the taggers documented here died violently over the course of filming; probably the scariest inherent lesson of the special is that none of the survivors seem to learn a thing from the tragedies. The sight of vengeance-driven kids singing “Happy Birthday” to a fallen compadre’s gravestone might make for classic tragicomedy, if overenunciating reporter Chris Blatchford weren’t too busy inducing simple paranoia.

After “Tag Bangers,” an Angeleno might need a ray of hope, a ray of less panicky reportage or just a drink. You can get two out of the three the following day with “A Tale of Three Cities” (the second installment in the African-American-themed series of specials “Story of a People: A Dream Deferred”).

Hosted by Louis Gossett Jr., the well-balanced “Three Cities” is clearly made by and aimed primarily at blacks, focusing without candy-coating or undue alarm on the contrasting realities of three heavily integrated major metropolises. It begins with the worst-case scenario--Washington, “murder capital of the nation”--and ends with its most hopeful example: Atlanta, a “mecca for African-American professionals.”

Our own fair city is presented as coming in somewhere in-between on this scale of optimism, with last April’s ravaging seen as giving way to a cockeyed--if financially half-cocked--determination to rise from the ashes. The upbeat is accentuated as Rebuild L.A. co-chairman Bernard Kinsey leads a reporter on a tour of major stores that committed to constructing bigger and better outlets on devastated sites. The other fairly positive interviewees range from Police Chief Willie L. Williams to activist Danny Bakewell.

Still, the image most likely to linger may be the transitional one of a local black couple packing their belongings and heading for Atlanta--leaving the impression that the South may rise again, if only on L.A.’s emigres.