The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 331

Prime-Time TV Rankings 'Frasier' Warms Up for Big Move by Finishing No. 1 In a less-ballyhooed farewell, many people came back to see CBS' "Murphy Brown" sign off, as the concluding hour scored the show's highest rating since September 1996. With sweeps over and people traveling for Memorial Day, TV viewing levels sank as the week ended. As a result, it wasn't a night to remember for "Titanic" a CBS miniseries that premiered in November 1996 and sailed again Sunday. ABC, meanwhile, served up leftover episodes of canceled series with predictable results, falling to record-low ratings with "C-16: FBI" and "You Wish." -BRIAN LOWRY With NBC's Thursday lineup in reruns, "Frasier," and star Kelsey Grammer, celebrated the show's coming move to that night by topping the ratings for the first time, according to results from Nielsen Media Research.

There was no evidence of a hangover from America's "Seinfeld" binge. NBC's encore showing of the one-hour finale on May 20 finished fourth in its time slot, well behind CBS' "Cher Remembers Sonny" special. A "Seinfeld" rerun then drew unspectacular numbers last Thursday, dropping from the previous week's lofty heights to about half the program's average audience this season. National Nielsen Viewership Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (May 18-24) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish.

Nielsen estimates that there are 254 million potential U.S. viewers age 2 and older. Viewership is listed here in millions. homage to the fallen man, but the picture Tshrt mournful It celebrates German military regalia in accents that are, if anything, those of scathing Dada wit, amused and furious at the absurd beauty of war and death. It looks like a deadly serious precursor of Pop.

"One Portrait of One Woman," from 1916, obliquely depicts Gertrude Stein. The symmetrical composition is united by a peaked arch in yellow, and white. The central icon is Stein's blue teacup resting on a checkered cloth. Under it is lettered "MOI" standing for Stein's famous ego. Hartley's affection is as unmistakable as his catty wit.

Yet Hartley shows no sign of being emotionally circumscribed. "Eight Bells Folly-. Memorial to Hart Crane" (1933) was painted shortly after artist and poet met in Mexico. Crane committed suicide on the boat home. Hartley reacted with the nightmare image of a schooner plowing through a tidal wave that engulfs a giant, screaming shark man.

The artist's ferocity is only tempered by the turgid weight of his mourning. The work bears an odd resemblance to the late imagery of Philip Guston. Hartley responded to another drowning in 1939 with "Adelard the Drowned, Master of the Phantom." The subject was Alty Mason, a member of a Nova Scotia family with whom the artist stayed and from whom he found affectionate companionship when he was on a retreat Mason and two relatives were killed in a boating accident The painting loses nothing of its symbolic force by being relatively realistic. It was one of many late-Hartley paeans to the heroic simplicity he found in his native geography. Hartley's work just doesn't look expressively thwarted.

American Modern," Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highuxty, Malibu; through Aug. 2, closed Mondays. (310) 456-4851. HARTLEY ''Continued from Page 58 keep mum about that on pain of artistic ruin and criminal prosecution.

McDonnell concludes, "As a gay man, he had to thwart self-expression severely." She also links Hartley's sexual orientation to shifts in his art and a style of life that carried him zigzagging from Maine, where he was born in 1877, to Cleveland, New York, Boston, Paris, Berlin, New Mexico, California, Mexico, Bermuda, Nova Scotia and finally back to Maine, where he died in 1943. McDonnell is clearly interested in fitting Hartley into the panorama of his times. She speculates plausibly, for example, that the carnage of World War I disillusioned Hartley into one change of style while America's postwar neo-isolationism triggered a shift to a more conservative, regionalist approach. It's an interesting hypothesis sometimes contradicted by the actual work. Seen piecemeal, Hartley does come across a bit scattered.

Viewed in the present ensemble, he's remarkably consistent Hartley al--ways shows much of the sheer visual power he so greatly admired in Cezanne. Like any artist, he grew and changed, but as he matured the results are uniformly muscular and look like the work of one man reacting passionately to what he sees and what's on his mind. Anywhere along the line you can call him a Symbolic Expressionist and it sticks in the same way his imagery seems nailed to the canvas. The work is uniformly interesting, but four emblematic portraits make the case. "Portrait," from about 1914, is part of the "German Officer" series Hartley made in Berlin.

The artist fell in love with town, and a couple of military officers. One was killed early in the war. The painting is said to be an Network View- Profram 100. The Parent Hood WB 2.22 The Vitus Ed Sullivan Show" UPN Z22 102. Kelly, Kelly WB 1.89 Cable Top 10 Here are Nielsen's top 10 cable programs in prime time last week, also ranked by total viewers (in millions).

Net- Vknr- Program Kelsey Grammer Mew- Net- ngna en work 1. Pacers-Bulls (Tue.) TNT 7.10 2. Lakers-Jan (Mon.) TNT 5.92 3. Wrestling 10 p.m.) USA 5.66 4. Wrestling 8:57 p.m.) USA 5.55 5.

Jazz-Lakers (Fri.) TNT 5.03 6. South Park C0MC 4.89 7. "Addicted to Love" HBO 3.87 8. Wrestling 907 p.m.) TBS 3.58 9. Rugrats NICK 3.52 10.

"Anaconda" (Sun.) HBO 3.21 Network Averages Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season. Net- Ww- Profnm work en 1. Frasier (9:30 p.m.) NBC 2T3O 2. Frasier NBC 17.73 3. Home Improvement ABC 17.45 Murphy Brown CBS 17.45 5.

Dateline NBC (Tue.) NBC 17.26 6. Seinfeld NBC 16.94 7. Benchley Creature" ABC 16.19 8. NYPD Blue ABC 15.24 9. ER NBC 14.87 10.

Law Order NBC 14.80 11. "CBS: The Fret 50 Years" CBS 14.35 AjrMc8eaJ FOX 14.35 13. Verowas Closet NBC 14.32 14. 3rd Rock From Sun NBC 14.18 15. Dateline NBC (Mod.) NBC 14.11 16.

Mao About You (8:30 p.m.) NBC 14.05 17. 2020 ABC 13.84 18. Beverly His, 90210 FOX 13.77 19. 60 Minutes CBS 13.70 20. The Drew Carey Snow ABC 13.68 21.

Just Snoot Me NBC 13.66 22. 'titer Remembers Sorniy" CBS 13.61 23. "EaSurvan's50mAnn." CBS 13.23 24. Diagnosis Murder CBS 1312 25. Caroline in the City NBC 12.90 26.

Fnends NBC 12.62 27. Walker, Texas Ranger CBS 12.50 28. Suddenly Susan NBC 12.28 29. JAG CBS" 12.13 30. Everybody Loves Raymond CBS 11.87 31.

Mao About You NBC 1133 32. "Guarding Tess" NBC 11.56 33. Touched by an Angel CBS 11.25 34. Unsolved Mysteries CBS 11.19 35. "Deadkest Sea Creatures" ABC 11.11 36.

Hero Improvement (8 p.m.) ABC 11.01 37. "When He Didn't Come Home" CBS 11.00 3a ABC 10.98 39. Cosby CBS 10.95 40. 48 Hours CBS 10.67 41. 3rd Rock From the Sun NBC 10.60 42.

Nash Bridges CBS 9.99 43... Candid Camera CSS 9.93 44. "Barbara Wallers Special" ABC 9.91 45. Soul Man ABC 9.88 46. "Titanic" Part 1 CBS 9.84 47.

Boy Meets World ABC 9.74 48. Two Guys, GtlA Pizza Place ABC 9.64 49. EarVEdruon CBS 9.59 50. SpnCity ABC 9.43 51. Saonna, Teen.

Witch (8p.m.) ABC 9.14 52. Kiris Say the rjarndest Things CBS 9.07 53. "A Dangerous Altai" ABC 8.91 54. Dateline NBC (Fn.) NBC 8.74 55. You Wish ABC 8.68 56.

Seinfeld (Wed.) NBC 8.54 57. Teen Angel ABC 8.48 58. "No Greater Love" NBC 8.32 59. America's Most Wanted FOX 8.26 60. The Simpsons FOX 8.04 nek to date CBS 11.82 million 14.02 NBC 11.28 14.78 ABC 9.34 12.15 FOX 8.14 10.50 WB 4.11 4.48 UPN 3.23 3.99 61.

Dawson's Creek WB 7.89 62. "Gargantua" FOX 7.69 63. King the Hi FOX 7.67 64. "Beethoven's 2nd" NBC 7.32 65. Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 7.24 66.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman CBS 7.16 67. "1 998 Essence Awards" FOX 6.99 68. TheX-FHes FOX 6.79 69. Cops FOX 6.53 70.

(Setting Personal FOX 6.38 71. Bufry. the Vampire Slayer WB 6.37 72. Star Trek Voyager UPN 6.18 73 ABC News Saturday Night ABC 6.04 74. Damon FOX 6.01 75.

Prefer NBC 6.00 76. "Camp Nowhere" NBC 5.97 77. Beyond Be Fact or Fiction FOX 5.37 78. "Andre" ABC 5.16 World's Funniest! FOX 5.16 80. "Jury Duty" ABC 5.12 81.

C-16 ABC 4.84 82. Millennium FOX 4.27 83. 7th Heaven WB 4.11 84. The Steve Harvey Show WB 4.00 85. The Wayans Bros.

WB 3.88 86. Sister. Sister (Wed.) WB 3.84 87. 7th Heaven (9 p.m.) WB 374 88. SmanGuy WB 3.57 89.

"Where It's At" ABC 3.5) 90. The Sentinel UPN 3.20 91. The Jamie Fon Show WB 2.83 Moesha UPN 2.83 93. Unhappily Ever After WB 2.79 94. Love Boat The Next Wave UPN 2.66 95.

Clueless UPN 2.60 96. Sister. Sister WB 2.51 97. Good News (Tue.) UPN 2.42 98. Malcolm Eddie (Tue.) UPN 2.35 99.

Alright Already WB 2.25 Southland Viewing Here are Nielsen's Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching. tta- fraser (9:30 p.m.) Frasier Beverly His, 90210 Mad About You Seinfeld AllyMcBeal Fnends KNBC KNBC 951,754 KTTV KNBC KNBC KTTV KNBC KCBS KABC KABC 861,588 776,431 726,338 696,283 686.265 681.255 676.248 661,218 8. Murphy Brown 9. Home Improvement 10.

NYPD Blue 10 p.m.-midnight Music From Austria's Imperial Cities: Franz Welser-Most conducts Cameraia Academica of Salzburg in an all-Schubert program (8th and 9th symphonies). KKGO-FM (105.1). MUSIC: 9 a m. -noon Morning Becomes Eclectic: Tommy Keene and band perform live. (11:15 a.m.-noon), KCRW-FM (89.9).

SPORTS 7-10 p.m. Baseball: Cincinnati Reds at Dodgers. KXTA (1 150). KWKW (1330). TALK, INTERVIEW p.m.

Bookworm: Gore Vidal Smithsonian KCRW-FM (89.9). next week. McNally is vice president of the organization, making it likely that the group will strongly support the playwright's position and condemn the action in the strongest possible terms. Among the New York theater community, many fear the situation could have a chilling effect on future productions with controversial subjects, particularly since Trans World Airlines, a financial supporter of the Manhattan Theatre Club, reportedly notified the theater that it planned to withdraw support of the production. Meadow told the New York Times that TWA contributed less than $25,000 of the theater's $25-million annual budget, she said.

"The tragedy is that this is an unfinished play that's why they were having a reading in the first place that will never get a chance to be finished without the distortions of this incident," said Liz McCann, a Broadway producer who suggested that the play would find new takers if only to take advantage of the controversy. "It's ludicrous that this has all taken place in a vacuum. Nobody I know has even seen or read the play. Is it any good?" McNALLY Continued from Page 59 the basic freedoms of democracy the freedom of speech and they have done it. by censoring themselves and collaborating in the attempt to silence Mr.

McNally." While other producers and playwrights joined in the chorus of Peter Stone, president of the Dramatists Guild and a distinguished playwright, cautioned that the situation is complicated by the threats of violence. "Clearly, the record of the guild on censorship of any kind is very strong," Stone said. "But nobody should take the threats of violence lightly, and a theater has to be concerned for the safety of its audience. On the other hand, there is a very strong argument to be made if this sort of threat is pandered to. It could open the door to a great deal more threats, seriously intended or not.

A very serious amount of discussion and reflection has to take place." Stone said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the Dramatists Guild Council will meet this week and issue a strong statement the possibly early RADIO Barber" Cop-land Spring: KKGO-FM (105.11. DRAMA-COMEDYFAMILY p.m., a.m. The- Six Shooter Brin (James Stewart) returns to a town that has seen many unusual changes. KNX (1070). p.m., a.m.

Nightbeat: "Mr. Orloff's Will," KNX (1070). p.m. CBS Mystery Theater: "The Devil's Boutique," with Joan Lorring. Jada Rowland.

KNX (1070). MUSIC: CLASSICAL 10:45 Masterpiece of the Day: Copland (3rd Symphony, Eduardo Mata conducts Dallas Symphony Orchestra), KKGO-FM (105.1). TIPS FOR TODAY 9-fl a.m. Talk of the City: "State Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidates Forum" (9-10 a.m., KPCC-FM (89.3). 11 a.ra.-ooon Kids Color Town Hall Meeting: Children discuss racism with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; moderated by ABC News correspondent Carole Simpson.

KOIS (710). 4- 8 p.m. Duffy and Former U.S. Rep. Bob Dornan (5-6 p.m.).

KKLA-FM (99.5). 5- 7 p.m. lorry Mantle's Airtallc "Cameras in the Courtroom" p.m.), Douglas Brink-ley, author of "The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House" p.m.), KPCC-FM 89.3).' 8-10 p.m. Long Beach Symphony: JoAnn Falletia conducts Torek Beach THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1998 1 CALENDAR WEEKEND.