Daily News from New York, New York • 1265

TclOVISiOII 2 Barbra Streisand stars in 'Hello. AMC. 8 o.m. actors unnoDiidDirirlly irep 13 'Wasteland's5 Jeffrey D. Sams insists he's not a token effort 1 FLICK PICKS 6:30 p.m.

(HBO) "Naked Gun 33 13: The Final Insult" (1994). The ZAZ Team maintain quality control in their third "Naked Gun" go-round, with Leslie Nielsen having a typically frenzied field day as intrepid LAPD dick Frank Drebin. A climactic Academy Awards debacle, peppered with star cameos, supplies a comic highlight. With Priscilla Presley. 9:00 (SCIFI) "The Fly" (1986).

David Cronenberg brilliantly reinvents the original 1958 fear film as a visceral modem parable about experimentation and disease, without stinting on the hard-core horror elements. Jeff Goldblum turns in powerful work as the scientist-turned-insect. 10:00 (SHO) "The Truman Show" (1998). Peter Weir's seriocomic media velopment." Yet, Sams said he, too, questioned the role in the wake of the NAACP's charges that the networks didn't accurately reflect the makeup of the country. "When all the other stuff started to happen, I did start to feel like, well, wait a minute it was developed, it was created, America saw the pilot without me in it," he said.

"But, even if people do believe he was a late addi By RICHARD HUFF DAliy NEWS STAFF WRITER These days, Jeffrey D. Sams is feeling a bit like a poster child for the advancement of minority roles on television. However, there's more to him than just being the African-American on the once lily-white ABC drama "Wasteland." "I am not a token," Sams told The News. "My talent goes beyond my skin color." In July, "Waste THE 4 i. I tion, so be it.

I'm in a position where I don't have to take anything." Sams plays assistant district attorney Vince Lewis, whose assistant is Sam, played by series regular Rebecca Gay-heart. The two char- land," from producerwriter Kevin Williamson became a touchstone in the ongoing discussion over racial diversity on the four major networks' prime-time schedules. The Thursday Jeffrey B. Sams (rear) plays an assistant district attorney in a group of twentysomething pals living in the Big Apple. A first look at the new season with Gayheart.

It's not until a Thanksgiving episode that Sams' character will be introduced to the rest of the show's six-person core ensemble. Sams said he noticed a lack of roles for minorities on prime-time television during the network development season last spring. "I knew what was going on in Hollywood, only because of the auditions I wasn't having," he said. And high-profile protests by the NAACP and other minority-rights groups do not surprise him. "It's about time that they're getting this message out.

It's about time people have spoken out," he said. "I hope my position on this show will open up a lot more doors for other roles. As long as they're written justifiably, and it's for a reason, I hope there's more in development." Before "Wasteland," Sams had appeared in several series, though most of them failed to click. By his own count, he has worked on nine pilots. Last season, he starred in ABC's critically acclaimed, but little viewed, drama "Cupid." Sams is betting "Wasteland" is the one that sticks.

"I'm hoping it will hit. I could use one," he said. "To be on a hit and having all those things that come with it, is a little scary. They're part of me, now that I've had those nine shows. I'm ready.

'Wasteland' has got the ingredients." night drama, which HHUB follows the life of a group of postcollege friends in New York City, had no minority characters in a setting where it would be impossible not to cross paths with folks of all backgrounds on a daily basis, critics noted. ABC and Williamson responded by adding Sams, in a role that Williamson and Sams both said was part of the original plan. Still, it's going to take some episodes before Sams emerges as an integral part of the series. "To me, it's funny," he said. "No matter how much we talk about it, nobody believes Kevin had this character in de- HHBB acters are workaholics, Sams said.

And there's also a sexual tension between the two that will eventually lead to an interracial affair. Williamson has said he was striving to create just such a romance. Interracial love affairs are still relatively uncommon on TV Most recently, "ER" featured a long story line about a relationship between Dr. Benton (Eriq LaSalle) and Dr. Cor-day (Alex Kingston).

"There are going to be 50 million people who want to see it. And there will be 50 million people who don't," Sams said. Most of Sams' early episodes will feature scenes only Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley meditation scores its share of cogent points and features strong turns by Ed Harris as a god-like TV producer and Jim Carrey as his unwitting celebrity victim. 11:30 (MAX) "Wild Things" (1998). High-school guidance counselor Matt Dillon encounters female trouble galore, in the form of students Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, in John McNaughton's relentlessly clever, delightfully trashy South Florida noir.

12:45 a.m. (TMC) "Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978). What's basically a standard B-movie slasher tale (co-scripted by frightmeister John Carpenter) receives glitzy main-stream treatment as fashion photographer Faye Dunaway finds herself at the mercy of an eye-gouging psycho. NAACP expands its call for diversity With Tommy Lee Jones. 1:40 (7) "The Seventh Floor" (1994).

Mad computer genius Masaya Kato holds Brooke Shields captive and gets to Last week, Mfume said he would ask African-Americans and other minorities to switch off one network for a week during November sweeps. Though Mfume hasn't yet named the target, NAACP spokesman John C. White said the group is compiling a record of minority hiring practices by ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox "to determine which network has the worst record in terms of hiring minorities at the executive level, or in producing or writing new shows." Earlier this summer, Mfume launched a verbal attack against the Big Four ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox charging them with casting nearly no minority actors in lead roles in this fall's crop of prime-time shows. "The lack of leading roles for minorities in new shows instigated our criticism, but it's not the driving force," White said. "We want more minorities in creative positions at networks." Donna Petrozzello While not softening its complaints about representation in prime time, the NAACP will take a stronger stance against the lack of racial diversity behind network TV cameras as well.

NAACP president Kweisi Mfume told members of about 20 minority-rights organizations Tuesday that if more African-Americans, Asians and Latinos held decision-making positions, there would be more minorities starring in prime time and more positive minority role models. deliver this Australian campfest's best lines: "It's kind of freaky. Me from Japan, you from America, sitting here in Sydney, eating spaghetti." The Phantom THERE'S A SERIES premiering on UPN mn I tonight, but it's one that's hard to pin down: It's "WWF Smackdown," and preview cassettes back this month. ABC continues to have major success with the quiz-show format, a species long since consigned to the same video graveyard as the network variety show and the weekly Western. 10:00 (ABC) "Nightline in Primetimo: Brave New World." Here's the ultimate extension of Pogo's "We have met the enemy and he is us" philosophy: In tonight's installment, Robert Krulwich asks if mankind, rather than some natural disaster, will be responsible for its own extinction.

10:30 (COM) "Frank Leaves for the Orient." In tonight's episode, "Quit Your Job," Frank (Stan Cahill) gives notice to his boss but his boss is too frazzled to notice. work prime time for the first time in decades. 8:00 (31) "It's a Miracle." It's a miracle this show has survived to launch a second season, but here it is. Richard Thomas hosts this collection of heartwarming reen-actments, all of which credit God as a major player. One of tonight's vignettes, "Sailor's Angel," features two actors who, in their reenactments, give surprisingly credible and touching performances much better than anyone else in the cast.

Only thing is, these two standout thespians are dogs. 8:30 (ABC) "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Wrestling isn't the only long-dormant prime-time genre making a come were not provided, partly because the event was held only two days ago, and partly because the World Wrestling Federation wanted to preserve the suspense. That concept, all by itself, is funnier than any UPN sitcom. 8:00 p.m. (9) "WWF Smackdown." Starting tonight, UPN has a weekly piece of the Rock and other WWF professional wrestlers, as this genre returns to weekly net- "Nightline in Primetime's" Krulwich.