A Missouri storyteller in Ken Burns' court; For at least one night, 'Twain' is fine entertainment

The latest Ken Burns production, "Mark Twain," takes up four hours of PBS prime time this week. While I thoroughly enjoyed it, my advice to all but hard-core public TV geeks is to take in tonight's first part and, instead of Tuesday's second part, watch "24" or else - dare we suggest it? - read an essay or two by the master himself. Tonight's installment, airing at 7 p.m. on KCPT and 8 p.m. on KTWU, recounts the rough-and-tumble journey of Sam Clemens from his boyhood home of Hannibal, Mo., to the Wild West and then out East. Along the way he finds his voice and the moniker that would soon define and dominate American literature. Burns salts his script with dozens of Twain's bon mots (spoken here by Kevin Conway). More than a century later, most are either hilarious or searing, depending on the effect Clemens intended them to have. As he reached the pinnacle of personal and professional success, Clemens built for himself and his family a jaw-dropping mansion in Hartford, Conn. Nothing catches the fancy of Ken Burns quite like a beautifully restored relic that can be photographed nine ways from Sunday, and toward the end of tonight's program his cameras give us the grand tour. After that, it's all downhill. Tuesday's installment is a sad chronicle of Clemens' later years, when he suffered financial setbacks and heartbreaks. It's as different from Part 1 as "Tom Sawyer" is from "Letters From the Earth," the dark, cynical essays Clemens wrote in his twilight that weren't published until after his death. Other highlights: I was not looking forward to "Monday Night Mayhem," the TNT movie that dramatizes the rise of Howard Cosell and "Monday Night Football." Based on the book co-written by Bill Carter, and with a screenplay by Carter, it shows how Humble Howard and ABC made "MNF" a cultural touchstone that changed the way football, and ultimately all games, was shown on TV. My reluctance comes from the last book and script Carter wrote: HBO's "The Late Shift," which detailed the late-night TV battles of the early 1990s. It featured two prosthethic Frankensteins trying to do full-body impressions of David Letterman and Jay Leno. They were awful. To my surprise, "Monday Night Mayhem" succeeded - completely - despite a very similar premise. John Turturro has been reshaped to look like Cosell, and he certainly tries to mimic the famous Cosellian dialect. But what puts Turturro over the top is that he becomes Cosell. He understands that his subject was, for all his bluster, a man of many passions. Cosell yearned to be important; he craved approval; he was utterly devoted to and dependent on his wife, Emmy (smartly played by Patti LuPone); above all, he loved the English language and nothing pleased him more than "telling it like it is," in sentences as well-designed and exciting as any touchdown play. "Monday Night Mayhem" airs at 8 tonight on TNT and repeats seven more times this month. "Roots: Celebrating 25 Years" is airing on NBC rather than ABC, the network that brought us the path-breaking miniseries based on Alex Haley's book. ABC officials passed on the idea, which was brought to them by the producers of "Roots," thinking the program would appeal only to old duffers who shouldn't be watching ABC anyway because they drive down advertising rates. NBC seems to feel otherwise. It scheduled "Roots: Celebrating 25 Years" in the attractive "Providence" time period (7 p.m. Friday on Channel 41). As for the special, it doesn't feel old at all. Besides the usual memory-lane material, the producers have woven in testimonies from ordinary viewers who say their lives were changed after those eight nights in 1977. Most of them were just kids back then, making them advertiser-friendly 30- and 40-somethings today. One advantage of using a rival's airwaves: Several times the special points out how little faith "the network" had in "Roots" way back when. Take that, ABC. "The Job" - Denis Leary's version of "Barney Miller" - is back, airing at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on ABC (Channel 9). Somehow, despite all the teary-eyed tributes to New York's finest, this irreverent show actually seems funnier now. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Mark Twain gets the Ken Burns treatment on PBS. @ART:Photo @ART CREDIT:Courtesy of PBS