'LION' ROARS, 'ERRORS' POOR.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

`I could listen to you lie for hours,'' King Henry II (Patrick Stewart) growls semi-admiringly in Showtime's production of ``The Lion in Winter'' to his long-estranged Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Glenn Close). It's one of the very few fleeting moments in which the two aren't viciously gnashing their incisors at one another or flaying shreds of each other's psychic flesh.

``The Lion in Winter'' revisits the late playwright James Goldman's (he's screenwriter William's brother) 1968 Oscar-winning adaptation of his own play. Remakes are a dime a dozen these days, so one must really credit the producers (Roberts Halmi, Sr. and Jr.) and director Andrei Konchalovsky (``Runaway Train'') for making the key creative decision: There's no point in rewriting perfection. Goldman's ringing dialogue remains bracing, musical and eviscerating in its depictions of the casual - and diabolically plotted - cruelties families can rain down on themselves.

Famously, the story concerns Henry's Christmas Eve decision to turn his kingdom over to one of his sons. It's not an easy decision - Queen Eleanor, along with her sons, hotheaded Richard the Lionhearted (Andrew Howard) and conniving Geoffrey (John Light), have violently albeit unsuccessfully tried to wrest the lands from Henry in the past; there's not much love lost in this family. Henry has one remaining son; he dotes upon the doltish John (Rafe Spall) but is loathe to bequeath his current mistress, Alais (Julia Vysotsky), the sister of France's young King Philip (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), to any heir, something he feels he must do in order to maintain a hold upon her country. Eleanor tells Henry, ``I have a confession: I don't much like our children.'' It's hard not to sympathize.

The labyrinthine verbal and strategic cruelties this group - calling them ``dysfunctional'' seems so trivial, so New Agey, for a band simmering with so much primal rage - perpetrates upon each other amount to a high-stakes game of cerebral one-upmanship so seethingly sinister and virulently ingenious that Karl Rove - or, if your tastes lean more to pop culture, Richard Hatch - appear positively genteel by comparison.

Though the staging tends to be a little stilted - in this era of brisk editing, the remake runs 20 minutes longer than the original - and the caliber of performance can drop precipitously beyond the marquee names, this production of ``The Lion in Winter'' is a stirring reminder of what a delight pungent dialogue can truly be.

Contrast this, if you can bear to, with CBS' miniseries ``Scott Turow's Reversible Errors,'' where Alan Sharp's script comes off as callow schoolyard bravado by comparison. ``Great ass,'' tough-guy homicide cop Larry Starczek (Tom Selleck) leers at his mistress, ambitious district attorney Muriel Wynn (Monica Potter) on tonight's episode; by Tuesday's installment, seven years later - that's in terms of the story, not how long it feels - their affair has withered, so all Selleck can muster is, ``Nice skirt.'' To which she responds by shaking her head whimsically at his irascibility. (Don't worry, they'll reheat things, just like leftovers).

And theirs isn't the only relationship kindled by a single lurid case: Earnestly nebbishy attorney Arthur Raven (William H. Macy) gets cozy with ``ice queen'' jurist Gillian Sullivan (Felicity Huffman - the real Mrs. Macy). She tells him, ``You're a good man, Arthur Raven - the law is lucky to have you.'' He tells her, ``You are no quarter-acre lot, Gillian Sullivan.''

The case that brings these lovebirds together is a typically grisly triple murder in which the female victim was apparently violated. Starczek theorizes, ``She was sellin' her ass,'' then corrects himself: ``She nixed all that, which leaves all her foldin' money unaccounted for.'' James Goldman, Sharp ain't.

Raven and Sullivan are convinced that the Death Row inmate named Squirrel (Glenn Plummer) is innocent when another felon admits to the crime; Starczek and Wynn aren't so sure. The requisite plot convolutions suggest, naturally, nothing is that simple.

``Reversible Errors'' is a prosaic procedural handled in an oddly old- fashioned manner, though the story involves contemporary sleaze. Producer/director Mike Robe imbues the film with an aura of artifice masquerading poorly as dainty grit. The hours you expend on this cheese factory are an error but not reversible; they're not, alas, even billable.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

THE LION IN WINTER - Three stars

What: King Henry II (Patrick Stewart) must reticently select the heir to his throne in this film based on the late James Goldman's Oscar-winning 1968 screenplay (which he adapted from his play). Glenn Close co-stars as the estranged Queen Eleanor.

Where: Showtime.

When: 7:30 tonight; also 8 p.m. Friday.

In a nutshell: Wonderfully bitchy dialogue and sinister intrigue.

SCOTT TUROW'S REVERSIBLE ERRORS - One and one half stars

What: Murders, cops, lawyers, double-crosses, amorous clinches - you know, the usual. Oh, and stolen airline tickets. William H. Macy, Tom Selleck, Felicity Huffman and Monica Potter are on the case.

Where: CBS (Channel 2).

When: 9 tonight and Tuesday.

In a nutshell: No reversing the time you'll waste on this: Producer/director Mike Robe and screenwriter Alan Sharp reduce a talented cast to amateur hour - er, four hours.