'SOLE SURVIVOR' A BIT SHORT ON THRILLS, CHILLS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

``Dean Koontz's Sole Survivor'' could've been sheared down to two or, at most, three hours. Virtually nothing happens in tonight's installment, while way too much goes on in Part 2, as the characters we've been following to that point turn out to be almost irrelevant to the real story.

Billy Zane stars as Joe Carpenter, former crack journalist, and boy oh boy, does this movie go to lengths to establish that he's tormented by the deaths of his wife and daughter in an airline tragedy. (Watching video footage of a past birthday party has become Hollywood's cliched way of evoking soulful suffering.) Said information takes up the whole of the film's first five minutes (an adept filmmaker could manage it in two shots) and is revisited with numbing frequency.

Well, of course there was more to that flight than meets the eye, or none of us would be here. Visiting his family's grave site late one night, Joe encounters a cryptic woman named Rose (Gloria Reuben), who tells him they need to talk - but not now (since clearing everything up in the movie's first 15 minutes doesn't make for interesting thrillers).

Soon, she - and he - are pursued by a bunch of mysterious official types, led by a breathtakingly ruthless and sardonic guy named Victor (John C. McGinley). (Who knows if that's his real name, since at various points in the movie he claims to be from the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Agriculture.) There's some nugget of info Vic and his sadistic gang of misfits doesn't want getting out, and Joe, investigative genius that he is, at numerous points in the story tries to delay or prevent people from divulging crucial information to him, information that might keep him alive.

So what's the big secret that Victor wants concealed? That doesn't come out till halfway through Part 2, when Rose returns, only to dump a ton of exposition on Joe that makes you realize they've gone about this story completely backward. Turns out the story's actually about a bunch of other people who only get a few minutes of screen time apiece. This bit of misdirection might've seemed cool had we not had to watch so darn much of Zane brooding, brooding, brooding.

Yep, the big secret - the one that has Victor chopping digits off victims and in general doing a Bill-Murray-as-psycho-killer impersonation to keep quiet - is that some evil megaconglomerate is sponsoring a big battle between youthful incarnations of good and evil. And, that death is not the end of life. Oh.

You know, people don't ask for a lot out of their thrillers, but they do kind of like it when filmmakers stay on message and don't go mucking up the place with a bunch of inane New Age mumbo-jumbo. (The scene in which scientists suggest straight-facedly that the good, pure child is too dangerous for this world and must be destroyed is the miniseries' most risibly silly.) But that's what happens here, as our stars are shunted to the side for some soaring music and low-rent special effects and shots of imperiled children looking particularly angelic or martyred.

At least McGinley's on hand, mugging with great abandon as an unhinged operative who enjoys his job a bit too much, to make this more entertaining than it otherwise might be. He's this project's sole survivor.

``DEAN KOONTZ'S SOLE SURVIVOR''

What: Miniseries about the paranormal events leading to an air tragedy and its aftermath. The stars: Billy Zane, John C. McGinley, Gloria Reuben. When: 8 tonight and Thursday. Where: Fox (Channel 11). Our rating: Two stars

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Rachel Victoria and Billy Zane co-star in the two-part miniseries ``Sole Survivor.''