CATCH UNDERRATED 'FREAKS AND GEEKS'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

``Freaks and Geeks'' returns for what may be its final hurrah. Despite rave reviews - it's as deft as combining humor and poignancy and has an ensemble cast just as accomplished (and not as stridently preachy) as NBC's successful freshman series, ``The West Wing'' - ``Freaks'' just never clicked in the ratings. However, the other networks specializing in shows about teen life - Fox, the WB and UPN - would kill for its numbers.

Tonight's episode offers the show's trademark blend of spot-on characterizations, wry wit and the ability to make a really goofy situation seem wistful and bittersweet. The Atari craze has besieged our early-'80s, Midwestern high school students, and the Weirs' befuddled patriarch (``SCTV's'' Joe Flaherty) - who fears anything he can't understand - won't hear of it. ``The welfare rolls are full of video-game players,'' he declares, just another addition to a season's worth of paranoid misinformation he's been delivering.

Atari is but a springboard to a story concerning Sam (John Daley) - a geek thanks to his youthful gawkiness - who discovers, at an electronics store, that the ostensibly ``cool'' father of his friend Neal (Samm Levine) is having an affair. This spirals into two keen emotional directions, spurring both a crimp in his hero worship and a moral quandary regarding whether he should tell his buddy.

Meanwhile Sam's sister, Lindsay, and her friends must gingerly wade through a series of complicated romantic entanglements to end up at a cheesy laser show featuring not the Pink Floyd music they were expecting, but a compendium of Southern rock.

Should NBC not renew the series, its creators have concocted a season finale embracing the same qualities of studied rebellion and halting hopefulness that has been a benchmark of the series. ``Freaks and Geeks'' may have been too subtle for network television - or maybe people were just turned off by the title - but in its short, troubled life on NBC, it has been a smart, keenly observed slice of life, one that will only grow in stature as game shows and ``reality'' series clog the airwaves.

The facts

--The show: ``Freaks and Geeks.''

--What: Return of the series about high-school life in the early '80s.

--The stars: Linda Cardellini, John Daley, Samm Levine, Jason Segel, Joe Flaherty, Busy Phillips.

--Where: NBC.

--When: 8 tonight.

--Our rating Three and one half stars

McDONALD HAS VOICE OF TODAY'S BROADWAY

Now that Sinatra's dead, it's just a matter of time before we have to change that old saying to ``It's Audra McDonald's world; we just live in it.'' McDonald won three Tony awards (for her first three Broadway performances) before she even hit 30, her reviews and profiles read like hagiography, and a composer wrote a musical, ``Marie Christine,'' specifically for her.

She performed Saturday in Irvine, but for those who didn't want to make the drive, ``Audra McDonald in Concert'' offers no-frills but big- thrills entertainment. It's a standard concert special from a recent gig in London, just McDonald offering subtle interpretations of a few standards and show tunes, a handful of which come off her new CD, ``How Glory Goes.'' Performing on this special with a small combo, instead of the orchestra on the CD, allows her to be looser and more playful with the material.

A running theme through a lot of the songs is the singer's being cuckoo-in-love with unassuming, even unappealing guys. Songs include ``Someone to Watch Over Me,'' ``The Man That Got Away'' and ``Bill'' from ``Show Boat.'' Unlike most divas, McDonald doesn't much go in for grand gestures; her performance is quietly expressive and intimate and, as everyone as noted, her mezzo-soprano voice is amazing.

Here's how good she is - she's worth sitting through KCET's pledge drive to get to. And that's pretty darn good.

- D.K.

The facts

--The show: ``Audra McDonald in Concert.''

--What: Musical showcase for the three-time Tony winner.

--Where: PBS (KCET).

--When: 10 tonight.

--Our rating: Three stars

'PARADISE LOST' SHOWS DARK SIDE OF ARKANSAS

Documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky created a disquieting portrait of Southern discomfort with their 1996 film, ``Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,'' a film that argued that three Arkansas teen-agers were railroaded into a conviction on murder charges simply because they didn't conform to community standards. Berlinger and Sinofsky return to the scene of the crime, with ``Paradise Lost 2: Revelations,'' and thanks to the theatrics of a parent of one of the dead children - and, the film implies, the possible true culprit in the murders - they paint an even more disturbing tableau.

The first film focused on the ghastly murder of three 8-year-old boys who were found nude and mutilated, which local authorities interpreted as part of a satanic ritual. Damien Echols was appropriately spooky as a goth teen caught up in the excitement of being surrounded by filmmakers. He was an admitted Wiccan, which prosecutors used as evidence in the trial, even though the New-Agey religion doesn't even acknowledge Satan or, obviously, have any rituals involving murder.

The trial hinged, however, on the confession that was most likely coerced, after 12 hours of interrogation, from one of Echols' friends, who had an IQ of 72. After God knows what happened in the first 11 hours and 15 minutes of questioning, police recorded only the last 45 minutes of confession, which was confused and contradictory to the facts of the case.

Echols, now 24, is on Death Row and could be executed as soon as May 5. He has cleaned up his act and isn't nearly as trippy as he was in the first film - he's clean-cut, ditched the eye makeup and has become fairly articulate. Not that that seems to help when one's dealing with Arkansas authorities, loathe to admit to a mistake.

``Paradise Lost 2'' wades through the media circus the trial has become - a group of protesters, outraged at the first film, have descended upon West Memphis to rally for Echols and his friends. They also seem to enjoy the media attention - but no one courts it as brazenly as John Mark Byers, a stepfather to one of the victims, whose wife has also mysteriously died of an apparent overdose since the first film.

Byers is simply frightening. He hangs out at the courthouse, a garish, oversized button of his stepson pinned to his shirt, taking everything in and frequently getting into conversations or arguments with those assembled. He takes the filmmakers to his son's grave and virulently and repeatedly barks into the camera that anyone who believes he's guilty can ``go to hell''; he shares a recording of a gospel song he's made in tribute to his dearly departed.

It seems a clear case of protesting too much; at the very least, Byers' behavior is unseemly and would be conducted by most reasonable people in private. Berlinger and Sinofsky don't exactly connect the dots here; the viewer has to pay attention, but at one point, Byers refers to his wife's death as a murder.

He occasionally laments in vague terms his disciplining of his boy. And when bite marks on Byers' stepson - which weren't noticed in the first trial - come to the attention of a defense investigator, Byers offers conflicting - and untrue - explanations as to why his teeth have been replaced in the interim with bridgework. (Though the bite marks do not conform to any of those convicted of the crime, the Arkansas court shockingly dismissed their appeal and upheld their conviction.)

Byers is currently in prison for selling prescription drugs to undercover officers - an investigator notes that even though the boy had a prescription for Ritalin, there's no evidence that it worked, suggesting it was in fact never administered to him. But Byers passes a polygraph - while addled on drugs ranging from Xanax to Haldol, an anti-psychotic medication. Try as it may, ``Paradise Lost 2'' doesn't provide any answers, but it does make the questions more urgently chilling.

- D.K.

The facts

--The show: ``Paradise Lost 2: Revelations.''

--What: Documentary sequel exploring the tortured legal path of a grisly Arkansas murder trial.

--Where: HBO.

--When: 10 tonight; also Thursday, March 20, 23 and 28.

--Our rating: Three and one half stars

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1) John Daley and Linda Cardellini star as siblings Sam and Lindsay Weir in NBC's ``Freaks and Geeks.''

(2) Audra McDonald

(3 -- 5) Jason Baldwin, left, Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols, all convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys, are profiled in ``Paradise Lost 2.''