IN NATION'S FORMATIVE YEARS, SIBLING RIVALRY TO BE EXPECTED.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

TWO YEARS BACK, the History Channel premiered a documentary miniseries titled ``Founding Fathers,'' a rather self-explanatory once-over on the birth of our nation. For the new sequel, a fairly banal bit of wordplay is employed and our nation's fathers are transformed into a ``revolutionary band of brothers'': ``Founding Brothers,'' to be precise.

Forgive the title and the result is a fairly breezy, undemanding brush-up on your basic history facts, picking up in 1789, as George Washington is almost reluctantly preparing to assume the nation's first presidency, and sailing along to July 4, 1826, the country's 50th birthday, which coincidentally saw the deaths of bitter idealistic foes and reconciled colleagues, presidents No. 2 and 3, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively.

Employing some occasionally entertaining anecdotes from historians such as Joseph Ellis (from whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book the series takes its title) and David McCullough (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller ``John Adams'') as well as copious amounts of period art and the usual hokey re-enactments, tonight's installment of ``Founding Brothers'' describes Washington's presidency, in which power-hungry Alexander Hamilton became more invaluable to the country than Vice President Adams and political parties were created - Federalists and Republicans.

Tuesday, Hamilton becomes embroiled in the nation's first (and least- interesting) sex scandal, while Adams ascends to the presidency, and is followed by Jefferson after the campaign of 1800, which McCullough calls ``as vicious as any in our nation's history.'' Jefferson is in turns successful and disastrous in office. His vice president, Aaron Burr, ends up killing Hamilton in a duel and Adams and Jefferson begin a long, halting road to reconciliation.

Ellis notes that the American political system was ``created by a group of geniuses so that it could be run by a group of idiots.'' One wonders if those geniuses could have envisioned the bunglers of the past three decades.

FOUNDING BROTHERS - Three stars

What: Documentary miniseries sequel to ``Founding Fathers,'' about the men who built our nation.

Where: History Channel.

When: 9 tonight and Tuesday.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

``Founding Brothers'' begins with the presidency of George Washington, seen here with members of his cabinet.