WORTH NOTING ON TV
This guide is designed to alert readers to the scope and variety of programming coming up. Listing is not meant to represent blanket endorsement. Viewers are urged to be selective. FRIDAY A Table at Ciro's (PBS, 9-10 p.m.): Based on Budd Schulberg short story, this ``Great Performances'' program is the second in the ``Tales From the Hollywood Hills,'' a series of dramatizations of short stories by John O'Hara, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Budd Schulberg, chronicling the post-flapper foibles of Tinseltown in the 1930s. Peter, Paul and Mary in Central America: Heartstrings (PBS, 10-11 p.m.): The group's 1986 tour through El Salvador and Nicaragua is as much politics as it is entertainment.
SATURDAY Isaac Littlefeathers (PBS, 8-9 p.m.): ``Wonderworks'' family drama about abandoned American Indian given shelter by an old Jewish man. Footsteps (Arts & Entertainment/cable, 9-10 p.m.): Fabulous archaeological series that visits major digs of the world.
SUNDAY A Season in the Sun (PBS, 8-9 p.m.): ``Nature'' presents an extraordinary documentary by wildlife cinematographers Alan and Joan Root, exploring landscapes of East Africa. Perry Mason (NBC, 9-11 p.m.): Raymond Burr makes still another comeback in a thriller about the murder of a tabloid publisher. Mayflower Madam (CBS, 9-11 p.m.): Superficial, immoral, and, in the long run, obnoxious nondrama, which tells the allegedly true story of a ``socialite'' who recruited ``girls'' for her ``escort'' service. Candice Bergen plays the madam with wooden authenticity; the script makes it all seem like good clean fun, paying no heed at all to the degradation of the human spirit. The Muck and Mystery Men (PBS, 10-10:30 p.m.): ``Only One Earth'' looks into organic farming. Grandpa Joe's Country (PBS, 10:30-11 p.m.): ``Make Prayers to the Raven'' series on Alaskan Indians follows an old-timer on a moose hunt as he reveals his secret for living in harmony with nature.
MONDAY Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (NBC, 9-11 p.m.; also Tue. 8-11 p.m.): Farrah Fawcett stars in a slick but sensitive drama about the Woolworth heiress whose florid life style shocked the world while she ran through her $42 million inheritance, to die lonely and almost a pauper in 1979. The Visit (PBS, 10-10:30 p.m.): Alan Arkin directs a Christopher Durang drama in ``Trying Times,'' a series of original drama-comedies celebrating the humor of coping with life's changes.
TUESDAY How Good Is Soviet Science? (PBS, 8-9 p.m.): ``Nova'' investigates science and technology yesterday and today in the USSR.
WEDNESDAY A Tribute to American Music: Jerome Kern (PBS, 8-9 p.m.): ``In Performance at the White House'' joins the President and Mrs. Reagan at a Marvin Hamlisch-Barbara Cook celebration of Kern's music. Buster Keaton: An American Masters Special (PBS, 9-11 p.m.): Parts 1 and 2 of superb three-part Brownlow and Gill series on this master of pratfalls. They're the same team that gave us the unforgettable ``Unknown Chaplin'' last season.
THURSDAY Gaudy Night (PBS, 9-10 p.m.): Beginning of final sequences of ``Mystery's'' Dorothy Sayers series about Lord Peter Wimsey. Fascinating Oxford locations.
Listings are in Eastern time; other zones may vary. Please check listings for all PBS programs, since local option often results in differing days and times.
