WORTH NOTING ON TV

SUNDAYDangerous Years: President Eisenhower and the Cold War (Discovery, 10-11 p.m.): Time to discard your image of Ike as a golf-playing guardian of the status quo. The '50s were actually fraught with nuclear brinkmanship and other crises, and this documentary - hosted by John Chancellor - seeks to show how well Eisenhower dealt with them. Ike's encounter with revisionist history unfolds through film clips, quotes, and interviews with all four living Republican ex-presidents and several Soviets, including Ni kita Khrushchev's son-in-law. MONDAY The Crucifer of Blood (TNT cable, 8-10 p.m.): Picture, if you will, Charlton Heston not as Moses or Da Vinci but with pipe in mouth and wearing a deer-stalker hat. Not a bad casting idea - in fact, he played Sherlock Holmes in 'Crucifer' at Los Angeles's Ahmanson Theater, and now brings that role to an original TV film version of the story. It pits Holmes against three British officers with an eye for the Maharajah's treasure.

WEDNESDAY Great Performances (PBS, 10-11 p.m.): Choreographer Paul Taylor's most recent work, "Speaking in Tongues," has already been acknowledged a masterpiece since its 1988 stage debut. What's good about the "Dance in America" series is that it's not afraid to take an acclaimed stage work like this - with its potent images of repression and hypocrisy - and adapt it for a different medium. Taylor himself has created the TV version - danced by his own company - and broadened a bit the story of a small rural town held in thrall by its fundamentalist preacher.

Please check local listings, especially on PBS.