WORTH NOTING ON TV

WEDNESDAY

A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (PBS, 9-11 p.m.): Kenneth Branagh's recent title performance in "Henry V" on PBS was worth seeing for itself, but it was also a kind of prelude to the T.E. Lawrence created here by Ralph Fiennes, a young actor whom critics compared with Branagh when "Dangerous Man" aired in Britain. Offered by "Great Performances," the drama comes on the 30th anniversary of David Lean's classic film "Lawrence of Arabia" and deals with Lawrence's struggles against British and French duplicity at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, following his much better-known exploits as a leader of Arab tribes against the Ottoman Empire. It is also an instructive look at an early case of media power: Lawrence both loved and hated his world image, a media persona created by journalist Lowell Thomas, whose touring lecture about Lawrence, accompanied by film, was a big hit at the time. Oddly enough, the Fiennes seen here is fresh from portraying Heathcliffe in a remake of "Wuthering Heights" - forming

another link with "Henry V," since the original and definitive Heathcliffe and Henry had both been done by the late Laurence Olivier. Please check local listing, since schedules on PBS stations often vary.