WORTH NOTING ON TV

* THURSDAY

PrimeTime Live (ABC, 10-11 p.m., EST): As the trial of 11 Branch Davidians gets underway this week, ``Turning Point at Waco: The Untold Story'' offers behind-the-scenes narratives of what happened before the disastrous fire that killed so many people in the sect's hideout near Waco, Texas.

Internal FBI documents and interviews with survivors tell a story of conflict within the FBI over how to get David Koresh and his followers out alive. One of the survivors, a seven-year-old girl, reveals something of life inside the compound and describes her last moments with her mother, who perished, before the child was allowed by Koresh to leave. * FRIDAY

House of Representatives (C-Span, 10 a.m., to conclusion, EST.): The channel's regular coverage. * SATURDAY

The Vernon Johns Story (Syndicated, during week of Jan. 15; check local listings): He's not as publicly visible as Martin Luther King Jr. or Ralph Abernathy, but the title character in this fact-based drama is a key figure in civil-rights history, known and appreciated by students of the period. As an early voice in the struggle for African-American rights, he looms especially large to those tracing the religious roots of resistance to racism. This story establishes, among other historical facts, the ironic side of a career that brought the Reverend Johns to the pulpit of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., during the mid-1950s. His then-radical ideas about black social justice proved too much for that relatively conservative and prosperous congregation. They replaced Johns with a supposedly more complacent pastor. The newcomer's name: Martin Luther King Jr.

Although Dr. King and the Baptist church establishment regarded Johns highly, he died relatively unknown, and this program seeks to redress that undeserved obscurity. The complex, brilliant Johns is played by James Earl Jones. Mary Alice is Johns's wife, Alice, a writer and musician.

Please check local listings for these programs.