This weekend Ringo Starr has a concert on the Disney Channel (Sun., April 18, 9 p.m. ET). His backing band includes a remarkable quartet of rock guitarists—Joe Walsh, Dave Edmunds, Todd Rundgren and Nils Lofgren. Still I can't believe the guy left his day job as the conductor on the engaging kiddie show Shining Time Station for this. It's pretty obvious Ringo was never destined to have much of a career in music.

USA (Wed., April 14, 9 p.m. ET)

B

A band of mercenaries retained by a renegade Russian general (Christopher Lee) is transporting a nuclear bomb from Bremen, Germany, to Iraq aboard a hijacked train. The chief villain of the choo-choo crew is played by Ted Levine, who was the skin fetishist in Silence of the Lambs.

To derail this nefarious plot, a U.N. troubleshooter (Patrick Stewart—Captain Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation) quickly assembles a crack international squad à la Mission: Impossible. His biggest hotshot operative (Remington Steele's, Pierce Brosnan) initially questions the qualifications of another team member (Baywatch's leggy Alexandra Paul): "She's too good-looking to be anything but window dressing."

"Michael," responds Stewart wearily, "Miss Carver speaks four languages; she runs the mile faster than you ever did. She's the best marksman I've ever known." Way to put that sexist dog in his place, Sir, but, umm, shouldn't it be "markswoman"?

This American-British-Croatian coproduction isn't even quite the equal of The Cassandra Crossing. But, hey, everything's relative on TV. The movie's plot, budget, cast and action sequences are leagues above USA's usual fare.

CBS (Fridays, 8:30 p.m. ET)

D+

This sitcom, a '90s version of Make Room for Daddy, stars Dudley Moore as a Manhattan cabaret pianist. The pilot kicks off with the most abysmal opening scene I can recall: When a drunken, loutish Congressman keeps interrupting one of Dudley's shows, the performer introduces the politician, mentions he's involved in a sexual harassment case with a 17-year-old, dedicates the next song to him and starts playing "Baby Love." The laugh track erupts as the fuming Congressman stumbles through the crowd to the exit.

It's downhill from there. Into Moore's carefree, chaotic bachelor existence steps his ex-wife from California (Joanna Cassidy) and their delinquent teenage son (Harley Cross). That sets off a chain of brittle, predictable gags about parenting. Cassidy says, "I just keep feeling he needs a strong male influence." Dudley ripostes, "That's a fantastic idea. We'll send him straight to your mother's." Lupe Ontiveros plays Dudley's non-English-speaking housekeeper, Max Wright (Alf) plays his manager, and Joel Brooks (My Sister Sam) is the owner of the Liaisons nightclub.

Usually I make it a policy not to review a series until I've seen several episodes. That's because pilots are often misleadingly good. But I'm making an exception here, because the rest of the shows couldn't possibly get worse than the pilot. Considering the talent involved, this is pathetic.

ABC (Sun., April 18, 9 p.m. ET)

C+

In Roseanne Arnold's second TV movie, following the comedy Back-field in Motion, she plays a welfare mother who has turned her house into a shrine to Elvis Presley. There are some good performances in this film, based on the 1992 novel Graced Land by Laura Kalpakian. Danielle Harris, who plays a young neighbor on Roseanne, is her daughter here. Sally Kirkland plays Roseanne's best friend, and Cynthia Gibb is a prim young welfare caseworker.

The problem lies in the stars. Roseanne has enormous trouble conveying sincerity. The tang of sarcasm clings to all her lines like the smell of grease wafting over a meal at a diner. As a result, her character, Joyce, comes across as a charlatan rather than a forgiving, bighearted woman.

Then there's the odd, if inevitable, allocating of the role of Joyce's swaggering, leather-clad husband to Tom Arnold. Here's how he's described in the book: "He stood up slowly, all six foot four, two hundred ten pounds of him.... He was the sort of man you automatically picture naked."

Love is blind. Casting shouldn't be.

CBS (Sun., April 18, 9 p.m. ET)

B-

This two-part drama depicts the potentially devastating impact of unchecked global warming by the year 2017. The film does a credible and subtle job of establishing its theory-based premise: an ecodisaster of droughts, crop failures and epidemics of malaria, typhoid and cholera. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a very good story to go with that dire scenario.

Coach's Craig T. Nelson plays a Louisiana shrimper. After a hurricane flattens the Gulf Coast, Nelson gathers his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) and three children and takes them north to the still relatively livable land of Canada. The film, which concludes Tuesday, turns into an extended Raisins of Wrath as the family, along with thousands of other displaced refugees, picks its way through America's parched land. Richard Farnsworth, Charles Haid, Justin Whalin, Jurgen Prochnow, Louise Fletcher and Leland Crooke costar.

NBC (Mon., April 19, 9 p.m. ET)

B+

For the second time this season NBC presents an offbeat, original movie about a convict released under unusual parole conditions. The first time it was Powers Boothe in Marked for Murder. This time Louis Gossett Jr. and Blair Underwood play a father and son from Compton, Calif., who meet for the first time in decades inside the prison yard. They are released into each other's custody.

As roomies, they must thrash out the resentment Underwood feels toward Gossett for having left him long ago.

The film starts strong, then grows a little flabby. But it is well acted and, for a network film, atmospheric. Rae Dawn Chong, Tony Plana and Clarence Williams III costar.