December 9, 1990

By far the most slippery of television formats, the docudrama assumes many guises. At one extreme, the one generally preferred by American networks, there is the often loosely "based on fact" story, a dramatization given a human-interest spin by name actors. Example: Angela Lansbury portraying the mother of a student killed when the Soviet Union shot down a Korean airliner in 1983, taking the lives of all 269 passengers. At the other end of the docudrama spectrum there is the supposedly more objective "reconstruction," less interested in personal stories than in the broader, largely institutional question of what exactly might have happened. Example: "Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy," a 1989 British production from Granada Television that zeroed in on what probably occurred in Washington's corridors of power during a major international crisis.

A LITTLE-NOTED referendum that Suffolk County residents approved last month makes it easier to put to a vote the long-simmering question of whether the County Legislature should be abolished. As the tumultuous legislative branch faces a possible challenge to its existence as early as next year, the likelihood of changes in the more-subdued Nassau County government also seems to be growing.

The Midshipmen from Annapolis had many opportunities to stop Willie McMillian at the Army-Navy game today, but they seldom succeeded. The Cadet quarterback turned the flanks on the option play again and again, and those plays opened the way for a 30-20 Army victory. That result tied the series at 42 victories for each service academy and 7 ties in the last 100 years, and gave Army a winning season at 6-5. Navy fell to 5-6.

MARIN MARCUS recently received a letter from the principal of her daughter's elementary school in Brookfield. Several other parents received similar letters, reminding them that no child should arrive at the school earlier than 8:55 A.M., just 10 minutes before classes begin. "There was no clue as to what alternatives might be available to parents who had to be in the office by 9," said Ms. Marcus, whose 10-year-old daughter had been arriving at school early every day.

Art and information rarely make fashionable partners. Yet Linda Troeller, a Lawrenceville artist, is gaining international recognition for her innovative approach to uniting the two. Her "TB-AIDS Diary," first exhibited in 1989, takes its viewers beyond the medical and demographic statistics of two deadly diseases, beyond the obituary columns, to explore the social implications of diseases for individual victims. In observance of the recent worldwide AIDS Day, a United Nations-designed event, Ms. Troeller participated in the American art community's Day Without Art with an exhibition of the "TB-AIDS Diary" and a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.