Tube Notes

By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

• MUST-SEE: "First Years" premiere, 8 p.m., NBC: Even in the schizophrenic world of TV, this is an extreme: Almost everything — the characters, the actors, the dialogue, the camerawork — are superb; the main plot, however, is awful. Stick with this anyway. Next week's episode has a better plot and shows that "First Years" could be extraordinary. The basis is a British series about young lawyers in their first year in a large firm. Tonight's central story, involving an adoption hearing, is so one-sided that viewers will ignore it in a nanosecond.

• College Basketball, 6:30 p.m., KFVE: Texas Christian University at Hawai'i.

• "Dante's Peak" (1997), 7 p.m., ABC: Pierce Brosnan plays a volcano expert who visits a small town near some big trouble.

• "Ally McBeal," 8 p.m., Fox: In a change of pace, Cage and Fish vacation in Los Angeles. They find trouble and a beautiful damsel (Bernadette Peters) in distress.

• "The Chris Isaak Show," 10 p.m., Showtime: In its second week, this continues to be wonderfully offbeat. Tonight, Chris dates a sexy and dangerous cop.