THE BEST TELEVISION OF 1993

1 The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (HBO). Holly Hunter, mystically mute in the movie The Piano, chattered compulsively as Wanda Holloway, the homemaker accused of plotting to eliminate her daughter's cheerleading competition. Her hilarious, high-strung performance was just part of the fun of this delicious send-up of TV's ripped- from-the-headlines docudramas. Director Michael Ritchie (Smile) brought his deadpan wit to a marvelous script by Jane Anderson, and Lucy Simon contributed an infectious, country-flavored score.

2 The Great Depression (PBS) In the tradition of The Civil War and Eyes on the Prize, this documentary series (from Eyes creator Henry Hampton) brought another patch of American history to life with an artist's eye and an educator's passion. Everything from the breadlines to the political battles was made fresh, dramatic, relevant.

3 Laurel Avenue (HBO) A working-class black family in Minnesota battles against drugs, crime and assorted family crises. This two-part drama, directed by Carl Franklin (One False Move), was startling in its frankness yet leavened by a stubborn optimism, a far cry from TV's usual easy sentimentality.

4 Bakersfield P.D. (FOX) The little series that couldn't. This loopy comedy about a provincial police department provided more laughs than any other new show this season, yet its ratings have not budged beyond the Nielsen basement. After sticking with the show longer than expected, Fox is finally pulling it off the air. And so goes the saddest story of '93.

5 NYPD Blue (ABC) Here's the happiest: at a time when serious dramas have virtually disappeared from prime time and new shows seem doomed unless they get surefire time slots, Steven Bochco returned to form with a fierce, unfashionably hard-edged police drama -- and scored a surprise hit. Stars David Caruso and Dennis Franz provide solid character groundwork that has eclipsed the well-publicized (and very occasional) glimpses of nudity.

6 Perot vs. Gore (CNN) Perhaps not since the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 has a public figure been so thoroughly undone by a performance on television. The Vice President is no star debater, but he was good enough to expose the meanspirited bluster of the little man from Texas. The second big loser of the evening: the strangely passive moderator, Larry King.

7 Wild Palms (ABC) Granted, Oliver Stone and Bruce Wagner's futuristic mini-series eventually ran out of gas in the plot department. Still, the ride was bracing -- full of unnerving images, a richly imagined vision of the technofuture, and a paranoid atmosphere more convincing than anything Stone managed in JFK. No other mini- series all season offered half as much.

8 The Larry Sanders Show (HBO) A sitcom about a talk show, starring a real-life talk-show host, who last starred in a sitcom as himself, a comedian with a sitcom. One's first impulse is to tell Garry Shandling to get a life. The second is to revel in this wicked expose of show-business narcissism -- TV's shrewdest media satire since Tanner '88.