Books: The BEST OF 1982: Books

Brideshead Revisited (PBS). Faithful, sometimes to a fault, to Evelyn Waugh's most popular novel, this visually ravishing series offered a lovely elegy to a time that never was. Eleven episodes that warmed an Anglophile's winter.

CBS Cable. An arts showcase that, in its 14 months on the air, presented some of the medium's finest theater (Sizwe Banzi Is Dead), dance (Twyla Tharp's Confessions of a Cornermaker), film (The Tree of Wooden Clogs), music (a series on Broadway composers) and conversation (Gregory Jackson's Signature). After losing an estimated $30 million, it expired on Dec. 16—one of 1982's saddest death notices.

Donkey Kong (Coleco Industries Inc.). Video games continue to crowd TV programs off the family tube. This one, probably the best translation of an arcade game to home use, boasts bemusing graphics and the most congenial cast (savage ape, imperiled heroine, undaunted hero) this side of Dallas.

Late Night with David Letterman (NBC). Laid-back and amiably hip, Letterman presides over a menagerie of stupid pet tricks, oddball celebrities and the man with the worm farm. A lullaby for the eccentric insomniac.

Life On Earth (PBS). A tale of wonders, the saga of evolution and the ascent of life, from bacteria to man, lovingly told by British Host David Attenborough.

MTV (Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Co.). Basically FM with pictures, MTV (Music Television) is a 24-hour cable service whose imaginative videotapes illustrating rock recordings expand TV's generally unadventurous visual vocabulary.

NBC News Overnight. TV's wittiest, toughest, least snazzy news strip. The late hour (1:30 a.m. E.S.T.) allows for lengthy and caustic reports, sutured by two droll, articulate anchors: Lloyd Dobyns (now succeeded by Bill Schechner) and Linda Ellerbee.

Police Squad! (ABC). The folks responsible for the hit movie Airplane! found TV a congenial medium to spoof cop shows with a bizarre deadpan wit. This superior sitcom came and went in six spring episodes; it should have stayed.

Roses In December (PBS). A taut documentary by Ana Carrigan and Bernard Stone about the killing of Jean Donovan, a lay missionary who worked with the Maryknoll nuns in El Salvador. An exemplary piece of humane film making that avoided political sentimentality and glib answers.

Sweeney Todd (The Entertainment Channel). Terry Hughes directed Stephen Sondheim's operatic musical for cable with seamless theater and TV technique. George Hearn was magnificent as Sweeney, the misanthropic cutthroat; Angela Lansbury was delectably deranged as his helpmeet.