Nuremberg, TNT, Sunday-Monday, 8 p.m. E.T.

"It's not meant to be an entertainment," says Robert Jackson (Alec Baldwin), leader of the prosecution in the 1945 trial of Nazi officers at Nuremberg. "It's meant to be a trial." But in this mini-series, written by David W. Rintels and directed by Yves Simoneau, instruction and entertainment make a pretty good match. Baldwin nicely tamps down his natural charisma to get at a good man's frustration in abiding by the stern moral rules that he set for the tribunal. In melodrama, of course, the villains always win; they're the ones who get to strut. Thus Brian Cox, as Goering, has his drollest mass-murderer role since he played Hannibal Lecter in the 1986 Manhunter; and Herbert Knaup (of Run, Lola, Run) is a handsomely conflicted Albert Speer.

--R.C.