- - - - - - - - - - - - ALSO THIS WEEK Great Expectations Dickens' masterpiece shines on the screen The Apostle Praise the Lord and pass the Academy Award - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LAST WEEK Oscar and Lucinda A shimmering romance starring Ralph Fiennes as a misfit Australian gambler Spice World The Spice Girls' tasteless debut - - - - - - - - - - - - RECENTLY A full list of recent reviews, interviews and table talk. - - - - - - - - - - - - Blue Glow DAILY TV PICKS - - - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE ARCHIVES MOVIES TELEVISION INTERVIEWS FEATURES

voyage to the bottom of tv _________- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _________SALON'S TV CRITIC DIVES DOWN IN THE DRINK _________WITH THE LOWEST-RATED SHOWS ON THE AIR. BY JOYCE MILLMAN | DOWN IN THE DEPTHS of the Nielsen ratings, below the lowest-rated Fox show, below, even, the doomed krill that passes for ABC's Saturday night lineup, is the Davy Jones locker of television programming. It's a cold, dark abyss populated by strange, often grotesque creatures like "Nick Freno, Licensed Teacher," and Mr. Floppy, and the Wayans brothers that Damon doesn't want you to know about. As sure as you can count on "ER" being No. 1. in the ratings every week, you can count on a WB or UPN show dropping anchor at No. 115. Over the past few weeks, I have journeyed to the bottom of TV. What I saw there I shall not soon forget ... Chapter One: 20,000 Leagues Under NBC Just because a show is on WB or UPN and it's rated in the low hundreds doesn't necessarily mean it's a really bad show. Well, OK, it usually means it's a really bad show. But there are some decent shows down there, too. UPN's "Moesha" and "Clueless" and WB's "Sister, Sister" are perfectly respectable adolescent girl sitcoms. In fact, a lot of the kid-coms that fill the lower reaches of the Nielsens (like WB's "Smart Guy," about a 10-year-old high school student) are no worse than what ABC and CBS air on Friday night. The one great pirate treasure at the bottom of the Nielsens is, of course, WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (moving up to a record-breaking 84th in the Nielsens of Jan. 19-25), the most original, smartest, funniest, sexiest teen drama on TV. If Sarah Michelle Gellar decides to stick around (she's a movie star now, you know), the almost year-old "Buffy" will do for WB what "The X-Files" did for Fox. Despite the stigma of bringing up the rear in every Nielsen ratings since its inception as an "emerging network" in January 1996, WB is no joke. Last month, five Sinclair Broadcasting Group channels (in Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Oklahoma City) switched their affiliation from UPN to WB. The Warner Bros. netlet now claims to reach 87 percent of American homes. And WB's new Tuesday night slate of "Buffy" followed by "Dawson's Creek," a teen soap from the hot writer Kevin Williamson ("Scream," "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), got off to an impressive start Jan. 20. That night, the conclusion to a two-part "Buffy Event" received a 5.2, which translates to approximately 5 million households and was the highest rated WB show ever. ("ER" typically gets a rating of around 23; Fox's "Millennium" ranks in the 5s.) Tuesday seems primed to be the one successful night of programming WB needs (like Fox's Sunday) to pull away from UPN and be considered TV's "fifth network." And maybe when that happens, WB'll dump those cornball promos where animated mascot Michigan J. Frog sings tributes to the sponsors. By the way, the recent success of "Buffy" and "Dawson's Creek" in no way diminishes the fact that WB and UPN are where a lot of careers go for burial at sea. A few of the luminaries who have starred in shows on the netlets: Kirk Cameron, Robin Givens, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Tom Arnold, Julia Duffy and -- coming this spring to WB -- Shelley Long. Chapter Two: The Sea's Endless, Awful Rhythm ... Hey, Isn't That Garrett Morris? Like Fox before them, the "emerging" networks are building viewership by appealing to black viewers who are under-served by ABC, CBS and NBC. UPN's Monday night lineup and WB's Wednesday lineup consist entirely of African-American sitcoms. And "The Steve Harvey Show" and "In the House," two comedies that were canceled by ABC and NBC, were given new life on WB and UPN. The downside to all this is that black performers are now ghettoized on the emerging networks: Subtract the WB and UPN shows from the equation and there are only three series with African-American casts in prime time this season, "Cosby," "The Gregory Hines Show" and ABC-castoff "Family Matters," all on CBS. N E X T+P A G E +| THE WEIRDEST AND THE WORST TV HAS TO OFFER

ILLUSTRATION BY KATHERINE STREETER