TV REVIEWS : ‘FIRE’ LOOKS AT UNWANTED FREEDOM

Not for producer-director Robert Greenwald the quick, superficial look that characterizes the bulk of television’s “social-issue-of-the-week” movies. When he tackles a problem, he immerses viewers in it, piling on detail after discomforting detail to jolt them from their usual “entertain me” stupor into awareness.

He did it with wife battering in 1985’s “The Burning Bed,” and again with alcoholism in 1986’s “Shattered Spirits.” His latest subject, due tonight in ABC’s “On Fire” (9-11 p.m., Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42), is the agony that forced retirement can be for someone who still wants to work.

John Forsythe, starring in a story that is based on the experiences of his own father, plays an arson investigator whose fire department has a mandatory retirement policy at age 60. He loves his job, wants to stay with it and is physically and mentally capable of continuing, but can’t.

Virtually the whole of the movie is watching what happens to him as he tries to cope with his unwanted freedom. At first he is bored, then frustrated as he tries to find a new job, only to be turned away repeatedly because of his age. Finally depression sets in.

If Forsythe’s fans disliked him getting kicked around week after week on “Dynasty” this season, they’ll be even more dismayed by “On Fire.” Though not nearly as intense or compelling as “The Burning Bed” and “Shattered Spirits,” which graphically depicted family violence, this new movie makes for grim viewing.

Greenwald and writer John Herzfield (who also co-produced the film and has a supporting role in it) are relentless in showing the many ways that idleness eats away at this strong man’s dignity and self-esteem.

Where it will end we don’t know, and that is perhaps the film’s major shortcoming. There is no dramatic arc; it’s simply a straight descent into the emotional pits. The impact is less that of an involving drama than an angry documentary, crying out not only for compassion but also for reform.

Over at NBC, meanwhile, “Remington Steele” returns tonight at 8 (Channels 4, 36 and 39) with a two-hour episode--the first of three this season that will pick up the series where it left off last spring and supposedly take Miss Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) and Mr. Steele (Pierce Brosnan) to a new plateau in their relationship.

Not tonight, though. They almost make the plunge, deciding that after more than four years of flirting, they’re finally ready to take a chance on going to bed together. But not where they are at the time; they need a more romantic spot. Then fate intervenes, as it always does with them.

The intrusion is heavy-handed and no longer cute. Perhaps NBC was right to have canceled the series at the end of last season. The network subsequently changed its mind and ordered these six new hours (the rest to be seen in February), but the evidence here--even with the introduction of a new character and a series of scenic Mexican locales--is that “Remington Steele” has lost its magic.

The fun was in seeing the two leads give and take, approach and retreat, bob and weave as they tried to forge a romance out of their conflicting pasts and personalities. Clearly, however, four years of foreplay is wearisome.

“Moonlighting,” take note.