"FRONTLINE," 9-10 p.m. Tuesday (28)(15)--Thanks to public television, the documentary lives.
While full-length documentaries are down to an irregular trickle from the budget-crunched news divisions of the big three commercial networks, they continue to flourish on PBS where "Frontline" again is providing unmatched weekly topicality.
Los Angeles viewers are especially fortunate this season, having had the weekly bonus of "California Stories," a locally produced quality documentary series from KCET seen at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays.
Nationally, though, the long-running "Frontline" series is setting the pace for relevant, sometimes highly controversial documentaries from a variety of sources. In April alone, "Frontline" presented a profile of a man who discovered a 30-year-old government file declaring him a security risk, and another hour that was a lesson on the making of foreign policy in its assessment of the Reagan Administration's support of the Nicaraguan rebels known as contras .
