"Is it still called 'Nurses on the Line'?" asks Robert Loggia. "We were trying to change that because it sounds like sexy candy-stripers."

The answer to Loggia's question is "yes and no." The actor's latest project is now called "Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7," and it airs Tuesday (9-11 p.m. WRGB, Channel 6).

It co-stars Lindsay Wagner and David Clennon, and tells the fact-based story of a team of doctors and student nurses that battles the Mexican rain forest to reach a downed planeload of colleagues en route to a remote village clinic.

The docudrama filmed on location in and around Catemaco, Mexico, which was a mixed blessing for cast and crew.

"It looks a helluva lot better on film and in photographs," says Loggia. "When I showed my wife the pictures I had taken, she said, 'You're full of beans. You said it was so rough down there.'

"It looks lush and fantastic, but it's one of the roughest locations I've been on. When you start dealing with the snakes and the bugs and the lizards and the polluted water, you just want to get out of there and have peace. You have to be very careful what you eat and drink and all that. In terms of hygiene, it's nil.

"Paradoxically, it becomes an adventure, I guess. You grow from it. You're certainly not going to give in to despair or anything; you're going to make it work. So it makes the company quite a cohesive group. That's unusual. ... In Mexico everybody hung out together. It's like you were in a foxhole. You were bonded. So that was kind of fun."

Loggia can't say that he wasn't warned about shooting in the Mexican rain forest. The star of the feature film "Medicine Man" gave him a hint.

"When I was in Monte Carlo, Sean Connery was there. We talked about Catemaco. He told me what I was in for. He was right. They're kind of upset with him down there because they felt that he shouldn't bad-rap the place.

"I'm not bad-rapping it either; I'm just giving you a report that, for Americans, it ain't like going to Acapulco. It's a whole other Mexican experience. But again, I would underline that it becomes one of the experiences in your life that you won't forget and, in an odd way, you treasure."

Because of time and budget restraints, few television movies shoot in exotic locations. Producers prefer established production sites in the continental United States and Canada.

In this, executive producers John Cosgrove and Terry Meurer, producer Larry Flynn and director Larry Shaw took a great risk with their choice of Mexico.

"It's so unusual," says Loggia. "I don't know whether I would call it courageous or foolhardy on the part of Larry Shaw, the director, and John Flynn, the producer, to take the chances at that location on a television schedule. Had they hit weather of any kind.

"It's been known to get really rough down there, especially at this time of year. Somebody up there loved us. We were in horrendous locations. We would not have been able to reach the locations had it rained, because we had to ford streams. We didn't miss anything for weather. I think, for television, with all the travail and the odd location, they shot a helluva movie. It will certainly be believable in terms of the experience of this medical team who went down in the jungle. Nobody will doubt that these people were in deep trouble."

What sort of man is Loggia's character, veteran surgeon Dr. Daniel Perrin?

"The character is drawn from life. One of the real nurses was down there and she said I was pretty much on the money for this fellow. He was the driving force in getting these people out of there. He got them in there -- he was the head honcho of the medical team -- and he got them out of there.

"I'm not sure they would have been able to, without his indefatigable endeavours in getting through the Mexican police and army and getting a plane in there, because these guys were really in critical condition. But he prevailed."

But "Nurses on the Line" is not the only foreign location recently for Loggia. For an upcoming NBC movie called "Mercy Mission: Rescue of Flight 771," scheduled to air in early December, he traveled to Australia to play an airline pilot who helps a downed flier, played by Scott Bakula.

"That one I've seen," he says, "so I can categorically tell you that this is one helluva show. There will not be a dry eye in the house. Scott's wonderful in it; it's quite a marvelous effort."