"Shattered Dreams" and "People Like Us" are propelled forward by a slime bucket and a she devil.

In "Shattered Dreams," the CBS docudrama about the marital ordeal of Charlotte Fedders-at 9 tonight on Channel 9-the cur du jour is obviously her husband, John, the former Securities and Exchange Commission official depicted here as a brutish and imperious lout.

"People Like Us," the NBC miniseries that begins at 9 tonight on Channel 4 (and concludes tomorrow at the same time) gets its only real energy from a Ginsu-sharp performance by Eva Marie Saint as Lil Altemus, a rich society dame so pathetically unfeeling that she refuses to kiss her only son on the forehead as he lies dying of AIDS in a hospital bed.

Earlier, as the two of them share a late-night supper, her son tells her he's contracted the disease. In the next scene, she throws the silverware he used into the trash without touching it, and drops his tray on the kitchen floor so the dishes shatter and the maid will have to dispose of them.

Actors often say they prefer playing bad guys to good. Saint's bravura iciness is compelling. Unfortunately, the miniseries that surrounds it is mostly lullingly hot air, adapted from a book by Dominick Dunne. The film brackets a meandering group portrait of decadent Manhattan socialites with a hokey revenge tale about a father whose daughter's killer gets off with a slap on the wrist.

That this situation is adapted from incidents in Dunne's own life doesn't make it play any truer. And for every volt of life generated by Saint, there's a corresponding short circuit from Ben Gazzara in the role of the father. You thought Robert Mitchum was listless in "War and Remembrance"? He was a regular Woody Woodpecker compared with this. "Shattered Dreams" is by far the more serious and affecting of the two competing films. The story that shocked and sickened Washington-the seemingly perfect public marriage that camouflaged an ugly case of spouse abuse-retains the power to alarm as written by David J. Hill and directed by Robert Iscove. Lindsay Wagner does a touching, top-notch job as Charlotte Fedders, who when the obligatory flashback begins is a shy and frumpy Catholic girl (she looks like Elaine May in "A New Leaf") with whom John Fedders flirts while taking Communion. "I just had a religious experience," she tells a friend outside the church.

As good as Wagner is, it's Michael Nourias John Fedders who dominates the film with a ferocious portrayal of male chauvinism run amok.

Fedders is described to Charlotte as moody by his friends, and she sees a strange, ominous flash of temper outside her parents' home during the courtship. But this hardly prepares her for a married life he wants lived as authoritarian macho fantasy: Him great god John, she humble servant Charlotte, expected to offer worship, adoration and groveling obedience.

It was perhaps inevitable that John Fedders would end up in Washington, since a powerful city is bound to attract men with overdeveloped egos and inflated senses of self-importance.

Maybe many marriages operate the way the Fedders marriage did: oppressor and subject. The crucial distinction here is the violence. The first slap occurs about 20 minutes into the film. A simple argument at the dinner table escalates. "You swore to honor me," he says, paraphrasing the old-time marriage vow afterbreaking her ear drum with one harsh blow.

She goes home to her parents, and might have ended the marriage then and there. Why didn't she? Why did she go back to her husband, and why do countless other women do the same? It's the basic question such a story raises, and "Shattered Dreams" does its best to answer it.

For one thing, he apologizes copiously, even bathetically, babbling promises into the phone: "Never, I swear ... this will never happen again." It is also explained that Charlotte lacked self-esteem and feared she would be without a partner if she left him. "I'd never get anyone as good as John again," she tells her father.

The church played a role in this, too, and hardly one to be proud of. Appealing to her priest for guidance, bruised and battered, she hears only platitudes and cant. "The church holds your marriage vows sacred," the priest tells her. "You must look to heaven for the real answer. In the meantime, go home and love this man."

Fortunately, Charlotte isn't portrayed as 100 percent victim. In addition to all the pressures from outside to remain with her husband, her own sexual needs keep her from leaving. It's made fairly explicit late in the film when, after another assault and another apology, John seduces Charlotte-tenderly, not threateningly-on a staircase.

Over the years, five sons are born to the couple, and they all become subjects over which his majesty lords. Finally, an incident involving the kids triggers Charlotte's determination to escape. This is television, not art, so it's no small thing that battered women witnessing her liberation may indeed be inspired to take action themselves, perhaps after postponing it for years as Charlotte did.

How many of these marriages are out there, one wonders. How many?

"People Like Us" doesn't make you wonder about much, except how much longer it will plod on. The two-part, four-hour film belongs to a genre that is tired and depleted, the voyeuristic gossip opera about the chic but miserable rich.

The Dunne book was adapted by Mart Crowley and Kathleen A. Shelley, and they were certainly determined to work the title into as much of the dialogue as possible. "I never thought people like us got it," says Saint as Altemus when learning of her son's AIDS. "Well, that's what people like us are-gents, right?" says Dennis Farina as corporate raider and inside trader Elias Renthal.

"There are crazy people in the world out to get people like us," says beautiful Connie Sellecca as heroine Ruby Renthal, the former flight attendant who marries Elias as an entree into society. She also tells the somnambulant Gazzara, "You know what they say about people like us? ... That we're survivors."

You know what they really say about people like them? That they're bores.

Others in the vast cast include Paul Williams in a transparent imitation of Truman Capote (called Ezzie Fenwick here); Gary Frank as Hubie, the son who contracts AIDS; Ron Marquette as Juanito, his handsome longtime companion, with whom the mother quarrels over antique chairs after her son's death; and the ultra-dull Robert Desiderio as a network anchor who has an utterly implausible appeal to rich ladies.

One of those is played by the elegantly ingenuous Teri Polo; she's Justine Altemus, Hubie's sympathetic sister. Polo, the knockout from "TV 101" and NBC's lousy "Phantom of the Opera," shimmers with sheer star quality. Jean Simmons is saddled with the role of Gazzara's wife, confined to a wheelchair and handicapped with the silly name of Peach.

No not Peaches. Just plain Peach.

Some of the dialogue tries to have a witty sting, but it all seems warmed over and slushy. There is one neat scene, though-a party thrown by the Renthals to ingratiate themselves with their wealthy peers. Butterflies are let loose as a kind of grand finale, but the little dears fly up to the light fixtures and are burned to crisps. A nicely mordant image.

Meanwhile, in the billiard room of the enormous apartment, an elderly patriarch has keeled over. Passed away. Kicked the bucket. Dropped dead. The fact is withheld from the guests so as not to spoil the party.

Director Billy Hale tries to zing the thing up where he can, but any scene in which Gazzara appears is operating under a 10-ton weight. The funniest idea of the film is that this lug is the slug that everybody is delighted to see. He's got a presence like the Grim Reaper but people just go goofy when he appears. Maybe money does make you nuts after all.

At a posh restaurant where People-Like-Them meet each day for lunch, one of the women takes stock of the various plot lines as they sort themselves out and exclaims to a companion, "Oh, I love all this drama. It's almost better than television." In fact, it's hardly half as good.