Prime time now has its first zoo opera. There are almost as many crises as animals in "Peaceable Kingdom," the new CBS series that stars Lindsay Wagner as a besieged zoo director in Los Angeles. It premieres at 8 tonight (on Channels 2 and 8), an evening that also introduces two other series, "The Young Riders" on ABC and "The Nutt House" on NBC.

Give "Peaceable Kingdom" credit for cherishing wild animals and advocating their preservation. But Art Monterastelli's script is pretty sappy stuff, and [Rebecca Cafferty] at times seems less zoo director than camp director. And, yikes!, a zoo professional who not only keeps a sea lion (misidentified in the series as a seal) as a roaming house pet, but also dresses it in a white collar and bow tie for the gorilla exhibit opening? Stop, already!

Nutt House, as campy Robin Leach notes in kicking off the premiere, is a hotel "where people who check in without reservations check out with plenty." The main reasons are snide, contemptuous manager Reginald J. Tarkington ([Harvey Korman]) and Mrs. Frick ([Cloris Leachman]), the hotel's Prussian-like head "housekeeper from hell" who lusts for Tarkington's body. Not terrific either is the rest of the staff, including an elevator operator (Mark Blankfield) who is nearly blind ("Fifth floor . . . I think").