“Biography: Rudolph Giuliani” [Zero stars]

Tonight at 8 on A&E

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FOR far too long, A&E’s “Biography” has led a Teflon-coated existence.

On some level, TV critics and long-time fans are likely conscious of the general weakness of the show, which lately has devolved into offering bottom-of-the-barrel profiles on celebrities such as Melissa Gilbert.

And yet, the show’s loyal viewers have largely refrained from giving the show a good pasting solely on the basis of the handful of installments that have achieved true excellence over the years. They likely reason that the series does more good than harm, so why bother clobbering it?

For my part, I have reached my own threshold of pain with tonight’s edition on Mayor Giuliani.

This valueless recounting of everything you’ve heard about the mayor a million times presents an excellent opportunity to blow the lid off of this el cheapo series once and for all.

At the very least, a documentary viewer should expect to learn some

thing in return for devoting an hour to staring at the boob tube.

In tonight’s slapdash installment of “Biography,” the same old stories are told and the same old cliches trotted out. To wit, Rudy was raised in a wholesome Italian-American household in Brooklyn where he learned to detest the Mafia. And he rooted for the Yankees in a Dodgers neighborhood, which resulted in him being pushed into a mud puddle.

Yada, yada, yada – time passes and he is elected mayor. He and Bill Bratton clean up the city and Bratton quits and blah, blah, blah – Sept. 11 happens.

In addition, when a subject in the news such as our mayor is profiled, some attempt should be made in the interview and research process to come at the person from some new angle.

Instead, this profile of Mayor Giuliani plays like an excuse for A&E to replay the footage of the collapse of the World Trade Center over and over again.

And Harry Smith’s interview with the mayor couldn’t have been less illuminating. The line of questioning included asking the mayor to retell the story of where he was when the Towers fell and to ask what effect the experience of Sept. 11 has had on his religious beliefs.

Perhaps Smith had not seen the mayor’s many appearances on “Larry King Live” or his interview with Barbara Walters a few days after the attacks in which all of this stuff was covered already.

Hey, Harry, maybe you should have drawn the mayor out about the recent election, his assessment of the city’s future after he leaves office, and his own post-mayoral plans.

Most infuriating of all is this profile’s maddening insistence that the mayor was somehow reviled by one and all for eight years until, suddenly, he became a leader of Churchillian abilities in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack (which, by the way, Smith can’t seem to acknowledge, preferring instead to refer to it as “the cataclysmic event”).

The makers of this documentary must have done their research solely by leafing through back issues of the Village Voice.

Around here, and in many other places, people were already greatly appreciative of the mayor’s achievements and leadership skills long before the hijackers flew into town.