The most important event on TV this week is, unfortunately, only available to those who can tune in New York's WNEW or Washington's WTTG. It is the BBC's magnificent production of The War of the Roses. Royal Shakespeare Company Director Peter Hall has lashed Shakespeare's history plays into a single drama more than ten hours long, which will be broadcast in three parts at monthly intervals. Part 1 is presented on Sunday, Feb. 13, 8-11:30 p.m.*
Wednesday, February 9 I SPY (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). In "Turkish Delight," Diana Sands plays a shapely Israeli agronomist and Victor Buono an overstuffed Ottoman.
Friday, February 11
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIAL (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). "The Voyage of the Brigantine Yankee,'" narrated by Orson Welles, is about 19 young Americans on an 18-month windjammer cruise from Gloucester, Mass., to the Galapagos, Pitcairn, Melanesia, Bali and beyond.
Saturday, February 12 THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE (ABC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, in words and music, with Edward G. Robinson as narrator.
Sunday, February 13
LOOK UP AND LIVE (CBS, 10:30-11 a.m.). Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee read from Black Boy, Richard Wright's autobiographical account of the plight of the slum Negro.
DIRECTIONS '66 (ABC, 1-1:30 p.m.). "The Tough and Joyful World of James T. Farrell," a dramatized look at the feisty author of Studs Lonigan.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). "What a Way to Run a Railroad." a report on supertrains around the world, including the 125-m.p.h. Tokyo-Osaka Express and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit.
BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (NBC, 6:30-7 p.m.). Julie Harris is the heart of this musical valentine.
THE FBI (ABC, 8-9 p.m.). Coleen Dewhurst plays a psychotic baby sitter with leanings toward kidnaping. She leans a little too far, and dum-dee-dum-dum.
Monday, February 14
GENE KELLY IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Kelly dances from Kennedy Airport to the U.N., Greenwich Village, the Museum of Modern Art, the Plaza Hotel and the Bitter End, among other places, and is joined along the way by Woody Allen, Gower Champion, Damita Jo and Tommy Steele.
Tuesday, February 15
ANATOMY OF POP: THE MUSIC EXPLOSION (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Tony Bennett, the Dave Clark Five, Duke Ellington, the Supremes, Richard Rodgers, Gene Krupa and Billy Taylor in a joint lecture on the Big Beat.
CBS REPORTS (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). "The Divorce Dilemma," a study of the New York law which, by making adultery the sole legal ground for dissolving a marriage, has helped create a new social phenomenon: migratory divorce.
THEATER
On Broadway
THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE. The inventive direction of Peter Brook and the superb performances of the Royal Shakespeare Company players as madmen in a masque make exciting theater out of Peter Weiss's philosophical drama.