TELEVISION
Wednesday, March 23
BEETHOVEN: ORDEAL AND TRIUMPH (ABC, 10-11 p.m.).-This special studies the early, highly creative years of the composer. It features the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Pianist Claude Frank. U.N.C.L.E.'s David McCallum is the voice of Beethoven.
Thursday, March 24
THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Relaxing with Dean are the Supremes, Imogene Coca, Jackie Mason, the Tijuana Brass and Jane Morgan.
Saturday, March 26
ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Top skiers compete for the Werner Cup in Sun Valley, Idaho.
GOLF WITH SAM SNEAD (NBC, 5:30-6 p.m.). Slamming Sammy gives the first of 13 golf lessons with actual students who are tall, fat, old and young, to show the particular problems of each.
SECRET AGENT (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Agent John Drake starts his search for the source of a top-secret information leak in the House of Lords, zeroes in on the husband of the richest woman in the world.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11 p.m.). Where the Boys Are. The lem-minglike migration of college students to Fort Lauderdale and "freedom." George Hamilton, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis and Yvette Mimieux agonize about it.
Sunday, March 27
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). "Man of the Month." This time he's a woman, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The program includes a brief biographical resume, an interview with Mrs. Gandhi, and a long look at the problems which she is facing in India.
BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (NBC, 6:30-7:30 p.m.). "Masterpieces and Music," with Charles Boyer waxing rhapsodic over art works in the background, while Leontyne Price, Benny Goodman, Ballet Dancer Edward Villella and the New Christy Minstrels perform in the foreground.
Monday, March 28
CONFIDENTIAL FOR WOMEN (ABC, 2-2:30 p.m.). Premiere. Soap opera with a degree in parlor psychology.
THE AVENGERS (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Premiere. More secret agents, British to be sure. Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg play the two in this series. In "The Cyber-nauts," they track down an assassin who kills industrialists exclusively.
THEATER
WAIT A MINIM! is a South African mu sical revue that is light of heart, flip of wit, and full of wondrously exotic instru ments like the mbira, timbila and kalimba.
The five-man, three-woman, all-white cast is so remarkably gifted that it may never see Johannesburg again.
3 BAGS FULL, by Jerome Chodorov. Writ ten in mock-Edwardian, directed like a six-day bike race, this adapted French farce is irresistibly droll, thanks chiefly to that dour master of ludicrous mayhem, Paul Ford.
PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME! When a man buries his past, he rarely faces the future dry-eyed. But Brian Friel applies the saving sponge of humor to the Irish sentiment pouring from his play, and Dubliners Donal Donnelly and Patrick Bedford, as twin images of the hero, stir up a fine farrago of laughter and tears.
SWEET CHARITY. As a dancing doxy with a heart of gold, Gwen Verdon is one of nature's eternally winning losers. Choreographer Bob Fosse adds redeeming grace to Neil Simon's feeble script.