BY DAVID KRONKE >TV CRITIC

It's a question that people of faith have grappled with through the centuries: If there is a just and loving God, why does he allow injustice and evil in such staggering amounts?

"God on Trial," tonight's "Masterpiece Contemporary" installment, offers that vexing question writ large by placing the debate among Jews imprisoned at Auschwitz. A fictional story based on an event that is said to have taken place in a concentration camp, it powerfully probes the issues that can leave cracks in the most devout of faiths.

A group of men interned at an Auschwitz block house, awaiting their fate, transform their argument about God's culpability for their present woes into a "trial," in which God is tried for, essentially, breach of contract. By allowing Hitler's rise to power and his persecution of the Jews, they argue, he has broken his covenant with the Jewish people.

What ensues is in keeping with the Jewish tradition of challenging their creator and protector, and a provocative laundry list of the sort of questions that keep one up at night and can never be known - until, of course, it's too late to be of any use in this world.

Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce's epigrammatic script is filled with resonant lines. When one man suggests the others not take their situation personally, another responds, "Do you know what a god who is not personal is? It's weather." Another demands, "If he loved the Jews so much, why did he make anything else? Why didn't he fill the universe with Jews rather than stars?"

Another, offering a sweeping history of God and the Jews, concludes, "He was not ever good - he was only on our side," and adds, "We should have taught God the justice that is in our hearts."

And yet, when their grievances have been aired, the men respond by praying. Because sometimes faith is all one has left.

"God on Trial" is a story of ideas that is extraordinarily well-acted, given how little we really know of the characters. A framing device involving tourists visiting the camp adds little, and perhaps tweaks the film's conclusion toward a manipulative moment, but it's also probably necessary, as it somewhat leavens what is a dark and ruminative tale. Watch it with someone you want to debate with afterward.

'Summer Heights High'

Australian comic Chris Lilley apparently has been paying close attention to Christopher Guest's career. Guest's films ("Best in Show," "Waiting for Guffman") have their fingerprints all over "Summer Heights High," Lilley's popular Australian series that has immigrated to HBO.

"Summer Heights High" is a mockumentary (a genre growing less fresh by the minute) about the denizens at an Australian public school. It focuses on three characters, all played by Lilley:

Mr. G, an effeminate, power-mad drama teacher.

Ja'Mie, a spoiled, rich-kid exchange student from a private school.

Jonah, a Polynesian problem child whose sole talents are obnoxiously disrupting classes and break-dancing.

Lilley's performance range in portraying these characters is impressive enough, but his comedic range is limited: All of his characters are insecure twits with Napoleon complexes reveling in making the lives of those around them miserable. Tellingly, Lilley gives none of the other characters in the series any laugh lines, though Ja'Mie's posse of airheaded pals interact amusingly with her.

Throughout the series' eight episodes, the most amusing story line involves Mr. G's efforts to exploit a student's suicide in his school musical, which he turns increasingly into a self-aggrandizing paean to his own genius. But awful musicals have become an easy target of parody. When "The Producers" and "Waiting for Guffman" tackled them, the subject was far fresher.

(This subplot became controversial when it aired in Australia, when the parents of a child who had killed herself accused the show of coaxing laughs from her story; it may not have been true, but it certainly drained some cynical joie d'vie from the proceedings. Moreover, a writer for the Australian sitcom "Sit Down, Shut Up" - which is being remade as a midseason Fox series - accused Lilley of cribbing from that show's joke book.)

"Summer Heights High" can be occasionally amusing, but it would have been more fun if Lilley's humor wasn't limited to his characters' sociopathy and found more diverse sources for its comedy.

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com

www.insidesocal.com/tv/

reviews>

GOD ON TRIAL

>What: Jews in a concentration camp during World War II debate whether God has broken his covenant with the Jews.

>Where: KCET (Channel 28).

>When: 9 p.m. Sunday.

>In a nutshell: A bracing, well-acted theological treatise.

SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH

>What: Australian comic/writer/actor Chris Lilley stars in this mockumentary series about oversize egos at a public school.

>Where: HBO.

>When: 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

>In a nutshell: Like a Christopher Guest movie, only less funny.