BY DAVID KRONKE >TV CRITIC

Talked Tuesday with Paul Giamatti, who stars in the title role of HBO's upcoming "John Adams" miniseries. This bit probably won't make it into the story that will run in Sunday's LA.COM, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The film hints that both Adams and his wife Abigail (Laura Linney), may have met separate temptations while he was in Paris and she was running their farm back in the States.

"There isn't actual evidence. We wanted to put a hint of something in there. While reading about him, I came across something in a book - he wrote this very funny, erotic poetry while he was there. It was uncharacteristic and odd for him.

"I remember a long passage in one of his diaries - it was just an endless description of this young woman he saw walking around Versailles. He wrote a lot about her hair and her bare shoulders. For him, this Yankee, puritanical guy, it was racy stuff. Interesting, it was the only thing I came across that he had written that was like that.

"But Franklin and Jefferson were all active over there, so who knows?

Perhaps he was puritanical in that Eliot Spitzer kind of way.

Giamatti laughs. "Yeah, a lot of times that means the opposite."

Giamatti's visage graces the reprint of David McCollough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Adams, which is the source material for the miniseries.

"It is kind of surreal seeing my face on that book. I didn't know they were doing that. But I hear it's selling well again. I would've thought sales would plummet."

"John Adams" premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

FCC'd

When it comes to buzz words, "free speech" has nothing over "decency" at the Federal Communications Commission, and "decency" is crippling our very republic, TV Week says.

Or at least I think that's the point. The story is kind of all over the map, noting that while the FCC has lost a couple of rulings battles, it's won the war, as the networks may have just thrown up their hands and said, "OK already, we'll stop with the smutty double entendres! Just leave us alone!"

It mentions that ABC is still very miffed that the FCC decided to fine it $1.2 million this past year for an episode of "NYPD Blue" that aired back during the Eisenhower administration, proof of the bureaucratic red tape plaguing Washington.

And then there's a bit where some Parents Television Council says it's a jungle out there and we should install V-chips directly into the cerebral cortex of every American. And then there's another bit where they say all these indecency fines are all going to blow over once FCC chairman and self-appointed national morality guru Kevin Martin gets the hell out of Dodge.

But then this guy Adam D. Thierer, a senior fellow at the Peace & Progress Foundation - (how do you get a job like "senior fellow" - aside, I guess, from growing old? What does a "senior fellow" do, exactly, aside from offer ideological quotes to interviewers? And if you Google "Peace & Progress Foundation," you don't get any direct hits, suggesting they got the name wrong or it's some kind of scam) - notes, accurately, that the FCC is tilting at windmills:

"The real follow about this is that the `NYPD Blue' fine probably drove more young eyes to see it on YouTube than on television. Increasingly, broadcast decency enforcement is more about protecting adults from themselves than it is about protecting their kids. Kids aren't in the broadcast audience. They've flocked to alternative platforms."

You, too, can be a serial killer

In the cyber-realm, at least: They're making a video game based on "Dexter."

Some press-release-ese:

" `Dexter' is the extremely rare TV show with enough layers of action and tension to translate perfectly into a compelling video game," said Marc Fernandez, vice president of Marc Ecko Entertainment.

`Our game designers, writers and artists are going to give Dexter's morally complex world the kind of interactivity that gamers will love.' "

" `Dexter' is one of the most popular shows on Showtime, with a particularly strong fan base among gamers. It's a very logical jump to create a game,' " said Len Fogge, executive vice president, marketing, Digital Media and Research, at Showtime Networks.

I'm not sure it's such a "very logical jump" to take an admired cult TV show that deals with thorny psychological and sociological issues and reduce it to a video game gore fest, but becoming a video game is just another rite of passage for TV shows these days. On the show, Dexter wrestles with his decisions to kill, so how will they score this? - 100 points if you don't kill someone, 150 points if you do? Or vice versa? And does he get extra points or lose points for putting off sex with his girlfriend Rita?

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com www.insidesocal.com/tv/