Passion, privilege and good old-fashioned British eccentricity combine to make “Love in a Cold Climate” (8 p.m., PBS) one of the funnier “Masterpiece Theatre” offerings in recent memory. Based on Nancy Mitford’s two novels, “The Pursuit of Love” and “Love in a Cold Climate,” the film follows three young women from the British upper class as they hunt for husbands during the 1930s, while The Great Depression and looming war threaten their very way of life.

“Love” is narrated by Fanny (Rosamund Pike), an alabaster beauty whose mother abandoned her in infancy, leaving her with a permanent outsider status. Her dotty relatives think nothing of calling her mother “the bolter”, and asking her if she plans to do the same with her children.

Alan Bates (“Gosford Park”) all but steals the film as her brusque and eccentric Uncle Matthew Radlett. He hates Germans, all art and literature and refers to just about everyone as “a sewer.” A doting father, he likes to chase after his children with bloodhounds for sport.

Fanny’s best friend, Linda Radlett (Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh), takes up with a dull banker, an ardent communist and other mismatched romances in search of love. Her other friend, Polly (Megan Dodds), disappoints her absurdly stuffy mother by falling for an oily widower twice her age, who is aptly named Boy Dougdale. Things really go over the top in next week’s concluding episode, when Polly’s mother writes her out of her will and leaves the estate to a distant Canadian nephew, Cedric Hampton (Daniel Evans), who turns out to be a giddy, flamboyant dandy.

Like her friend and contemporary Evelyn Waugh (“Brideshead Revisited”), Nancy Mitford has delighted several generations of readers with her satirical accounts of batty British behavior. Her last surviving sister, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, consulted on this project. “Love in a Cold Climate” was beautifully filmed at various English castles and country houses, including Batsford Park, where the Mitfords lived from 1916 to 1919.

Olympic coverage (7 p.m., NBC) continues. Look for the first figure skating medal to be awarded tonight in the Pairs, long program. Russian skaters have won the last 10 gold medals in this event, dating back to 1960. Two-time world champions (1998-99) Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze appear to be the pair to beat tonight.

America’s Picabo Street competes in the Alpine Skiing — Women’s Downhill event. Street broke her leg and damaged ligaments in her right knee only months after winning a Gold Medal at the 1998 Nagano games. She defied the odds and returned to the slopes after a 20-month recuperation. Look for a strong challenge from the reigning World Cup downhill champion Isolde Kostner of Italy.

First Lady Laura Bush appears on “The Olympic Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (11:05 p.m., NBC). For the duration of the Winter Games, “The Tonight Show” will include Leno’s monologue, reports from the sites in Salt Lake City, chats with Olympians and footage of medal ceremonies. For the next two weeks, comedians Dave Chapelle and Howie Mandel, and Ross “The Intern” will serve as nightly Olympics correspondents. Tonight’s musical guests include Britney Spears and the Foo Fighters, who will perform from the Olympic Medals Plaza.

Tonight’s other highlights

Jim Carrey hams it up in the 1995 comedy “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” (7 p.m., ABC).

Pedigree pooches, their owners and the judges strut their stuff at the opening night of the 126th annual “Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show” (7 p.m., USA).

Scheduled on “48 Hours” (9 p.m., CBS): the black-market trade in human organs.