In films like ''Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,'' Michael Caine is adept at playing charming con men. On television, though, he has taken to exploring seriously the darker side of Victorian society. Last year, he played the Scotland Yard inspector pursuing the vicious serial killer in ''Jack the Ripper,'' directed by David Wickes. On Sunday at 9 P.M. on ABC, he can be seen in still another Wickes production, playing the title roles in ''Jekyll and Hyde.'' Mr. Wickes's script is described as ''derived from'' the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. The adaptation is, as they say, loose.

In this version, Dr. Jekyll is an established physician whose unorthodox methods and theories are frowned upon by the establishment, particularly one Dr. Lanyon (Joss Ackland), the father of Jekyll's deceased wife. Lanyon blames Jekyll for botching her treatment for pneumonia. Complicating matters further, Lanyon's only other daughter, the unhappily married Sara (Cheryl Ladd), is in love with the kind, soft-spoken Jekyll. Daddy is understandably beside himself.

For 18 years, Jekyll has been experimenting secretly on devising a chemical potion that might eliminate not just madness but also evil from humankind. He is obsessed with the idea that the mind can be controlled by chemicals and drugs, and he believes that science should have no limits. The Stevenson story, no matter what the embellishments here, remains devilishly compelling. Drinking his own mysterious brew, Jekyll is transformed into a murderous fiend. ''It should have been able to turn the ugly beautiful, the stupid bright,'' he ruefully observes, ''but all I found was Hyde.''

It is Jekyll's monstrous alter ego, of course, that has really made this dual role irresistible to actors ranging from John Barrymore and Spencer Tracy in films to Anthony Andrews in a recent production on Showtime, the pay-cable service. Hyde has taken on many guises, depending on how the story is interpreted. Mr. Andrews, playing Jekyll as a sexually repressed workaholic, does Hyde as a finicky sadist, his features dark and threatening but not deformed. Like Barrymore, Mr. Andrews uses no special makeup or effects. Mr. Caine goes after juicier theatrics.