If the MCI series succeeds, expect the dawn of a new genre. A natural second effort would be an adaptation of the long-running Taster's Choice commercials in which a woman of a certain age finds love with the man who came for a cup of instant Java and stayed long past dessert. Target audience: the Angela Lansbury crowd. Tentative title: Coffee, She Poured.
And why not a show based on those eerie Frosted Flakes ads? We can see it now: cereal lovers—their faces obscured by dark shadows—talking nervously about their strange encounters with sugarcoated wheat and rice. Yes, welcome to...The Chex Files.
Just imagine the possibilities—and the promos: James Garner is Jacoby.... Carroll O'Connor is Meyers in Whiplash, the first courtroom drama about personal-injury law. Maybe even PBS would get swept up in the rush to turn commercials into shows. Sunday evening would never be the same after...Thigh-Masterpiece Theater.
ABC (Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m. ET)
B-
When we meet Nora Wilde (Téa Leoni), she has just finalized her divorce from a newspaper magnate and, in a dubious declaration of independence, has refused a multimillion-dollar settlement. Because her influential ex has blackballed her from working on any legitimate newspaper, Nora is forced out of desperation to join the rabid pack of paparazzi by becoming a photographer for The Comet, the sleaziest tabloid on the supermarket racks.
Unfortunately, Nora isn't the only one caught in a serious downward spiral. This sitcom had the funniest pilot of the season, full of juicy celebrity slams and wild gags. "I'm 27 years old," moans Leoni at one point, lamenting how far she has fallen, "and last night I made Rice-a-Roni in my mouth." But despite a special appearance by Tom Hanks, the second episode was woefully barren.
The show is favored with an enviable slot, following Grace Under Fire, and Leoni shows that she has grown considerably as a comic actress since appearing on Fox's Flying Blind in 1992. Still, I fear The Naked Truth's finest half hour has already passed.
ABC (Thursdays, 8 p.m. ET)
B
Mark Harmon stars in a familiar TV formula as a crime solver with personality. He is a private eye whose office is in a bar. And though he maintains a number of scurvy street contacts, he is a sensitive guy—even bringing his own cloth sacks to the supermarket to tote home his groceries.
This is a rather obvious but cohesive attempt to refashion The Rockford Files for the '90s. If Charlie Grace were on Saturday nights, it might attract an audience. But going up against Friends is a kamikaze mission. Sayonara, Charlie.
PBS (Fri, Sept. 22, 9 p.m. ET)
A-
Renowned child psychiatrist and author Robert Coles has devoted his career to understanding the inner lives of young people. His simple but magically revealing methodology, on display in this 90-minute film, involves gentle probing questions and interpreting the youngsters' drawings for insights into their dreams, fears and perceptions.
This documentary takes an eclectic sampling of school-age children—from a housing project in New Orleans to the pampered suburbs of Boston—and examines how they deal with a variety of problems including prejudice, alcoholism and violence.
NBC (Sundays, 7 p.m. ET)
B+
The three Lawrence brothers, Joey, Matthew and Andy, play three brothers named (respectively) Joe, Matt and Andy. Actually, Joey is the prodigal half brother who moves back in with his semi-sibs and his stepmother (Melinda Culea) above the family auto-repair shop in Philadelphia. Joey, 19, signals his new post-Blossom maturity by forgoing shaving for a swarthy four-day stubble. Matthew, 15, plays an overly sensitive adolescent. Little Andy, 7, is the scene-stealer, a tyke of a thousand faces. Actually, most of them are superhero masks, like Wolverine from The X-Men. This persona allows him to spout lines like: "Allow me to cook some meat with my eyes."
The boys get some strong help from Culea, who brings real vitality to the role of the resilient single sitcom mom. "You call this a big fight?" she asks Joey. "Try taking Spiderman's temperature the baby way." This is far better than average family comedy, sappy but animated.
The WB (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET)
D-
We're used to cast members from Saturday Night Live moving on to undistinguished film careers. Ellen Cleghorne was not that ambitious. She has settled for a truly dreary sitcom. Soon after we meet this single mom, she muses, "I want my parents to move out of the projects. I just don't want them living next door to me.... They're old, and I'd just end up having to pay for new hips." Quicker than you can say, "Movin' on up," the entire family is in the adjoining apartment. They've even installed a connecting door.
Say hello to the folks: churchgoing mom (Alaina Reed Hall), postal worker dad (Garrett Morris, another SNL refugee), who bores everyone to tears by reciting zip codes, and Ellen's overweight sister (Sherri Shepherd), who has dreams of modeling. Naomi Campbell needn't worry. Shepherd walks around in a bathrobe with a candy bar wrapper stuck in her hair. She has to ask for instructions to use the toilet.
The only emphatic thing about this witless and wearisome show is the exclamation point in the title.
CBS (Tuesdays, 8 p.m. ET)
C-
Here's the fall's most bewildering programming concept: a dutiful and deadly dull series remake of the least popular of the Grisham legal thrillers adapted to the screen. JoBeth Williams takes Susan Sarandon's place as Reggie Love, a struggling southern lawyer recently emerged from a bad marriage and an overwhelming fondness for alcohol. John Heard plays a glib but honest D.A. who has the warms for Reggie. Ossie Davis is a Solomonic judge. Polly Holliday plays Reggie's mom, who is wise beyond her considerable years. It's a fine cast, but seeing them in this sluggish exercise is like watching Thoroughbred horses slog through the slop of some rattletrap racetrack in the boonies.
Last week's pilot followed the movie plot, in which Reggie defends a shrewd kid who witnessed a murder. At the end, the boy is reunited with his shifty father and shipped off to Chattanooga. That leaves us with the dismal prospect of following Reggie's earnest family practice on a weekly basis. A bad episode of Matlock was more enjoyable. Most television is designed as a time killer; rarely does an hour die such a slow lingering death.
>TUBE: Mark Harmon refashions Rockford in Charlie Grace; Ellen Cleghorne proves some families shouldn't stay together
SCREEN: Too many kooks spoil the froth in Unsung Heroes; slack suspense unravels The Tie That Binds; Mute Witness is a screaming success 21
SONG: Clarence Fountain gives spirit to the Blind Boys of Alabama; Bugs Bunny and friends give voice to the Beatles; opera star Kathleen Brittle dabbles in jazz 27
PAGES: Ex-priest George Fowler describes a troubled odyssey in Dante of a Fallen Monk; a book of poems is straight from the dogs; Thom Jones finds adrenaline in a death risk 41
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ROCK AND ROLL, ONCE DERIDED AS THE vulgar opiate of the American teenager, has been getting a lot of respect lately. First, the music acquires its own shrine in Cleveland. Now, it is the focus of an intensive and intelligent documentary on PBS. Rock & Roll, which airs over five consecutive nights beginning Sunday (Sept. 24, 9 p.m. ET), traces the development of the genre from its southern roots through the British invasion, Motown, Woodstock, funk, punk, rap and MTV This is not merely a pageant of mainstream artists. There are interviews with everyone from surf guitarist Dick Dale to sitarist Ravi Shankar to shock rocker Alice Cooper to funkmeister Bootsy Collins. What distinguishes this film from The History of Rock 'n' Roll, a 10-hour study that aired in syndication earlier this year, is its scholarly tone and its devotion to the crucial contributions of black musicians. Sedate and exhaustive, Rock & Roll takes a Library of Congress approach to a raucous subject.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
