NBC (Saturdays, 8 p.m. ET)
B+
Gene Wilder (Young Frankenstein) makes his TV series debut as a man who becomes a first-time father to twins in the autumn of his life. With its rustic New England setting and extended supporting cast of Yankee eccentrics, this is an obvious attempt to re-create the atmosphere of Newhart. But it also trades in three things we never saw at the old Stratford Inn: slapstick, kids and salacious punch lines.
Wilder is a cuddly delight. But the real standout of this series is Hillary B. Smith (One Life to Live), in a superb performance as Wilder's wife that recalls Home Improvement's Patricia Richardson—only Smith is more endearing and emotional.
There's nothing wild about Something Wilder, but there is a lot to like about this sweet, innocuous sitcom.
Fox (Sundays, 8:30 p.m. ET)
C-
Comedy strikes out! This simpy sitcom about life on a major league baseball team was launched just weeks after the actual baseball fraternity went on strike. But this show has worse problems than bad timing. Take, for instance, bad writing, cardboard characters and witless plots.
Bruce Greenwood plays a sage but fading pitcher. Mike Starr is his Falstaffian battery mate. Asked what keeps him from retiring, Starr responds, "Give up showering with other men? Not bloody likely." On the fringes of the locker room are the team's owner (played by Rose Marie of The Dick Van Dyke Show) and its manager (a miscast Dann Florek of Law & Order).
Boorish and vacant, the show is as obnoxiously boisterous and flip as a beer-soaked bleacher bum. Even the laugh track sounds dispirited.
TBS (Mon., Oct. 10, 8:05 p.m. ET)
C+
This documentary, airing over three nights, considers U.S. history from the Native American perspective. Needless to say, it's not a pretty picture. It's not a very good film either.
Each segment fixes on a particular region, from the Northeast to the Southwest, using a handful of leaders from tribes indigenous to that area to reflect on their heritages. We are frequently reminded of what a paradise this continent ostensibly was before European settlers arrived. Apparently one couldn't shoot an arrow in the air without bringing down a brace of birds, an elk and two buffalo.
Though occasionally affecting, the project is cluttered, shapeless, simplistic and uneven. It's like watching the longest public-service announcement ever made.
CBS (Tues. Oct. 11, 9 p.m. ET)
B
In a movie patterned on Julia Roberts's Sleeping with the Enemy, Susan Dey plays a fragile woman who has relocated to Seattle under an assumed identity to get away from her abusive husband (Richard Dean Anderson), a raging control-freak cop. Just as she's beginning to let a new man into her life—a sweet, doll-carving toymaker (Dennis Boutsikaris)—the hubby from hell tracks her down. Her instinct is to go on the lam again—and she would—except now Boutsikaris is being held for a murder Anderson committed. Dey must try to overcome her terror to save her gentle Geppetto.
Before it goes completely off the rails near the end, this is a strong lady-in-peril movie, well-acted by all involved, particularly Anderson. The former star of MacGyver, who is establishing a solid second career as a TV-movie villain, forges another scary monster here.
>TUBE: Sam Waterston enters and Michael Moriarty exits Law & Order's revolving door; Gene Wilder tries TV: Hardball strikes out
SCREEN: Meryl Streep runs The River Wild; Johnny Depp tackles Ed Wood; Audrey Hepburn is loverly in a restored My Fair Lady
SONG: R.E.M. creates a Monster; Roger Clinton tries to rock; Roxette fizzles; George Martin enjoys The Glory of Gershwin
PAGES: Peter Manso and Marlon duel in Brando bios; Stephen King keeps readers wide-eyed in Insomnia; Mario Morgan delivers a muffled message from Down Under
>KIDS' STUFF
THIS WEEK THREE NETWORKS OFFER movies expressly for young viewers. NBC's Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas (Fri., Oct. 7, 8 p.m. ET) reunites the original gang from Bayside High for the impediment-jammed wedding of Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and Kelly (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, now matriculating on Beverly Hills, 90210). The following night (Oct. 8, 8 p.m. ET) on ABC's Summertime Switch, a street hustler (charming Jason Weaver of Thea) and a spoiled rich kid (Boy Meets World's Rider Strong) swap summer accommodations. Look for a cameo from a Brady Buncher. CBS takes a more serious tack with The Writing on the Wall (Tues., Oct. 11, 4 p.m. ET), in which Hal Linden plays a rabbi who teaches three young vandals a lesson in tolerance.
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!
