ABC (Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m. ET)
C
Well, it sounds like a can't-miss formula: Take an abrasive stand-up comic (Margaret Cho) and build a sitcom around her. And Cho's show has a bonus Roseanne's and Brett Butler's never will: it's stocked with Asian-Americans, one of the few ethnic groups that until now has been untarred by the broad, caustic brush strokes of prime-time japery. Welcome to the TV melting pot, an equal opportunity offender.
Girl is organized as a clash of cultures: the traditional Korean values of the mom (Jodi Long) versus the fully assimilated MTV style of her boy-crazy daughter (Cho). The show's funniest character is the eccentric grandmother (Amy Hill).
In its own warped fashion, this misshapen sitcom reminds me of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis—only with rickshaw jokes.
CBS (Saturdays, 9 p.m. ET)
B
This sitcom focuses on four disparate sisters-in-law. There's Alex (Judith Ivey), an earthy Jewish woman from New York City; Delilah (Beth Broderick), a pneumatic, trashy Texas blonde; Bree (Charlotte Ross), a California airhead; and Vivian (Harriet Sansom Harris), a snooty Hoosier.
Besides their marriages to the various Buchanan boys, only one thing brings them together: hatred of their mother-in-law (Eileen Heckart) and her put-downs. Visiting Ivey, Heckart asks to use the bathroom and then emerges immediately, saying, "I'll just wait till I get to a Texaco."
It's Harris, her look and demeanor clearly based on Marilyn Quayle, who gets the meatiest role, and she makes a meal of it. Disconcertingly, Ross's husband is played by Paul Johansson in the pilot and by Tommy Hinkley in subsequent episodes.
The humor falls on the obvious side, but the show's pacing is snappy and the characters are sharply delineated. With its sarcastic sororal sniping, this sitcom is most reminiscent of Designing Women.
ABC (Sundays, 7:30 p.m. ET)
C+
The seven Jerrico kids try to maintain a household on their own after their parents die in a car crash. (Yes, we've already seen that premise this year in Fox's Party of Five.) But without an adult relative to assume custody, they'll be split up. So the eldest son (Ralph Louis Harris) does what any red-blooded boy would do: He dons a wig and a dress to masquerade as Aunt Jelcinda. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting," he says, flouncing down the steps to greet company. "I had to put some dippity in my doo." (If you're thinking of Flip Wilson's Geraldine character, you're right on target.)
All the rest of the Jerrico clan is played by real-life siblings, the Smolletts. Decked out in funky organic chic, they look like an adolescent version of the rap group Arrested Development.
The package makes for a show that's energetic but utterly silly.
ABC (Sun., Oct. 16, 9 p.m. ET)
B+
The parents (Jill Eikenberry and Tom Irwin) come home unexpectedly early from a dinner party. As any seasoned veteran of the child-rearing wars will tell you, that's just asking for trouble. They find a nearly empty bottle of booze on the counter and their little teen terror (Jennie Garth of Beverly Hills, 90210) stretched out on the couch with a poster boy for punk. He's got his shirt off, the better to display his copious tattoos.
And then the problems begin. Family communication breaks down completely. The parental units, despairing of ever getting their child back on track, have Garth committed to a hospital for emotionally troubled youngsters. Soon after, she's on a locked ward with a bunch of tranquilized zombies undergoing rigorous "behavior modification."
Eric Close, Johnny Galecki, Paul Sorvino and Doug McKeon costar in this disturbing, if exaggerated TV movie dramatization of troubled youth in our therapy-mad times. If James Dean was making Rebel Without a Cause today, they'd have him in a residential program and on Prozac before the second reel.
CBS (Sun., Oct. 16, 9 p.m. ET)
C
A divorced mother (Melissa Gilbert) reluctantly agrees to place her autistic son in a specialized facility. There his therapist and teacher (Patty Duke) begins to make breakthroughs with the boy (Bradley Pierce) that result in a disturbing revelation and a controversial trial.
The spooky aspect of this mawkish, melodramatic, fact-based movie is watching Gilbert and Duke onscreen together. Their demonstrative acting technique is so similar, it's like seeing the same actress across a generation gap.
>TUBE: Roseanne plays house with Garry Shandling; Margaret Cho addresses the Korean-American generation gap; Eileen Heckart is the mother-in-law from hell in The Five Mrs. Buchanans
SCREEN: In fact John Travolta triumphs in Pulp Fiction; Only You works hard to seem effortless; Holy Moses,...And God Spoke is a scream
SONG: Mary Chapin Carpenter's Stones in the Road makes for a bumpy ride; the Cranberries are much more than a side dish
PAGES: Robert Lacey writes the book on Grace Kelly; John Calvin Batchelor gets political with Father's Day; Dan Rather turns roving reporter in The Camera Never Blinks Twice
>A NIGHT OF DYNAMIC DUOS
WEDNESDAY (OCT. 12) BRINGS TWO classic cable concatenations. First MTV presents Jimmy Page/Robert Plant (Unledded) (10 p.m. ET), a reunion of the main men from the '70s' most influential rock group, Led Zeppelin. Segments of the special were shot in London, Wales and Morocco. The music, including covers of "Kashmir," "Since I've Been Loving You," and "Gallows Pole," is still remarkably heady.
Then on the season-ending episode of The Larry Sanders Show (HBO, 10:30 p.m. ET) our favorite talk show host (Garry Shandling) is strung out on painkillers. Helping nurse him through a cranky withdrawal is a profane Roseanne, who turns Larry's house into a single-patient rehab. You know the old Hollywood saw: First comes detox, then comes marriage.... Hey, it worked for Liz and Larry!
>TRUE TRASH TV TIME TO CONSIDER THE MORE OUTLANDISH of the season's syndicated shows (check local listings). In Space Precinct, created by British sci-fi master Gerry Anderson {Thunderbirds), Ted Shackelford {Knots Landing) plays a 21st-century New York City cop who has transferred to crime-ravaged Demeter City on the far side of the Milky Way. Now when he chases illegal aliens, there's no telling what they may look like. Rick Springfield and Yannick Bisson play crime-solving brothers in High Tide, a beach-based adventure show. That means in between car chases, the guys get to take off their shirts and the camera gets to ogle bikini-stuffers. George Segal is the ex-CIA agent who gets the brothers into hot water. Both shows are tackier than flypaper; only Space Precinct is entertaining.
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!
