Lifetime (Thurs., July 22, 9 p.m. ET)
B
Old TV shows don't die; from Gilligan's Island to The Brady Bunch, they keep getting reincarnated as reunion movies. The ubiquitous Robert Urich, who returns to prime time yet again next fall in CBS's promising sitcom It Had to Be You (costarring Faye Dunaway), is back as Spenser, the tough but tender Boston shamus he played on ABC half a decade ago. This time he's searching for a troubled runaway teenager who has become involved in prostitution. The girl's father, a wealthy suburbanite with political aspirations, seems curiously ambivalent about her return.
The same thing that redeemed the series makes the movie worth catching: Avery Brooks, taking a break from Deep Space Nine to re-create Spenser's sometime sidekick—the laconic, lethal Hawk. Brooks has perfected an icy glare that would stop a Doberman in its tracks. And as Susan Silverman, the sexy shrink who is Spenser's significant other, Barbara Williams is a considerable improvement over the series' Barbara Stock.
The film has a notable Boston flavor with locations from Faneuil Hall to Memorial Drive. And Robert Parker, author of 20 Spenser novels, wrote the script along with his wife, Joan. So the dialogue has the ring of authority, with one cavil: The street lingo is strikingly dated. The last time people were using words like "honky" or "jiving" in everyday conversation, Gerald Ford was still in the White House.
Spenser isn't the modern-day Philip Marlowe he'd like to be. But if Perry Mason, Columbo and the like can keep recycling their tired acts, then Spenser wouldn't make a bad perennial either.
USA (Thurs., July 22, 9 p.m. ET)
C+
Dandruff-shampoo spokesman Gregory Harrison plays a once promising actor reduced to crashing strangers' wedding receptions to cadge a decent meal. But suddenly and inexplicably, this broke but breezy chap finds his anemic checking account is swelling, from $79.76 to more than $10 million. His benefactor, though, is no benign John Beresford Tipton. A mystery man has made Harrison filthy rich but he has also framed him for murder.
Turns out Harrison is a wavy-haired pawn in an elaborate embezzlement scheme. Well, they picked on the wrong pawn. After all, who has more time to plot revenge than an out-of-work actor? Or the guile and ego to carry it off with panache?
The film is handsomely photographed and its serpentine plot hangs together well. But when it comes to mystery and suspense, well, sorry, Gregory, the project is a little flaky. Leslie Hope, Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Tighe costar.
Showtime (Fri., July 23, 10 p.m. ET)
C
The title is ironie, because if there's one thing this documentary on comedy techniques is sadly lacking, it's chuckles.
The first installment is composed of a mock-academic course on visual humor delivered by British comic Rowan Atkinson (Black Adder), who seems to be composed of vulcanized rubber. Atkinson's antics are augmented by a series of sight-bite clips of such masters as Peter Sellers, John Cleese, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. Mack Sennett and W.C. Fields.
The segment goes on far too long, but not nearly as long as a pompous interview with Jerry Lewis that turns up in the evening's second half. During a strangely somber look at some famous comic teams, Lewis sprawls in the back of a limo blathering on about his relationship with Dean Martin in that misguidedly grave tone that marks most of Lewis's reflections.
Here too the series reveals its British bias. It's one thing to devote time to the Dudley Moore-Peter Cook duo. But you're getting into some awfully obscure waters with Morecambe and Wise or Cannon and Ball. (The latter, as far as I can tell, tour with their maudlin act on some dingy fish-and-chips circuit.)
The two remaining episodes, which air on subsequent Fridays, focus on film comedies, sitcoms, stand-up and censorship. But this series really needs to lighten up, i.e., become a good deal more...Foxonian.
>TAKE ME OUT TO THE CROWD
A CONVENTION OF BASEBALL BROADCASTING strikes me as hypocritical, if not perverse: the fan-on-the-field taboo. When some yahoo jumps from the stands onto the playing surface, TV cameras, as a matter of policy, immediately fix on a neutral tableau—the on-deck circle or pennants atop the stadium—until the trespasser is rousted. The idea behind this visual embargo is that showing miscreant behavior on TV might encourage other goofballs to gambol on the greensward. Yet when there is a brawl among players (and there have been more than usual this season), the camera doesn't shy away. We see the fight in its entirety and then in replay. The same footage will invariably be featured on the nightly local news and the national sports wrap-up shows on cable. Isn't showing fights likely to lead to copycat conduct much more antisocial than some lone knuckle-head cavorting on the diamond? Football and hockey don't draw such unruly crowds because thuggish fans just enjoy seeing toothless men in helmets; no, they're emulating their hard-hitting heroes. If pro golfers started duking it out on the greens, soon there would be rumbles in the galleries as well. Major league baseball and those who beam it into our homes seem to be saying: Go ahead and riot if you're in uniform; otherwise, stay seated. Nobody's ratings were ever improved by a scuffle between two fans from Scarsdale.
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!
