CBS (Sun., Dec. 12, 8 p.m. ET)
B
We're in a good news/bad news situation with this lavish, slavish mounting of the 1959 Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim musical about the formative years of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee.
The good news is that Bette Midler was born to play the role of Mama Rose, the shameless, smothering showbiz mother. Midler combines the brassy flamboyance of Ethel Merman, who played Rose in the original Broadway production, with the broader emotional range of Rosalind Russell, who starred in the 1962 film version. For three hours, Midler is a dizzy, delusional dynamo, utterly dominating the rest of the cast, which includes Cynthia Gibb and Peter Riegert.
The bad news is that musicals seem so hokey and dated on TV—which is one major reason musical theater is going the way of vaudeville. (Imagine how much trouble you're in when your only savior is that nudnick Andrew Lloyd Webber.) Today's TV audience won't put up with the genre's conventions. The drama is too circumscribed, the production numbers too fruity and the song styles hoary.
This splashy production will win Midler an Emmy. (Her showstopping "Everything's Coming Up Roses" alone assures that.) But even with a fresh coat of paint, Gypsy still looks weatherbeaten.
TNT (Sun.., Dec. 12, 8 p.m. ET)
B
In the second installment of Ted Turner's ambitious historical film series The Native Americans, J.C. White Shirt and Eric Schweig play a pair of Mohawks who adopt differing attitudes toward encroaching British settlers in the 18th century, a period that saw the fracturing of the Iroquois league and its six tribes.
Like last year's remake of The Last of the Mohicans, this film has vivid visuals and a rather paltry plot. Pierce Brosnan and Buffy Sainte-Maric turn in ludicrous performances as an Indian agent and a Mohawk clan mother. Wes Studi, Graham Greene and Floyd Red Crow Westerman do far more with much less in supporting roles.
Fox (Mori., Dee. 13, 8 p.m. ET)
B+
In a twisted holiday fable, Matt Frewer and Blair Brown play the parents of an irresponsible, heavy-metal teen (Bobby Jacoby). Their home life is, like, Leave It to Beavis. So Dad and Mom fly the coop, leaving Jacoby the house and a credit card.
The script's central joke is that middle-aged runaways have become a common sociological trend, tagged "suburban parent flight" for comic purposes. Frewer and Brown flee to a rustic refuge for overmatched overseers, and Jacoby gradually begins to miss domestic stability. He determines to bring the folks home for Christmas.
This ultralight, upside-down comedy is presented, sustained and acted quite capably. And for anyone who has gone through the hair-raising experience of parenting a teen, not all that far-fetched.
>Warren Littlefield
SEASONAL HIGH POINTS
We conclude our series of talks with the men who design the prime-time landscape: This week we interview Warren Little-field, President of NBC Entertainment. His appraisal of his network's Hottest Rookies: "All of our Thursday night is must-see TV, especially Frasier. And right behind that, sea-Quest DSV," says Little-field. "Because no time period in all of television is tougher than Sunday night at 8 o'clock, and we're No. 1 in adults 18-49 and 25-54. That's an enormous accomplishment." Biggest Disappointment: "I wish we could have brought more people to Against the Grain. We have not been able to accomplish that, despite promotion and a consistent broadcast pattern." Wouldn't Mind Borrowing: "Living Single from Fox." In the Wings: "The Good Life, a comedy with John Caponera and Drew Carey. And Homicide comes back. First episode? Robin Williams."
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!
