ARC (Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m. ET)
A-
Every time you start fretting that the network system is bankrupt, up pops an irresistible treat like this japery, which combines the bent appeal of Seinfeld, Mad About You and the best parts of Anything but Love. Like those shows, it's built around the silly antics of a tight-knit group of adults who bond to each other in a very adolescent way. We're living, my friends, in the golden sitcom age of rec-room humor.
These Friends has something those series don't: stand-up comic Ellen DeGeneres as the star. With her pop-eyed innocence, her self-aware goodness, she's a sitcom natural. She has an endearing way of putting her foot in her mouth and then wedging it in deeper and deeper as she babbles on embarrassedly.
DeGeneres's loopy clique is made up of Arye Gross, Holly Fulger and Maggie Wheeler. Join them.
CBS (Thursdays, 10 p.m. ET)
C +
When it comes to creating odd bedfellows, politics has nothing on TV. Take, for instance, this action series built around an utterly random tandem: imperial actor George C. Scott and hopped-up hippie hamburger-chain spokesmodel Dan Cortese.
Scott plays Joe Trapchek (hence the title), an ex-homicide chief who comes out of retirement to help his old unit on high-profile murder cases. That's the basic premise, anyway. Before long, Scott is poring over seven-year-old unsolved mysteries.
Also on the force is his grandson (Cortese), a canny but unconventional detective with a ponytail. In the pilot, reference is made to a civil suit Corlese brought against the department that allowed him to grow his hair as long as he wanted. (Gee, can't you just picture the first meeting between Cortese and series creator/producer Stephen J. Cannell? Cannell: "Danny, I really want you for this role." Cortese: "I ain't culling my hair, dude." Cannell: "We can work around that.")
This is standard, slick, serviceable stuff as the two relatives battle through stubborn pride to find respect and affection for each other. (Cannell also created The Rockford Files, The Commish and many other series.) Bill Nunn and Piper Laurie costar.
There isn't much chemistry between the stars, but Scott and Cortese at least hold their own. If the caseload acquires consistent cleverness, Traps may snare a few viewers.
Fox (Mon., April 4, 8 p.m. ET)
B
In a cute contemporary fairy tale, Tea Leoni of the Fox sitcom Flying Blind plays a Brooklyn girl, all subways and sneakers, who crashes New York City high society by passing herself off as Italian nobility. David Beecroft, D.W. Moffett, Susan Walters and Holland Taylor costar in this film.
As is often the case in these miraculous makeover affairs, Leoni is far more believable as the silk purse than as the sow's ear. In large part, that's because her crass Brooklyn persona—when she remembers to summon it—consists entirely of imitating Julie Kavner's voice.
You could see the plot twists coming from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. But the movie moves along trippingly to its inevitable conclusion. Of course, when your Cinderella fable is this light in the slippers, you'd better shuffle along posthaste.
>A BRACE OF CADDISH HEROES
TWO CATCHY CABLE CONCEITS THIS week involve ne'er-do-wells who somehow get the job done. Cracker is a British miniseries on A&E starring rotund music-hall comic Robbie Coltrane (Nuns on the Run) as a forensic psychologist who is a police consultant and a hive of nasty habits: smoking, drinking, gambling. He is also—as he proves in three stand-alone movies on consecutive Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET (beginning March 29)—blindingly astute about human behavior. On the Showtime movie Royce (Sun., April 3, 8 p.m. ET), James Belushi (Red Heat) plays an American secret agent tracking a cell of rogue colleagues into Ukraine. With Belushi's invariably callow, cocky manner, it's like watching a frat-house James Bond. Still, Royce rolls.
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!
