The Learning Channel (Wed., April 15, 9 P.M. ET)
C+
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), the Oxford don who wrote the captivating fantasies The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is the subject of this informative but visually dull study.
A series of talking heads tell us all about the absentminded professor who considered writing to be a private pleasure to entertain himself and his four children and who only reluctantly published his work. In fact, until his sudden success in his 70s, Tolkien had a reputation for laziness among his academic colleagues, who didn't know he was diligently writing and rewriting his fairy stories every night.
The cultish fame that grew up around him in the '60s appalled Tolkien since it intruded on his cherished privacy. Come to think of it, Bilbo Baggins didn't much favor being dragged out into the hurly-burly of the world, either.
CBS (Thursdays, 10 P.M. ET)
C
Veteran character actor John Mahoney plays the voice of conscience and experience at a Chicago teaching hospital. His doctor character tries to persuade medical students to bond emotionally with their patients. And, boy, do they bond. One goes so far as to lay down a bet on the seventh race at Arlington for a patient about to undergo surgery. Another gets so involved in a case that he forges a husband's signature on a transfusion permission form.
Mahoney is a wonderful actor, but his character is considerably more animated and devoted, more brimming with the milk of human kindness than any doctor I've ever met, including Marcus Welby and Ben Casey. Isn't that what internship is for, to grind these highfalutin idealistic qualities out of prospective doctors? (Then again, Quincy was always more passionate than a coroner had a right to be, and he lasted for years on TV.)
Apart from Mahoney's obligatory attempts to instill his pupils with compassion, this is a generic medical drama with two pathos-freighted cases per episode intended to teach us more about the human heart than other parts of the anatomy.
Showtime (Fri., April 17, 8 P.M. ET)
B-
Dave Thomas and Sally Kellerman star as the title characters in this fleshed-out adaptation of the mock-sinister spies from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. In this cloak-and-rubber-dagger farce, Bo and Nat journey to America from their native Pottsylvania on a secret mission, posing as defectors. Closely monitored, they engage in a scrambled search for a miracle microchip.
Am being sorry to report, comrades, that movie is not all that funny. But what it lacks in wit, it makes up for in unflagging silliness, right down to the pun-filled narration familiar to all Bullwinkle fans: "With their cover shot full of holes and no one to trust, where could [Boris and Natasha] go? Back to Pottsylvania? Back to Pennsylvania? How about Pensacola? I hear that's nice this time of year. Do you have any ideas? If so, send them to this address." A graphic then appears with a P.O. box in Frostbite Falls for The Bullwinkle Show's Mr. Peabody.
Intended for theatrical release, the movie comes straight to cable due to its independent studio's financial difficulties. Because the plot is so weak, the supporting actors, Alex Rocco and Thomas's old SCTV buddies Andrea Martin and John Candy, steal the show right out from under the noses of our main no-goodniks.
CBS (Sun., April 19, 9 P.M. ET)
C-
Kirk Douglas stars in this sluggish family melodrama as the owner of a quaint general store on Cape Cod. He dotes on his 9-year-old grandson (Jesse Tendler), but Douglas's cranberry-farming son (Bruce Boxleitner) finds the close relationship between the old man and the boy a rankling reminder of the neglect he experienced when he was growing up. The movie grinds slower and slower as plot lines about dyslexia and a local election are introduced.
Cynthia Cherbak's script is so histrionic and mawkish ("Oh, Dad, I know you'd cut off your arm for that boy. Talk to Patrick. Swallow your pride") that it makes the whole cast look fatuous. By the way, it's unlikely someone with a reading disability would be as confounded as Douglas is by Boston's mass transit system, which is color-coded. Even the most severe dyslexic can find the Red Line.
NBC (Mon., April 20, 9 P.M. ET)
D
In a soft-boiled, '40s private-detective film, Crystal (Wings) Bernard plays an investigator named Dol Bonner, sleuthing in L.A. during World War II. Annabeth {Mystic Pizza) Gish is her sidekick. Dan Castellaneta and Polly Bergen costar.
The movie takes a parlor murder mystery, adds a sprinkling of feminism and a dash(iell) of Hammett. The result is so hard to follow, uninvolving and ludicrously unconvincing, it could have bypassed NBC completely and gone directly to Comedy Central's Mystery Science Theater 3000 as a target for the spoof treatment. I'd love to hear Joel, Tom Servo and Crow riff on this turkey.
>THREE TO GROW ON
TIME TO CATCH UP ON SOME NEW CHILDREN'S SERIES. THE DISNEY CHANNEL'S Adventures in Wonderland (weekdays, 7:30 A.M. ET) is a live-action update of Lewis Carroll's story. This show's Alice (Elisabeth Harnois) runs with a contemporary crowd, including a Tweedledee and Tweedledum who are thin hip-hoppers in Hammer puff pants and a White Rabbit who scoots around on rollerblades. It's an innocent but hammy half hour with music by Mark Mothersbaugh of the bent pop group Devo. Mothersbaugh also scored this week's riotous kids' special A Claymation Easter on CBS (Sat., April 18, 8:30 P.M. ET). Designed for a younger crowd, the live-action Barney & Friends on PBS (weekdays; check local listings) is spun off from the popular home video series Barney & the Backyard Gang. Barney, the gentle, giggling six-foot purple dinosaur, uses songs and games to help a rotating octet of children exercise their imaginations. The show's busy but bland style should appeal to preschoolers. Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories on Showtime (Tuesdays, 7:30 P.M. ET) is Duvall's third and best kids' series for the cable channel. Wonderful children's books by Marilyn Sadler, Mercer Mayer and others get lively animation, backed by such celebrity narrators as James Earl Jones, Dudley Moore, John Candy and Bonnie Raitt. All right, you've had your story. Now go to bed.
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!
