CBS (Wed., 8 P.M. ET)
D
Who could have imagined that Frank Zappa, the occult leader of the Mothers of Invention, would have kids, that he'd name them Dweezil and Moon Unit, and that one day these two would have their own "wacky" domestic comedy? If Arthur Godfrey could see us now...
As is so often the case in TV, the concept is much more interesting than the execution. Normal Life is a remarkably lame sitcom in which Max Gail and Cindy Williams preside over a household that includes the Zappas and younger brother Josh Williams. While Dweezil comes across as a dweeb, Moon Unit is a natural. Unfortunately, the show is annoyingly artificial (Dweezil illustrates a brotherly sermon on individuality by playing Eddie Van Halen riffs on a guitar) and terribly unfunny (Mom scares off a burglar by announcing, "My daughter and I have seen Karate Kid I, II and III").
CBS (Wed., 8:30 P.M. ET)
B+
With Sydney, you get the real thing. First, Eddie Van Halen plays his own guitar—the intro to Van Halen's "Finish What Ya Started" serves as theme music. Second, you get Eddie's wife, Valerie Bertinelli, who is mildly terrific as a motor-mouth private eye in Los Angeles. Also good are Matthew Perry as her conniving policeman brother and Craig Bierko (who resembles Saturday Night Live's Al Franken without the tortoise-shells) as the klutzy attorney who employs her. It's not a total laugh riot, but Bertinelli holds together a sometimes shaky fort with great flair.
ABC (Sun., March 25, 9 P.M. ET)
C-
Take a tale of money, murder and passion and stock it with not one but two matinee idols, and how could it miss? Let me count the ways. First, you could spend too much time on specious character development as security systems expert Carl Weathers slowly compromises his scruples with the help of corrupt rich man Billy Dee Williams and his alluring wife, Lonette McKee. Compound that with substandard action scenes, bad writing and bad acting—with the exception of Tony Di Benedetto, who makes a sublimely reliable hood. Still, its macho star power and opulent settings—next to Billy Dee's mansion and motor pool, the Carringtons look like pikers—make this TV movie much more watchable than it should be.
CBS (Sun., March 25, 9 P.M. ET)
B-
The ugly furor over Boston school busing in the '70s is expansively told through the lives of two poor, single mothers. C.C.H. Pounder is bringing up six children in the black ghetto of Roxbury, while Jane Curtin is raising seven in Charlestown's white slum. Pounder gives a heart-tugging performance, but Curtin is an absolute revelation as an Irishwoman of the projects—except when the script's sentimentality hems her in. Richard Thomas, however, is a washout as a young Harvard-educated lawyer. Maybe it's unfair to single out Thomas's ridiculous stab at a Boston accent. After all, the movie is rife with them. Although it has moments of powerful dramatic impact, this mini (which concludes on Tuesday) could have been vastly improved by editing it to TV-movie length. By the time it rounds the far turn on Tuesday night, things have gotten completely away from director Michael Newell. Still, it's unutterably sad to watch these impoverished Bostonians fight each other so bitterly over the scraps from the American feast.
NBC (Sun., March 25,9 P.M. ET)
B
Once in a while there's a perfect casting choice, such as Anthony Quinn in this TV remake of Hemingway's novel. As in his other great peasant-king roles, like Zorba and Eufemio Zapata, Quinn plays Santiago, a simple, proud, blood-wise Cuban fisherman, from the inside out.
This version does not offer the grim battle for survival that the 1958 Spencer Tracy's film did. Roger O. Hirson's script throws a lot of wrinkles into the mix, including flashbacks that feature Quinn's son Francesco and Gary Cole as a glum American writer visiting the island. Although even these additions fail to make the story dramatically compelling, you can be sure of one thing: No matter what the rest of this TV year brings, you'll see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
Fox (Sun., March 25, 9:30 P.M. ET)
B
Based on the 1983 film of the same name, this show does a fair job of approximating the ethos of its cinematic predecessor; it's just tamer and more wholesome—in other words, tube broken.
A gang of rebellious but good-hearted greasers in 1960s Tulsa go around bonding with each other and rumbling with the city's more affluent jocks. At the center is a trio of parentless brothers, played by Boyd Kestner, Rodney (Salsa) Harvey and Jay R. Ferguson. The gang's belligerent badass is portrayed by Robert Rusler, and Kim (Heathers) Walker appears as the babe.
The series, which moves into its regular I slot next week at 7 P.M., has a high-gloss visual style that recalls last year's short-lived Dream Street, but the teenage angst hangs a little too thick for this to appeal to mature audiences. The casting is good, though. With all those brooding, pomaded hunkitos strutting around with their I shirts cut off at the shoulder—well, it I should do pretty well at attracting its target audience.
ABC (Tues., March 27, 9 P.M. ET)
B
This hard-knocks drama about a big-city D.A. office presents life across the street from L.A. Law. Comparisons between the two shows are unavoidable. Both have their morning war sessions to dispose of the calendar; in each case, most of the action takes place in the office, the courtroom or the bedroom. The difference is that Equal Justices darker, more blue collar, more harried, more moralistic, less amusing and less imaginative. In a large, ensemble cast, the standouts are prosecutors Lise Cutter, Jane Kaczmarek, Barry Miller and deputy chief Cotter Smith. The following night the show moves into its regular 10 P.M. slot, bumping China Beach to Mondays.
>A pair of PBS series chip in with fresh entries this week. Mystery! assigns Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard to a complex new case in A Taste for Death. P.D. James's sleuth, now a Commander, is again played with angular acuity by Roy Marsden in this six-part series beginning Thursday, March 22 (9 P.M. ET). Masterpiece Theatre presents The Real Charlotte, from a novel by Edith Somerville and Martin Ross, authors of The Irish R.M. This tragedy of manners set in the 1890s concerns an orphan (Joanna Roth) and her cousin Charlotte (Jeananne Crowley). Airing over three Sundays, beginning March 25 (9 P.M.), The Real Charlotte is a deft dissection of a girl's flirtatious nature and a woman's overweaning covetousness.
CELINE’S INFERTILITY STRUGGLE: MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK
Daily injections, painful tests and four failed IVF attempts: The singer, 41, reveal her dreams for a second baby. ‘I’ll try until it works’
