Show of the week
You really needn't be an animal lover to enjoy The Pet Shop. Comedian Andy Kindler and his modestly budgeted, tongue-in-cheek talk show are for everyone who likes a little horsing around—including viewers who blindly flip past Animal Planet on the assumption that the comparatively low-profile cable network must be something like wall-to-wall Wild Kingdom. The gimmick here is that show-business guests, domestic animals in tow, chat with Kindler about their pets rather than their pet projects. A sample: Cassandra Peterson (TV horror-film hostess Elvira) revealed that her rottweiler had a romantic relationship with a pit bull. And Kindler accused the rotter of two-timing the gal. But even if this kind of celebrity dish doesn't turn you on, Kindler will draw you into The Pet Shop with his combination of quick wit, who-cares attitude and unfeigned affection for the four-legged talent that climbs all over his couch. He may not be in Johnny Carson's class, but he's pretty darned adept at keeping up the banter while tickling a dog's tummy. And let's add an approving "arf" for the on-camera comedy bits by producer Ed Crasnick.
Bottom Line: No fancy pedigree, but frisky and funny
NBC (Sundays; check local listings)
CNBC (Saturdays, 6 p.m. ET)
"If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press," says moderator Tim Russert at the close of the weekly public-affairs program, which has been on NBC for almost 51 years. But recently we've been half expecting him to sign off with "If it's Sunday, it's Monicagate." Meet the Press has seemed determined not to be outstripped when it comes to speculation on what President Bill Clinton did with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and what independent counsel Kenneth Starr will be able to prove. On July 5, the day after Clinton returned from a rather newsworthy visit to China, Russert conducted a lengthy interview with Starr's spokesman, Charles Bakaly, in which he posed such questions as, "When the American people hear all the facts...will they be shocked?" and "Will we still be talking about this by Thanksgiving?" This was followed by a roundtable discussion of Starr's tactics and public image. The China story was ignored completely—an omission that would have annoyed us even more if Russert hadn't filled out the hour with excerpts from two bright interviews he had taped for his program on cable's CNBC (shown four times each weekend). The subjects were baseball greats Yogi Berra and Cal Ripken Jr., and Russert came across as relaxed, enthusiastic and sports-savvy. CNBC viewers have seen Russert in similarly fine form when conversing with Warren Beatty about the political content of his movie Bulworth and with Jay Leno about the thought and preparation that go into his topical monologues for The Tonight Show. The Monday papers quote from Meet the Press, not CNBC's Tim Russert, so the former must be more important. But we're starting to like this cable guy better. Maybe he could talk sports with Ken Starr.
Bottom Line: Russert's second job has a better payoff
Nickelodeon (Sundays, noon ET)
This new half-hour series, which features three animated shorts each week, also offers brief comments by real-life kids on what they look for in a cartoon. The requirements include "wacky," "not boring," "funny," "exciting" and "It can't be corny." Much of the work in the first two shows (July 19 and 26) is so wacky and exciting that it strikes us as more exhausting than funny. A notable exception on July 26 is "The F-Tales," which teams agents Fauna Fox (furry and bushy-tailed) and Chic Liddle (feathered and paranoid) in a sly send-up of The X-Files and "The Three Little Pigs." But we fear some kids may find this one boring compared with the frenetic, high-decibel Cat and Milkman, in which a hungry feline who looks like a deranged descendant of Felix bedevils a bucktoothed delivery man who sounds like Jerry Lewis.
Bottom Line: Uneven but oh yeah, it's lively
Disney Channel (weekdays, 5 p.m. ET)
Disney Channel (Sundays, 5:45 p.m. ET)
We don't know whether Alex Trebek ever has nightmares, but we guarantee the staid Jeopardy! host will toss and turn if he takes a look at these new entries on Disney Channel. "Good Lord," we can hear him moan, "what are game shows coming to?" Off the Wall and Mad Libs have three things in common: Both, according to the cable network, are geared toward 9-to 11-year-old viewers; both feature the sort of silly stunts and pep-rally atmosphere associated with Nickelodeon's Double Dare; and both have grown-up hosts who act like kids on a sugar high.
Mad Libs (moving to weekdays at 5:30 p.m. in September) is based on the popular word-game books containing sentences with blank spaces to be filled with designated parts of speech. A player provides the words without knowing the context, and the result can be humorous incongruity. Host David Sidoni, who favors four-letter words like dude and cool, promises that the TV version will "blow the cover right off your dictionary." But the size of a contestant's vocabulary is no more important than his ability to, say, lick frosting and spell out words with his tongue. On Off the Wall, studio contestants engage in stunt competition with rivals whose efforts were taped at Disneyland. The studio players have an edge: When you're trying to eat 16 pizza slices in 60 seconds, it helps to hear host Larry Zeno shouting, "You've got 10 seconds—start slammin' 'em in!" Speaking of amazing stunts, hail to Zeno for saying "awesome" 16 times (by our unofficial count) in one half-hour show.
Bottom Line: Okay for kids bursting with energy; adults, pick a different category
USA (Saturdays, 10 p.m. ET)
"Maybe you shouldn't be a cop," a prosecutor friend (Barbara Williams) advises the protagonist (Marcus Graham) in the July 19 premiere of this drama series. "Cops are 9-to-5...book 'em, on to the next case. You look into a deeper world." That explains why Graham, an "Australian heartthrob" (says a USA press release) new to American TV, is so given to furrowing his handsome brow and staring. In the second episode (July 25), having resigned from the Miami police under an ethical cloud, Graham's character is at work as a private eye—the perfect job for a guy with a searching gaze and an appreciation for moral ambiguity. The star is interesting to watch, though he should lighten up a fraction, and Jose Zuniga has appeal as a cop pal who almost became a priest (so he too has a deeper view of life). Another plus is the flavorful mix of Miami locations. But the dialogue needs work (our blood ran cold when an internal affairs officer declared himself "serious—serious as lung cancer"), and the second episode—about an undercover cop who takes up sexual adventuring—crosses the line between ambiguity and absurdity.
Bottom Line: Some sins, some virtues, but arresting
>Sunday, July 26 THE BACHELOR'S BABY CBS (9 p.m. ET) Swingin' Scott Bakula suddenly discovers diapering in this 1996 TV movie.
Monday, July 27 MELROSE PLACE FOX (8 p.m. ET) For those on tenterhooks since the March cliffhanger, the sexy soap begins its seventh season.
Tuesday, July 28 GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS: PRIMETIME FOX (9 p.m. ET) New series shows people going to extremes to get their names in the book.
Wednesday, July 29 GUTS 'N' GLORY PBS (8:30 p.m. ET) The American Experience repeats two acclaimed World War II documentaries, D-Day and The Battle of the Bulge.
Thursday, July 30 EVERYDAY ELEGANCE Romance Classics (8 p.m. ET) Party maven Colin Cowie adds special touches (but no doughnuts) to a simple Sunday brunch.
Friday, July 31 DONNIE BRASCO Showtime (8 p.m. ET) No Oscar nomination for Al Pacino in this 1997 Mafia film? That's a crime.
Saturday, August 1 LINC'S Showtime (10 p.m. ET) Belly up to the bar with foxy Pam Grier, star of this new sitcom set at a D.C. watering hole.
>Emma Samms
"It's not about my bust measurement," says Emma Samms, explaining why she favors her new life as a reclusive screenwriter to her old one as a soap siren on Dynasty and Models Inc. (her last regular TV job). Samms, whose first script—about a deaf-mute who witnesses a robbery—became the USA Network film His Bodyguard (Wednesday, July 22, 9 p.m. ET), is delighted to be using a very different part of her anatomy as a screen scribe. "It felt so good to have done something from my brain entirely," says Samms, 37. "Writing was much more satisfying than any acting job I've ever had. When I visited the set in Canada, I felt like I was sitting at the grown-ups' table at last."
Samms gets to play real-life adult roles round-the-clock these days as the dutiful mom of Cameron, 20 months, and Beatrice, 4 months, and as the wife of psychiatrist John Holloway, 39, in leafy Gloucestershire, England, where she moved two years ago. But doesn't she yearn occasionally for the Hollywood glamour game? "I don't feel like I have to wear makeup, get dressed up and worry about disappointing anybody," says Samms. "I'm long over that."
- Contributors:
- Monica Rizzo.
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!
