Back in April, when Howard Stern announced plans for a late-Saturday-night TV show syndicated by CBS-owned Eye-mark Entertainment, he ridiculed rival Saturday Night Live as "lazy," "old" and "tired." So imagine our disappointment last month when he unveiled an alternative that was lazy, old and tiresome. We're not accusing Stern of laziness in the physical sense. The self-crowned "King of All Media" gets up early every weekday morning to commit sundry outrages on his nationally syndicated radio program. But judging from the first two outings, his new weekly hour on broadcast TV will not be substantially different from the half-hour Stern samples seen Sunday through Friday at 11 and 11:30 p.m. on cable's E! Entertainment Television. This means that except for a few made-for-TV segments, The Howard Stern Radio Show apparently will rely on videotaped highlights (we use the term advisedly) from Howard Stern's radio show. You heard right: Now you can peer into a dimly lit radio studio and see a former professional stripper give Stern a lap dance; see an overweight, surgically scarred woman disrobe in a desperate bid to win a "Frankenstein Makeover"; see a misguided 15-year-old male strain to set some sort of record for flatulent emissions. We hate to say this, but we'd rather watch Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri do their SNL cheerleader routine for the 99th time.
Bottom Line: Not a pretty sight
ABC (Fridays, 8 p.m. ET)
Sitcoms are often called contrived, synthetic, formulaic. That goes double for Two of a Kind (premiering Sept. 25), which stars those twin charmers of Full House fame, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The 12-year-old sisters play a pair of 11-year-olds who are identical but distinguishable: Mary-Kate's into sports and Ashley's into makeup. Their science-professor father (Christopher Sieber) is single, which makes him date bait, and a widower, which makes him ipso facto sympathetic. The new babysitter (Sally Wheeler) is hip and attractive, though Dad claims to find her annoying. Yeah, right. We've seen The Nanny. The redeeming feature here is Wheeler, who makes her free-spirited character genuinely appealing.
Bottom Line: Inoffensive but won't double your fun
PBS (Mon.-Wed., Sept. 21-23, 9 p.m. ET)
Show of the week
In recommending this special three-part Frontline documentary, we're not going to varnish the truth: At 6½ hours, it is simply too long. Filmmaker David Sutherland, whose past work on PBS includes profiles of George Washington and painter Jack Levine, could have cut The Farmer's Wife by a third and actually increased its effectiveness. But if Sutherland didn't know when to quit, we venture to say it was only because he loved his subjects too well. And it's easy to see why this project inspired such passion. This is the story of a 30ish Nebraska couple, Darrel and Juanita Buschkoetter, seen struggling between 1994 and 1997 to save their farm, support three young daughters and preserve their marriage. It's an extraordinarily intimate portrait of two decent people who work so hard to make ends meet that they lack the energy for what those with less labor-intensive lives call communication. Sutherland brings you so close to Darrel and Juanita that you feel like their confidant. You hope with all your heart that they'll make a go of it. It seems wrong to wish they'd hurry up a little.
Bottom Line: Exhausting but rewarding
CBS (Mondays, 10 p.m. ET)
The Sept. 21 premiere of this series begins with an upscale-L.A. street scene. While other motorists yak on their car phones about deals and dollars, Dr. Evan Newman (Rick Roberts, Traders) handles a call about a patient's pain. The opening deftly sets forth a key problem facing Evan and his colleagues: How does an ambitious Los Angeles internist balance trendiness and dedication? How does he travel in the "right circles" without losing his way? Such philosophical questions seem to weigh on unhappily divorced Evan and happily married Tim Lonner (Matt Craven, High Incident) more than on their partner Roger Cattan (Ken Olin, thirtysomething), a freewheeling bachelor with an avid interest in the business end of medicine. But Roger shows his sober side before the first hour is over. All in all, fans of the hospital dramas ER and Chicago Hope should find L.A. Doctors worth an office visit. We just hope these physicians aren't idealistic to a fault. "I want to treat patients instead of diseases," Evan declares to new partner Sarah Church (Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks). Treat both, Doc, or your practice will die.
Bottom Line: A guardedly optimistic prognosis
>Sunday, Sept. 20 THE SIMPSONS FOX (8 p.m. ET) Memo to the patent office: Homer becomes an inventor as the animated series opens its 10th season.
Monday, Sept 21 THE BRIAN BENBEN SHOW CBS (9:30 p.m. ET) The ex-Dream On star wakes up to find himself playing a TV newsman in this sitcom debut.
Tuesday, Sept. 22 SEX WITH CINDY CRAWFORD ABC (10 p.m. ET) This report on Americans' intimate behavior may have the most provocative title of the year.
Wednesday, Sept. 23 DHARMA & GREG ABC (8 p.m. ET) As if this show weren't cute enough, the couple considers adopting a baby in the season premiere.
Thursday, Sept. 24 FRIENDS NBC (8 p.m. ET) So did Ross tie the knot or what? Find out on the fifth-season premiere.
Friday, Sept. 25 BUDDY FARO CBS (9 p.m. ET) Dennis Farina stars in this series debut as a swingin' private eye out of circulation since the 1970s.
Saturday, Sept. 26 FANTASY ISLAND ABC (9 p.m. ET) Tattoo is gone, but wishes are still fulfilled in this remake of the old series.
>Justine Waddell
For a scene in the television adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (A&E, Sept. 13 and 14 at 9 p.m. ET), Justine Waddell had to milk a bovine costar on an English farm. "I kept thinking, 'Wait, have I forgotten how?' I'm the worst milker," recalls Waddell, 22, who took milking lessons for the film about a 19th-century dairymaid. With the help of a willing cow, the milk flowed. But scenes with chickens were more challenging. "I was carrying them the wrong way," she says. "They kept squawking over people's lines."
WaddelI's gumption has paid off before. Born in South Africa, she had tapes of BBC dramas shipped to her by relatives in Scotland before moving there in 1986. Later, at Cambridge University, she battled stage fright in student productions. "Not butterflies," the unattached Londoner recalls of her feelings on one opening night. "It was more like icy blood." Though she remains devoted to the classics (her next role is in a BBC version of Great Expectations), Waddell says she'd like to play a character that doesn't wear a corset. "I'd love something," she says, "where I could swear and jump on someone's back!"
- Contributors:
- Joanna Blonska.
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!
