"Why are people more afraid of aliens from outer space than they are of the monsters we're creating ourselves: genetically engineered animals [and] viruses?" asks Paul Turner, the paranoid hero of this murky and derivative sci-fi series. Turner (Tim Guinee from John Carpenter's Vampires) has good reason to fear the menace within. A Gulf War veteran, he was inadvertently exposed to an Iraqi chemical weapon. Now, as a civilian medical investigator for the Army, he suffers from aplastic anemia, a disease he has managed to survive only by injecting himself with a miracle drug provided by a shadowy Deep Throat (Vivian Wu), who has her own sinister agenda for Turner. In the pilot episode (Mon., March 8), Turner turns to his only allies—his girlfriend Sydney (Kristin Lehman), an M.D., and his boss Maj. Lynne Reese (Saundra Quarterman)—as he looks for a missing boy who is revealed to be a clone of Turner's old Army buddy. The following night (as the show replaces NYPD Blue for the next four weeks), surrogate mothers are pawns in a grotesque experiment. If Strange World sounds oddly familiar, well, co-creator Howard Gordon is an ex-X-Files producer. World shares that show's often maddeningly ambiguous plotting, but Guinee—soulful-eyed and intense throughout—lacks the wry insouciance of David Duchovny. A little cloning might have helped here.
Bottom Line: Enter this in the Y-Bother Files
CBS (Sun., March 7, 9 p.m. ET, Tues., March 9, 9 p.m. ET)
Show of the week
If Richard Chamberlain is king of the miniseries, then Peter Strauss has to be the genre's Dorian Gray. At 52, Strauss (Masada, Kane & Abel) still looks as ruggedly youthful today as he did 23 years ago when he and a now-craggy Nick Nolte costarred as brothers in one of TV's first minis, Rich Man, Poor Man. But his boyish face may be Strauss's misfortune in Seasons of Love, which spans almost four decades in the lives of Thomas Linthorne, a post-Civil War Ohio farmer (Strauss, who's also credited as an "executive consultant"), and his wife, Kate (The Thorn Birds' Rachel Ward). Even after he grows a moustache (and later, a scraggly beard), Strauss simply lacks the seasoning and range required to play an aging, domineering patriarch trying to raise three headstrong children. In contrast, Ward, as his exasperated spouse, matures believably from radiant belle to ailing grandmother.
Strauss's credibility aside, there's a rousing good story here (based on George Dell's 1938 novel, The Earth Abideth). As Tom Linthorne rises from dirt-poor sodbuster to prosperous landowner, he commits murder and adultery, succumbs to snobbishness and just plain mule-headedness, suffers and repents (perhaps too late). Director Daniel Petrie (Fort Apache, The Bronx) keeps the plot moving so briskly he barely has room for veterans Rip Torn and Hume Cronyn as two of the Linthornes' lifelong neighbors. Even so, both add heft to this rich potboiler.
Bottom Line: Old-fashioned family saga that will draw you in
HBO (Mon., March 8, 10 p.m. ET)
Two of the most fascinating segments in this adulatory yet eye-opening documentary about female athletes involve a couple of Babes. One, of course, was Babe Ruth, who, in a 1931 Yankees exhibition game, got struck out by Jackie Mitchell, a female pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts. (Or did he? As one historian points out, some skeptics say it was just a put-on.) The other Babe—who deserves her own documentary—was Babe Didrikson Zaharias, a '30s superstar in basketball, track and field, and golf (where, even after being stricken by cancer, she won the U.S. Women's Open in 1954). Most other women, though, had to fight their way out of a sand trap of prejudice: Sports were deemed unfeminine, too strenuous and potentially harmful to reproduction. Not to mention male egos. Kathrine Switzer recalls sneaking into the 1967 Boston Marathon only to be tackled by the race's irate codirector Jock Semple (who was in turn sidelined by Switzer's 235-lb. boyfriend). And Billie Jean King exultantly relives her 1973 triumph over tennis court jester Bobby Riggs in their nationally televised Battle of the Sexes. "It wasn't about tennis," King insists. "It was about social change." Yes, and commerce too: ABC sold a lot of ads that day.
But not even a segment on the discrimination Martina Navratilova says she has encountered on Madison Avenue and in the media (though openly gay, she's critical of the reporters who used to ask her about her sexuality) can dampen the documentary's upbeat spirit. "Athletic women are the role models of the next millennium," says narrator Lauren Hutton. If you don't believe her, just ask Xena.
Bottom Line: Panoramic paean to women athletes
VH1 (Mondays, 10:30 p.m. ET)
Okay, so the cable music channel's first newsmagazine isn't as slick as Access Hollywood. But even though it lacks A-list interviews and hovers mostly on pop music's periphery—the two episodes I've seen include segments on concert security guards and Grateful Dead tape traders—the series is a hoot: video liner notes with attitude. This week, for a piece on musicians who dabble in painting—including Beck Hansen, David Bowie, Donna Summer and Tony Bennett—a Candy reporter concealed the names of celebs displaying their art at a Philadelphia gallery so that a panel of critics could judge their works without bias. One, gazing at a portrait by Ringo Starr, surmises that the artist "has problems with his nose." In another feature, the show paid for a group session in which a self-described rock-band therapist sat down with the quarrelsome members of a retro-'60s ensemble called the Brian Jonestown Massacre. (When last seen they're skipping down the street.)
Sometimes Rock Candy can get a bit too manipulative. A Candid Camera-type setup filmed unwary job applicants who, lured by a bogus classified ad for a rock star's personal assistant, had to answer off-the-wall interview questions like, "Have you ever dealt with an adult diaper before?" But the show hits its stride next week with a profile of Quiet Riot, an '80s band struggling to make a comeback and willing to play anywhere, even at a Michigan nudist colony. Opting to keep their clothes on, the band at least retains a shred of dignity—which is more than you can say about the fleshy (and mostly flabby) fans in attendance.
Bottom Line: Not just mind candy, Rock Candy has some bite Terry Kelleher is on vacation.
Give them what they really want!
>Sunday, March 7 THE 5TH ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS TNT (8 p.m. ET) Can't wait for the Oscars? This gala from L.A. serves as a glittery warm-up.
Monday, March 8 TEENS: WHAT MAKES THEM TICK ABC (9 p.m. ET) John Stossel (like, he is so cute) offers really cool advice to parents, y'know?
Tuesday, March 9 FAMILY RULES UPN (8:30 p.m. ET) A new sitcom casts Greg Evigan as a single dad who could use Stossel's help: He has fourteen daughters.
Wednesday, March 10 MORE TRUE STORIES FROM TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL CBS (8 p.m. ET) Praise be! Fans and former guest stars tell how the hit series has inspired them.
Thursday, March 11 LAURA FYGI: LIVE FROM THE ROYAL CARRÉ PBS (10 p.m. ET) The Dutch singer treats us to romantic ballads.
Friday, March 12 BIOGRAPHY: ELIZABETH I: THE VIRGIN QUEEN A&E (8 p.m. ET) She's in two Oscar-nominated movies; now meet the real Tudor monarch.
Saturday, March 13 SPHERE HBO (8 p.m. ET) Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone get in over their heads in this 1998 undersea thriller.
>Drew Pinsky
Since he began hosting Loveline, MTV's sex-talk show, Dr. Drew Pinsky has gotten a reputation as a sex-therapy guru. But there was one person whom Pinsky, 40, wasn't ready to advise—his daughter, one of his 6-year-old triplets. "She asked, 'Do you and Mommy have sex?' " he recalls. "I said, 'What do you think sex is?' She thought it was kissing. I said, 'Yes! We kiss!' "
Pinsky has been explaining the subtleties of sex since 1983, when he started Loveline on an L.A. radio station while he was still a USC medical student. In 1995 the program went into national syndication—with listeners phoning in their libidinal woes, Pinsky giving advice, and comedian Adam Carolla cracking jokes. Two years ago MTV launched a TV version (weeknights at 11:30 p.m. ET) and added co-host Diane Farr. Now that he's on TV, "people are always asking me [sex] questions on the street," says Pinsky, an internist who lives in L.A. with wife Susan, 39, and their three kids. How will he keep his daughter from learning the real meaning of "sex"? Pinsky laughs, "She's never dating!"
- Contributors:
- Paula Yoo.
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!
