Show of the week
"You don't turn on your friends. You don't rat. That's the rule." Or so Sonny Napoli, a shrewd and ruthless captain of a New York City Mob family, informs one of his most trusted soldiers, Joe Falcone. What Napoli (Titus Welliver) doesn't know—but always seems on the verge of finding out in this tense, tightly plotted limited-run series—is that Falcone (Murder One alum Jason Gedrick) is really an undercover FBI agent named Joe Pistone, who has been building a case against Sonny's crew for the past two years. Based on the real-life Pistone's 1988 memoir—previously dramatized as Donnie Brasco, a terrific 1997 film with Johnny Depp and Al Pacino—Falcone soars on the strength of Gedrick's nervy tightrope act as loyal henchman, ambitious agent and sensitive family guy, with a wife and two daughters who know nothing of his criminal alias. And veteran tough guy Welliver (Brooklyn South) makes Sonny scarily believable. Though lacking the black comedy of The Sopranos, this may be the grittiest Mob drama since CBS's '80s classic Wiseguy.
Bottom Line: Don't be a rat—stick with all eight nights
Showtime (Sun., April 2, 8 p.m. ET)
Back in 1983, Bob Hoskins played an Argentine police commander in Beyond the Limit and had trouble concealing his cockney way o' tawkin'. Here he stars as Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Panamanian strongman, and he's still accent-impaired.
But Hoskins gives such a gutsy performance as the now-jailed dictator that pronunciation becomes a piddling matter. His fascinating Noriega is drunk with power, desperate to avoid overthrow, yet awed by the incredible good fortune that allows a man of his humble background and homely appearance to lord it over his small country. This is a man who foils a coup, then cuts off the hands of one of the plotters. Yet the film contains scenes of deliciously absurd humor, including Noriega's visits to a witch doctor and a Swiss dermatologist and his days as a self-invited guest of the Vatican embassy during the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. He's ridiculous but ever dangerous.
Bottom Line: Riveting tyrant
ABC (Thursdays, 10 p.m. ET)
In more ways than one, ER's new competitor is tough to watch. But the effort looks to be worth it. Created by Peter Berg (ex-Chicago Hope actor and writer-director of the movie Very Bad Things), the series is set in the psychiatric department of a New York City hospital that's teeming with traumas. No polite analysis and comfy couches. This is mental illness in the raw—raucous group therapy, delusional vagrants, homicidal schizophrenics. As if the harshness and intensity weren't enough to test your endurance, Wonderland has the visual style of a documentary done on the run. The camera is as jumpy as some of the characters, and too many scenes are shot through windows and doorways. Nevertheless, the cast has the strength to pull you into the drama. Ted Levine is particularly effective as the head of forensic psychiatry, shuttling between hospital crises and his own child-custody battle. If the show can take hold, it won't always need extreme situations (like the Times Square shooting spree in the March 30 pilot) to grab viewers.
Bottom Line: Something to shake you up
ABC (Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m. ET)
Late in the second episode (March 29) of this sitcom about the twosome of 33-year-old Billie (Susan Floyd) and 22-year-old Aidan (Thomas Newton), the younger lover exclaims, "I'm gonna throw up, we're so cute!" I quote this line because—well, because I can't resist. Actually, nausea is too strong a word for my reaction to the show.
Then Came You is a gradual letdown rather than an instant turn-off. The premiere conveyed the heady feeling of an impulsive affair, as a newly divorced book editor enjoyed a week's romp with her room-service waiter in a Chicago hotel. There seemed hope that the series had funny answers to the question of whether great sex and growing affection can outweigh disparities in age and income. But the three other episodes I've seen all stress farce over social, or even romantic, comedy. When Aidan falls face-first into a wedding cake, it's time to throw in the towel. At least he's smarter than his pal Ed (Desmond Askew), a horny Brit nitwit who makes Billie's friend Cheryl (Miriam Shor) want to "hurl."
Bottom Line: Slight queasiness
>Sunday, April 2 D.C. The WB (8 p.m. ET) A new series from Law & Order creator Dick Wolf: Think Friends in Washington, minus the laugh track.
Monday, April 3 PICTURE PERFECT ABC (8 p.m. ET) And speaking of Friends: Jennifer Aniston is a corporate climber with a fake fiancé in this 1997 comedy.
Tuesday, April 4 ON THE ROPES Learning Channel (9 p.m. ET) This documentary on amateur boxers scored a KO at the '99 Sundance festival.
Wednesday, April 5 CANCER: EVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION HBO (4:30 p.m. ET) TV executive Brandon Tartikoff's widow, Lilly, narrates profiles of patients and their families.
Thursday, April 6 DIAGNOSIS MURDER CBS (8 p.m. ET) At 74, Dick Van Dyke isn't ready for a rest home—but as Dr. Sloan, he checks into one to nab a killer.
Friday, April 7 TEEN FILES: THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS UPN (9 p.m. ET) Visits to a morgue, prison and skid row help at-risk teens get "scared straight.'
Saturday, April 8 THE MATRIX HBO (9 p.m. ET) Reality bytes for computer hacker Keanu Reeves in this 1999 sci-fi dazzler.
>David Letterman's nurse
He's usually quick with a quip, but when nurse Ana "Williams first met David Letterman on Jan. 14, the Late Show host was literally speechless. "He had a breathing tube in, so he couldn't talk," says Williams, 40, who tended to Letterman during his six-day stay at the Weill Cornell Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital following his quintuple bypass. It only took one day, though, for her prankish patient to revive. "He was always telling people I was stealing Tylenol," says Williams with a laugh. His serious moments were just as memorable: When Letter-man was discharged on Jan. 19, "he kissed my hand and said, 'Thank you for everything,' " recalls Williams, the youngest of 12 children of a Puerto Rican sugarcane-farm foreman and his wife. The grateful funnyman then sent three red suede jackets to her Newark, N.J., home for Williams, husband Wilbur, 44, a lab technician, and daughter Maria, 14.
On Feb. 21, Dave's first night back on the air, his emotion "was contagious," says Williams, who was onstage with the rest of Letter-man's medical team. "I almost cried, but I held it. I didn't want to cry on TV!" Ivory Clinton II
- Contributors:
- Terry Kelleher.
CELINE’S INFERTILITY STRUGGLE: MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK
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