Show of the week
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Worthwhile though it is, you might want to trim a few minutes from this two-hour Biography. But the comedy of Bob New-hart is timed just right.
"I'd say something, and there wouldn't be a laugh," recalls Jack Riley, who played the neurotic Mr. Carlin on the first and best of Newhart's four sitcoms. "But he'd blink his eyes about 17 times and then the laugh would be there—big." Whether he's playing a psychologist (The Bob Newhart Show, 1972-78) or an innkeeper (Newhart, 1982-90) or doing his reliable stand-up act, Newhart is almost always low-key and a little behind the beat. The style has worn exceptionally well over a career of 40-plus years, thoroughly chronicled here with interviews and clips. (Amazingly, Bob bursts into a zany Jerry Lewis impression in a Newhart outtake.)
The 71-year-old Newhart's artful stammering is also the chief virtue of the new Showtime movie The Sports Pages, in which he portrays a golfer on trial for the murder of his nitpicky partner (Kelsey Grammer). The comedy premieres directly opposite the Biography special—bad timing—but repeats Jan. 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Bottom Line: Durable, buttoned-down wit
CBS (Mondays, 9:30 p.m. ET)
I've been searching this season's episodes for points in Becker's favor besides its high-powered star (Ted Danson) and advantageous time slot (following Everybody Loves Raymond). Either I'm missing something or the show is.
I still don't buy the combination of misanthropy, integrity and ill temper that are supposed to make up the character of Dr. John Becker (Danson). Would he cry at the movie Love Story? Would his conscience grow feverish at the prospect of a one-night stand with a married woman (comely guest star Jaclyn Smith)? He's just a softy who's mad at the world. Yeah, right.
But without Becker and his weekly rants (mildly amusing, though hardly of Dennis Miller caliber), this third-year sitcom would have nothing going for it. The setting, in the New York City borough of The Bronx—featuring a seedy diner with a gorgeous proprietor (Terry Farrell)—is wholly artificial. And the office byplay between Becker's efficient nurse (Hattie Winston) and her lazy, spacey assistant (Shawnee Smith) is seriously anemic. When the aide kept fouling up an elderly patient's X ray, I contemplated suing the writers for malpractice.
Bottom Line: Not worth making an appointment
PBS (Sun., Jan. 7, 9 p.m. ET)
Long after the initial publication of his 1877 novel The American, Henry James wrote a preface admitting it had credibility problems. We can only guess what he would have thought of this handsome adaptation—the second in ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection series—but it left me neither convinced nor especially moved.
The American (premiering Jan. 3 at 9 p.m. before it encores in Masterpiece Theatre's regular Sunday slot) stars Matthew Modine in a colorless performance as Christopher Newman, a New World capitalist come to Paris to experience something higher and finer than making a pile. He falls instantly for Claire (Aisling O'Sullivan), a beautiful French widow in thrall to her patently evil mother, Madame de Bellegarde (the formidable Diana Rigg). A tone of gothic melodrama prevails, with Christopher trying to woo and rescue Claire while we hear whispers of "abominable acts" by her late husband and an "immense secret" haunting the Bellegarde family.
In a manner of speaking, something's a little off about this Dublin-made film. The Bellegardes' maid, played by Irish actress Brenda Fricker, is English in the novel. But who can tell here? Nobody sounds French.
Bottom Line: Faux Paree
>Sunday, Jan. 7 LES MISERABLES Fox Family (7 p.m. ET) Gérard Depardieu and John Malkovich star in a four-hour version of Victor Hugo's classic.
Monday, Jan. 8 AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS ABC (8 p.m. ET) Oops, Britney Spears plays host. Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin add heat.
Tuesday, Jan. 9 THE MOLE ABC (8 p.m. ET) Call it Survivor 1½. Players compete for $1 million and try to unmask a saboteur in this new reality-adventure series.
Wednesday, Jan. 10 ANATOMY OF A HATE CRIME MTV (8 p.m. ET) The TV movie dramatizes the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Wyoming.
Thursday, Jan. 11 ER NBC (10 p.m. ET) James Cromwell (Babe) guest-stars as an injured bishop who shows interest in the difficult Dr. Kovac.
Friday, Jan. 12 POPSTARS The WB(9 p.m. ET) A girl singing group begins forming in a new series that's sort of the flip side of Making the Band.
Saturday, Jan. 13 BATMAN FOREVER NBC (8 p.m. ET) Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones double their villainy in this 1995 hit.
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!
