TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/011491/0114250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 115 lines

                                                                                VIDEO, Page 60

Would It Fool the Family Cat?


The networks learn from their mistakes, and learn, and
learn . . .

By RICHARD ZOGLIN


    It was a disappointing fall for the Big Three networks, but
they learned some valuable lessons. For example: while most
viewers like cop shows and enjoy a good song, they definitely
have no patience for singing cops. Also: even well-done family
sitcoms, like NBC's Parenthood, are apt to get lost in the
current oversupply of cute TV clans. And pouring big money into
shows to compete with CBS's Sunday-night powerhouse 60 Minutes
is a fruitless exercise. NBC, at least, seems to have learned
that lesson: in February it will introduce Sunday Best, a
shamelessly cost-efficient variety show that will feature
highlights from the previous week's NBC shows.

    But the nice thing about network programming is that you
never stop learning. This month brings the first big wave of
midseason replacement shows, and a whole new series of lessons
can be gleaned from the January crop:

    The cold war is over; spies should go home. Dylan Del'Amico,
the protagonist of ABC's new series Under Cover, seemed to have
grasped this when he left his field assignment for a CIA-type
intelligence agency (known here as The Company) and moved to
a desk job in Washington. But those overseas assignments just
keep on coming -- both for Dylan and for his wife, another
ex-agent having a hard time retiring. First, Dylan must thwart
a former KGB chief who is plotting to assassinate a popular
Soviet reformer. Then, in a hot-off-the-presses story line, he
and his colleagues race to stop a renegade Iraqi colonel from
launching a biological weapon against Israel. There are folks
back at the agency to contend with as well: a new generation
of computer jocks who disdain the old-timers, and a slimy
acting director who longs for a new Stalin in the Soviet Union
to "give us our enemy back."

    Well, it might at least give us our spy entertainments back.
Under Cover, the latest effort from China Beach creators
William Broyles Jr. and John Sacret Young, updates the cold-war
thriller by turning it into a sort of globe-trotting
thirtysomething. When these sensitive agents aren't having
moralistic arguments over who should or shouldn't be sent on
a dangerous assignment, they are worrying about who's minding
the kids. Anthony Denison (Crime Story) and Linda Purl are
agreeable enough as the spy couple, but the romance founders on
dialogue like "You know, I didn't realize you were a blonde
until two weeks into our first mission together." Their new
mission will be a tough one.

    Big stars cannot redeem bad sitcoms. This season has already
brought us Burt Reynolds sleepwalking through the overrated CBS
comedy Evening Shade. Now Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal have
set back their careers about 10 years (three for her; seven for
him) by fronting another grueling CBS entry, Good Sports.
Fawcett plays Gayle Roberts, a veteran anchor for an all-sports
network run by a Ted Turner-like mogul. O'Neal is "Downtown"
Bobby Tannen, an ex-football star fallen on hard times, who is
brought in to be her on-air partner. Their bickering,
Moonlighting-style relationship is signaled none too subtly in
the opening cast credits: "Farrah Fawcett vs. Ryan O'Neal."

    TV shows set in TV newsrooms represent a low ebb of creative
imagination, but Good Sports may set a record for ineptitude.
Creator Alan Zweibel (It's Garry Shandling's Show) flicks in
a few satirical jabs at TV, but mostly he seems tuned to
another channel. The characters are so woozily out of focus
that after two episodes one still can't tell whether Bobby is
supposed to be simply naive or mentally retarded. Or why Gayle,
the TV pro, keeps having spats with him in front of a
nationwide audience. Or why, when he rents an apartment directly
opposite hers, she doesn't at least draw the shades. Or why
. . . awww, never mind.

    Vampires, for all the mayhem they cause, are pretty boring
people. It probably sounded like a good idea on paper: Dark
Shadows, a daytime hit on ABC in the late 1960s, resurrects
itself as an NBC prime-time series. Ben Cross (Chariots of
Fire) plays Barnabas Collins, the mysterious "cousin from
England" who shows up at the Collinwood estate and sets about
relieving various relatives and townspeople of their red cells.
Producer/director Dan Curtis (who did the original show) has
given the series a dark, somber look and a high-toned cast that
includes Jean Simmons as the Collins family matriarch.

    But the new Dark Shadows is drained of blood well before
Barnabas bares his fangs. The pace is funereal; the plot
twists, pure gothic boiler plate. There's the fresh-faced
governess who arrives at the mansion to tutor an eerily
disturbed child; the slow-witted groundskeeper who is enslaved
by the vampire (paging Dwight Frye); the 200-year-old paintings
that -- gasp! -- bear a striking resemblance to present-day
folk; the baffled reaction of doctors and police to mysterious
deaths in the town ("Looks like some kind of wild animal tried
to tear her throat out"). Cross has a suave-but-menacing manner
so transparent that it wouldn't fool the family cat, and his
tortured pleas for sympathy are unconvincing. "I cannot help
myself!" he cries at one point. Excuses, excuses.