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                                                                                TELEVISION, Page 68

Forward Into the Past


With a high-adventure history lesson, George Lucas joins a
growing band of top filmmakers who are dabbling in TV

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- With reporting by Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles


    The prime-time Pancho Villa is a dashing figure. The
Mexican revolutionary hero, who shows up in the first episode
of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, battles gringos,
champions the poor and makes inspiring speeches about the land.
Yet his followers are an unsavory bunch who steal food from the
peasants they are fighting to protect. "In a revolution, it's
people who suffer," sighs a toothless old man whose chicken has
been snatched. "All over the world, revolutions come and go.
Presidents rise and fall. They all steal your chickens."

    Indiana Jones, George Lucas' whip-wielding superhero,
battled just about everything from giant boulders to sinister
Nazis in three hugely successful movies. But those exploits pale
beside Lucas' daring in bringing his popular character to
television. His new ABC series, which begins next week, follows
the exploits of young Indy as he travels the world with his
father, a college professor, and encounters some of the most
famous people and events of the early 20th century. Indy serves
as a courier at the Battle of Verdun, meets the young Picasso
in Paris, goes big-game hunting with Teddy Roosevelt, matches
wits with Sigmund Freud and even has a hot romance with Mata
Hari. There are thrills and chills, but also -- here's where the
derring-do comes in -- a dose of history, philosophy and social
commentary. As young Indy might put it, "Holy smokes!"

    Chances are The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles wouldn't be
allowed near a network prime-time schedule if it weren't for the
name above the title. Lucas, who also created the Star Wars
movie trilogy, is one of a growing cadre of top-drawer film
directors who are dabbling in the long-scorned medium of
television. Oliver Stone, fresh from eight Oscar nominations for
his conspiracy drama JFK, is creating a six-hour series for ABC;
Stone will disclose no details, but describes the series as
"Twin Peaksy." Steven Spielberg is working on Class of '61 (also
for ABC), a two-hour movie about the graduating class at West
Point in 1861, which is the pilot for a potential series. Barry
Levinson (Rain Man, Bugsy) is developing a TV movie about
Baltimore cops for NBC. David Lynch, whose Twin Peaks helped
launch the current wave of filmmakers experimenting in TV, is
producing a new comedy series for ABC, On the Air, about a TV
station in the 1950s.

    The barrier that once separated feature films and TV has
been crumbling for several years. Directors like Walter Hill
(48 Hours) and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) have done
episodes for HBO's Tales from the Crypt. John Sayles (Eight Men
Out) created Shannon's Deal, a lawyer series for NBC, and
Spielberg ventured into series TV several years ago with his
fantasy anthology Amazing Stories. Yet many filmmakers of the
first rank still regard TV as a second-class medium. The chief
drawbacks: less time to work, less money to spend and more
restrictions on style and subject matter.

    But as they try to woo viewers who seem increasingly bored
with traditional fare, the networks are becoming more willing
to let film directors try out ideas that don't fit into the
usual television molds. "TV is in a middle-aged period," says
Robert A. Iger, president of ABC Entertainment, which has taken
the lead in signing big-name filmmakers. "Coming up with new
ideas is difficult. We are trying different ways to skin the
cat." One innovation that ABC is touting is the limited-run
series: shows that last a finite number of episodes. This format
gives filmmakers the chance to do pet projects that are too
unwieldy for a two-hour movie but that would quickly burn out
(as Twin Peaks did) if stretched into an open-ended series.

    Lucas, who runs his sprawling multimedia empire from Marin
County, north of San Francisco, came up with his idea for Young
Indiana Jones while working on an interactive-video teaching
system for eighth graders. His goal was to involve youngsters
in history while entertaining them with one of the movies' most
popular characters. "We need to introduce kids to history," says
Lucas. "I hope they will explore these characters later on their
own, that these introductions are the spark that sends them off
to the bookshelf." Lucas has generated all the story lines
himself, and is overseeing production. (Episodes have been shot
in more than a dozen locations around the world.) "I'm doing
this because I love doing it," says Lucas. "It's difficult to
turn it over to another person."

    The show is more lushly pictorial than anything this side
of the National Geographic Specials, and its seat-of-the-pants
approach to history is peppy and playful. The two-hour premiere
skips from Egypt, where the nine-year-old Indy (Corey Carrier)
explores an ancient tomb with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of
Arabia), to the U.S.-Mexico border, where Indy (now 17 and
played by Sean Patrick Flanery) rides with Villa as he battles
U.S. troops under the command of General John Pershing. The
nuggets of historical background are slipped in without too much
strain (the Mexican rebels watch a newsreel showing the war in
Europe), though Lucas occasionally goes too far for a historical
gag. An arrogant army lieutenant strides into a bar and loudly
disparages the "low-down greaser Pancho Villa" -- then guns down
a few partisans who disagree. "I'd say he's going places fast,"
comments General Pershing later about the hothead, who happens
to be George S. Patton.

    The big question is whether a TV show about remote
historical events and personages will entice kids away from the
Nintendo game or Beverly Hills 90210. The medicine might go down
easier if the spoonfuls of sugar were sweeter. Indy's adventures
in the first episode are often unimaginative (the old
mummy's-tomb-with-a-curse routine), and the flip dialogue is too
forced (captured by Villa's men and about to be executed, Indy
pleads, "If I don't get home, my father's gonna kill me").

    Still, Young Indiana Jones has an irreverent spirit, and
no new show this season has more ambition or style. Though ABC
programmers worried initially that it would remind viewers too
much of earnest educational fare on PBS, Lucas was left alone to
make the series as he wanted. "I don't see this show as any more
educational than Star Wars," Lucas says. "It's designed as a
coming-of-age story." If it succeeds, it might be a
coming-of-age story for TV as well.