Many happy returns

We now return you to your regular programming - and not a moment too soon. Shake off the December TV doldrums with fresh episodes from quality series, plus a few new shows.

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published January 6, 2002

Consider it a belated holiday gift from the world of series television.

They know how you suffered in December -- wading through the specials starring Erin Brockovich and Mariah Carey; the reruns of ER and NYPD Blue episodes you'd seen just weeks before; the Christmas movies starring Kathy Ireland and Whoopi Goldberg.

Who wouldn't need a break?

January brings a deluge of new programming, with more than a dozen new and returning series premiering this month -- from PBS' Latino-centered drama American Family (Jan. 23) to the second season of Showtime's no-holds-barred look at gay men in Pittsburgh, Queer as Folk (at 10 tonight).

For those hoping to find the postterrorism direction of Hollywood, January's fare offers few clues. Most of these projects were developed long before September's attacks; even Survivor creator Mark Burnett's military-themed reality series Combat Missions (on USA Network Jan. 16) was in the can long before Osama bin Laden became a household name.

Still, there are some trends. As usual, the pay cable outlets Showtime and HBO offer the most groundbreaking fare, including six extra episodes of HBO's sassy urban comedy Sex and the City that were filmed early last year, when the industry feared a summertime strike by actors and writers.

The networks also are offering their usual dribble of midseason replacement shows; series considered too quirky, too delayed or too good to debut with the usual flood of new TV product in September. Considering what they're replacing -- one final potshot at Emeril or Inside Schwartz, anyone? -- they could be half-hour test patterns and they'd still feel like an improvement.

Still, the list of this month's new TV comes with some big names, including Denis Leary, James Garner, Hank Azaria, Chris Isaak and more. So anybody who thinks there's nothing worth watching on TV in January just isn't trying.

I couldn't review Queer as Folk because Showtime didn't get a review tape out quickly, and I'm saving reality series for another day. But here's a guide to what's working and what isn't among the newbie scripted series making their debuts during the next couple of weeks.

DON'T MISS THESE

Sex and the City returns at 9 tonight on HBO.

Besides providing overpaid actors and writers with three more years of Range Rover payments, last year's averted Hollywood strike also left HBO with some potent new comedy to welcome in the new year. Already, we've seen Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw agree to marry off-again, on-again boyfriend Aidan (Northern Exposure's John Corbett), but the new episodes find Carrie chafing under her cohabitation arrangement. By the season's end, she'll have resolved her relationship with Aidan and the elusive Mr. Big in a way that will surprise no one.

Instead, the biggest surprise here is that after 31/2 seasons of sex jokes and urban cynicism, SATC writers find unexpected directions for Carrie and her three fashionista galpals. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) finds her relationship with Trey (guest star Kyle MacLachlan) capped off by a thoughtless gift. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) must decide how to raise a baby with her ex-boyfriend, and sex-crazed, noncommittal Samantha (Kim Catrall) finally falls in love. After watching these episodes, you may hope the actors' union threatens a strike every year.

Will it survive? Don't you want to see whether self-involved-yet-earnest Carrie winds up with easygoing Aidan or Manhattan smoothie Mr. Big?

Oz returns at 10 tonight on HBO.

As an explicit drama about life in a maximum security prison, HBO's Oz has flown under the industry's radar for too long, marginalized by creator Tom Fontana's skill at shaping spellbinding TV that's often difficult to watch. Consider tonight's episode -- the first of eight new shows this season -- a powerful story about family and reconciliation that features male full frontal nudity and a scene showing human feces.

Oz is reopening after a gas explosion that closed last season's shows, and relatives are headed to the jail for long overdue visits. The prison is on edge as black Muslim leader Karim Said (Eamonn Walker) returns to the general population after shanking white supremacist Vern Schillinger (J.K. Simmons). Fontana and his onscreen crew -- which this season will include Kiss drummer Peter Criss and a return visit from Beverly Hills 90210's Luke Perry -- again combine creative storytelling and Shakespeare-level intrigue with the down-and-dirty details needed to outline the lives of those on society's bottom rung.

Will it survive? Longer than the fat guy who couldn't stop crying in The Shawshank Redemption.

The Chris Isaak Show returns at 10:45 p.m. tonight on Showtime.

If this quirky, impressive comedy were airing on HBO, Isaak would be drowning in critical acclaim and Emmy nominations by now. But since he's stuck on pay cable also-ran Showtime, sorta-rockabilly popster Isaak is instead working the underground comedy hit of 2001, back for its sophomore season. Ostensibly, it's about the life of a popular San Francisco-based rocker who happens to be named Chris Isaak. But this TV comedy touches every genre without fully inhabiting any.

As the second season opens, Isaak is smitten with a comely rock journalist (played by a comely Bridget Fonda) who is writing a book about Roy Orbison. He makes up stories about Orbison's adventures as a pilot and crawfish chef, just to spend time with her. Later on, as his drummer learns dating a beautiful girl isn't worth a night of wrestling videos and Cheez Whiz, Isaak's manager struggles with jealousy over the rocker's new relationship.

Viewers learn how a show can be a romantic comedy, urban comedy, rock 'n' roll comedy and absurdist comedy all rolled into one. Especially if your lead is the quirky, engaging Isaak -- who makes comedy acting look like just another effortless stop on the way to an inevitable VH1 Behind the Music special.

Will it survive? Considering how little luck Showtime has had crafting quality comedies, it had better.

The Job returns at 9:30 p.m. Jan. 16 on WFTS-Ch. 28.

A nun who likes placing her foot in certain, um, sensitive areas of the body. A soup vendor who may or may not have used his girlfriend's severed head to flavor the daily special. A 12-year-old schoolgirl who uses a scatological term for hassling men she doesn't like.

Considering the subjects at the heart of Denis Leary's sidesplitting new comedy about New York police detectives, it's amazing this show is on the air at all, let alone that it's actually funny. But Leary and producer Peter Tolan (The Larry Sanders Show) come off like a TV-MA take on Barney Miller, balancing the absurdity of the precinct's detectives with the absurdity of their environment.

Two of the three new episodes given to critics wisely play down the personal quirks of Leary's acerbic Detective Mike McNeil -- an unrepentant married womanizer with a taste for controlled substances -- and play up a crack ensemble that includes Bill Nunn (Regarding Henry) as his long-suffering partner Pip and comic Lenny Clarke as a rotund veteran angling for early retirement. Just watching Clarke fret about whether the soup he ate had "special ingredients" -- "That's got to be a mortal sin, right?" -- will make you laugh and groan almost at once.

Will it survive? Airing after the fading Drew Carey Show against NBC powerhouse The West Wing? That's a job almost no one could handle.

WORTH A LOOK OR TWO

Imagine That makes its debut at 8 p.m. Tuesday on WFLA-Ch. 8.

He has played everything from a gay Latino houseboy (The Birdcage) to more than 15 different characters on The Simpsons (my favorites: convenience store owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and bar owner Moe Szyslak). Now character actor extraordinaire Hank Azaria is taking on the toughest challenge of his career: Emeril's old time slot. In Imagine That, Azaria is Josh Miller, a TV writer whose fantasy life leads to Walter Mitty-style sequences featuring other characters also played by Azaria (in this week's debut, he's a macho therapist who hands Josh a beer during therapy and urges his wife to, um, indulge him a little more).

The pilot suffers from a few too many generic TV sitcom gags and plot points you can see coming down Hollywood Boulevard. (See Josh demand his boss give him credit for writing a sketch just before it bombs!) Still, the cast is interesting, including Chicago Hope's Jayne Brook and Married . . . With Children's Katey Sagal. And the writers manage a workplace comedy about a TV writer that doesn't feel too much like inside baseball.

Will it survive? Tuesdays at 8 p.m. doesn't offer much comedy competition, but Azaria's got to win back legions of fans who got used to avoiding Emeril and Three Sisters on NBC Tuesdays.

JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment debuts at 8 p.m. Jan. 13 on WTTA-Ch. 38.

In another transparent bid to hook into the "reality TV" phenomenon, the WB has commissioned this series featuring character dude Jamie Kennedy (Scream, Three Kings), who dons disguises to fool real people in contrived situations. In one segment, he's a corporate executive with his mouth propped open (ostensibly by recent jaw surgery) drooling all over a job candidate. Next, he's a weasely infomercial star who alienates an entire audience by lying about the cause of an onstage mishap.

At the end of every gag, Kennedy comes clean, pointing out the cameras and encouraging a good laugh. There are some interesting moments here: watching the job applicant using a dentist's tool to suck spit out of the executive's mouth is a highlight. But too much of this feels like a Candid Camera ripoff, aimed at audiences too young to know the real deal.

Will it survive? With cellar-dwelling Sunday ratings, the WB is a network of beggars that can't be choosy here.

First Monday premieres at 9 p.m. Jan. 15 on WTSP-Ch. 10, moving to 9 p.m. Fridays on Jan. 18.

It has famous faces that include James Garner, Joe Mantegna and Charles Durning. And it's set in the highest court of the land.

So why is First Monday so boring?

Perhaps it's because producer Don Bellisario (JAG) can't resist turning his characters into either self-righteous liberals or moustache-twirling conservatives. Mantegna is newly appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joe Novelli, a personable free thinker whose liberal leanings bring him into quick conflict with conservative Chief Justice Thomas Brankin (Garner). The predictable cadre of young law clerks carry uninteresting side plots that are mostly a vain attempt to snare young viewers. (Imagine a teenager turning off MTV's Total Request Live to see a drama about the Supreme Court!) And the pilot episode's core case -- a death penalty appeal for a retarded man who was 17 when he committed the crime -- is predictable down to the twist at the end. Slip these guys an old West Wing script so they'll learn how to support liberal ideas in a TV drama without obviously slapping their thumbs on the scales.

Will it survive? C.S.I. aside, Fridays haven't been good to CBS in recent years, and an older-skewing drama about the Supreme Court won't change that much.

THE WORST

Glory Days makes its debut at 9 p.m. Jan. 16 on WTTA-Ch. 38.

Developed by Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson, this series feels like a therapy session set to an MTV-ready soundtrack. Eddie Cahill (Rachel's too-young boyfriend on Friends) is Mike Dolan, who ticked off his hometown by writing a popular book loosely based on the death of his dad in the island community of Glory. In case the ties to Williamson's Dawson's Creek experience aren't obvious enough, he fills Glory Days with too-pretty people (even the town coroner could pass as a Playboy bunny) and too-outlandish situations.

Somehow, Dolan winds up investigating a suspicious death with Glory's sheriff, who was the writer's best friend but felt betrayed by his book. By the first episode's end, Dolan has helped interrogate murder suspects, punched a killer in the face and tricked a staffer at the newspaper his family owns into publishing a false story just to bait a possible killer. And you thought Quincy was a busy guy.

Will it survive? Thanks to NBC's The West Wing, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. isn't the best place to be these days. The WB will have to produce better stuff than Glory Days -- which is taking Felicity's time slot for the next several weeks -- to make a dent in that dynamic.

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