Cable is the good life

With strikes averted, the networks actually have new shows to offer this summer. That's not the good news.

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 3, 2001

Over the new few weeks, you may hear some progressive-sounding words from network TV honchos.

They may say the flood of new programming headed your way this summer is an at-long-last acknowledgement that filling the summer with reruns in a cable-fed TV universe is slow, industrywide suicide.

Don't believe a word.

The real reason you'll see so much new summertime programming? The Hollywood Strike That Never Was.

Months ago, Hollywood insiders assumed that writers and actors would strike over contract issues this year, forcing networks to stockpile material in case work stoppages killed the traditional fall TV season.

And with no strike looming, guess what happens to all that stuff? That's right, it's burn-off time.

Fox began airing its lame-o creepfest FreakyLinks Friday at 9 p.m., ABC brings back its low-rated reality series about a boy pop group, Making the Band, at 8 p.m. next Friday, and CBS resurrects its hopeless Alfred Molina sitcom, Ladies Man.

Shows viewers haven't seen yet include NBC's Kristin, featuring Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth, Frank Langella in ABC's The Beast and NBC's reality show Fear Factor.

Cable TV always ramps up when the networks take their summertime snooze, so as broadcasters spit-shine their castoffs, cablers such as TNT, HBO and Showtime debut their most ambitious projects.

The marquee effort this month is Six Feet Under, a new HBO series created by Alan Ball, who wrote Oscar winner American Beauty (see related story, this section). Six Feet Under airs just after the return of the hit comedy Sex and the City.

But there's much more in store on cable, including So Little Time, a new series that debuted Saturday on Fox Family Channel, featuring Olsen twins Mary-Kate and Ashley; SpyderGames, a new soap debuting Monday on MTV; and the return of Showtime's Hispanic- and black-centered family dramas, Resurrection Blvd. and Soul Food.

Here are some of the new network and cable series coming this week and next:

Sex and the City

Debuts: 9 tonight on HBO.

HBO's four coquettes are in fine form tonight with a two-episode season debut (they actually made 18 half-hour episodes this year; expect a six-show run of new installments sometime this winter). Sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw turns 35 in the first episode -- one year later than the actor who plays her, Sarah Jessica Parker. In the second episode, she is tapped to walk the runway during a charity fashion show, later learning that balding ex-mayor of New York Ed Koch is the other non-model involved. Those who have warmed to the show's mix of bawdy humor and urban cool will relax into another season filled with outrageous sex jokes, oddball characters (including the return of Chris Noth's Mr. Big) and New York cultural myopia. Those who say the show's sophisticated veneer is just camouflage for its objectification of four sexy female stars will get plenty of new ammunition.

Kristin

Debuts: 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, WFLA-Ch. 8; airs at 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays afterward.

In the spirit of formulaic, uninspired situation comedy epitomized by NBC's The Fighting Fitzgeralds, we now get Kristin, which strands Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth in a pointless, stereotype-filled tale about a religious Oklahoma gal who becomes a secretary to rich, skirt-chasing Manhattan developer Tommy Balantine (Brooklyn South's Jon Tenney). A short list of Kristin's shortcomings: the Italian-American stereotypes embodied by Balantine and his assistant Aldo Bonnadonna; Balantine's predictably hopeless attraction to Kristin; the hick jokes about a character in an NBC comedy who dares to hail from outside the five boroughs; the Tweety Bird-on-helium voice Chenoweth brings to her character. At least the lack of a strike kept this turkey off the fall schedule.

Arli$$

Debuts: 9:30 p.m. June 10, HBO.

Since its debut in 1996, HBO's comedy about super sports agent Arliss Michaels has progressed from a major league annoyance to minor league entertainment, coasting along on star Robert Wuhl's oddball charm, an ace supporting cast and a knack for eye-catching athlete cameos (Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety John Lynch shows up in the June 17 episode, helping a character played by Kathryn Joosten, otherwise known as The West Wing's Mrs. Landingham). This season, Arliss helps a lesbian client have a baby and deals with his revulsion over an old flame's disfigurement. If that doesn't quite sound like the stuff of outrageous, farcical sports-based comedy, then you may understand why Arli$$ remains a cut below HBO's usually high standards.

Fear Factor

Debuts: 10 p.m. June 11 on WFLA.

It's hard to imagine NBC could find six adults stupid enough to think they could be seriously hurt on a prime-time TV show. But that seems the case in Fear Factor, a dose of reality TV that freaks out contestants by making them complete stunts playing to their worst fears for a $50,000 grand prize. Kicked off by a wooden,Jackass-style disclaimer from former NewsRadio co-star and host Joe Rogan (He says stunts should not be re-created by "anyone, anywhere, at any time."), the series features contestants dragged behind two galloping horses, stuck in a crevice with dozens of rats and scrambling over a wet car suspended hundreds of feet in the air. One by one, the competitors fail or quit, until one is left (conveniently for producers, the group never gets through a stunt without losing at least one player). Aping the mix of adrenaline rush and contrived competition pioneered by MTV's Fear and Road Rules shows, Fear Factor should draw legions of brainless young Jackass fans eager for a new outlet.

Witchblade

Debuts: 9 p.m. June 12 on TNT (last year's two-hour Witchblade movie airs again at 9 p.m. Tuesday)

Based on a comic book about a tortured New York police detective who fights evil with an ancient blade (of course, it transforms from an armored glove and sword into a cool-looking bracelet at will), TNT's Witchblade series follows a popular two-hour movie aired last year. Starring Yancy Butler as Detective Sara Pezzini, the series uses a tactic made popular by USA Network's La Femme Nikita: couching a weak, confusing story in way-cool visuals and a vast array of pinup-ready actors (including former Baywatch stud David Chokachi). The series debut follows Pezzini's efforts to catch a renegade ex-Special Forces soldier, but you won't really understand it, especially if you haven't seen the debut movie. Just kick back and dig the MTV-fast visuals, including a Matrix-inspired, freeze-frame motorcycle chase scene that almost makes the rest of the episode's tedium worth enduring.

The Beast

Debuts: 10 p.m. June 13, WFTS-Ch. 28.

To real journalists, it's a ludicrous premise: a 24-hour cable newschannel that also airs all its office politics and behind-the-scenes drama, courtesy of cameras installed throughout the office building. Frank Langella (Dave) plays media mogul Jackson Burns, architect of the World News Service, an outlet dedicated to exposing the "truth" behind the news. Actually, ABC'sThe Beast is a textbook example of how network TV can ruin an intriguing idea, casting pretty boy Jason Gedrick (Falcone, The Last Don) as swaggering Geraldo Rivera clone Reese McFadden, an anchor given to bratty outbursts, rugged-looking beard stubble and leather jackets. Instead of reinventing TV news, WNS substitutes showmanship for substance, as characters indulge in the same transparent rationalizations that have doomed real-life TV news. (A producer played by Peter Reigert vainly argues against televising an execution by saying, "Once you put something like this on television, it's just TV.") Impractical and silly -- would you work someplace where the bathroom was the only place not plastered on global TV? -- this show manages to trivialize both the death penalty debate and the dumbing down of TV news in one hour. How's that for a dose of TV-fed truth?

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