ER (10 p.m. Thursdays, NBC)   A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow Dog lovers heaven: the Westminster Kennel Club Show; Ally McBeal vs. God   Let barnesandnoble.com entertain you -- find hot titles on film, TV and more Search by:  Keyword Title Author       Y E S T E R D A Y Rushmore Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir Wes Anderson's new movie is a work of original comic genius (02/05/99) Get an afterlife By Joyce Millman Chris Elliott's long-lost cult sitcom is born again on home video (02/05/99) Neither a borrower ... By Craig Offman Were parts of the hit movie "Shakespeare in Love" lifted from an obscure 1941 novel? (02/05/99)   R E C E N T_. T E L E V I S I O N Get an afterlife By Joyce Millman Chris Elliott's long-lost cult sitcom is born again on home video (02/05/99) Movin' on down By Joyce Millman Eddie Murphy's "The PJs" puts TV's underrepresented blacks back in the ghetto (01/25/99) Chasing TV By Robin Dougherty No longer television's unsung hero, "Sopranos" creator David Chase talks about his mother, American entertainment and the mob mentality of the networks (01/20/99) Married... with hit men By Joyce Millman HBO's wily new series "The Sopranos" depicts the midlife anxieties of a devoted husband, father and Family man (01/11/99) TV 1998 By Joyce Millman Smits walks, "Felicity" stalks, Sammo rocks (12/21/98)   BROWSE THE TV ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES

[ J O Y C E_.M I L L M A N__O N_.T E L E V I S I O N ] -----Doc Hollywood ----------------------------------On "ER," George Clooney was more | ----------------------------than just a pretty face in the crowd.| George Clooney is not a doctor, but he plays one on TV. He's not an ex-con bank robber either, but he plays one in Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight." The weird thing is, he plays the doctor like an ex-con bank robber (daring, roguish, problems with authority) and the ex-con bank robber like a doctor. Take that scene in "Out of Sight," where he casually strolls up to a female bank teller, smiles a smile that puts crinkles in the corners of his black puppy dog eyes and tells her, in a quiet, butterscotch voice, to put as many hundreds, fifties and twenties as she can into a big yellow envelope. Throughout the stick-up (performed not with a gun, but with a convincing lie), he makes small talk with the teller, whispers soothing encouragement. In "Out of Sight" and "ER," his bedside manner is the same -- commanding, paternal, seductive. Clooney is either one of the cleverest actors around or a charming sham who can really only play George Clooney. Either way, you can't take your eyes off of him. Like John Travolta, Clooney has the aura of a sweet delinquent: You like him when he's being good and you like him even better when he's being bad. And like Travolta, Clooney has made some pretty awful movies. "One Fine Day"? "Batman and Robin"? But "Out of Sight" proves that with the right part and the right script and the right director, Clooney can deliver. He could have a nice, juicy movie career just playing beautiful rascals. First, though, Clooney has to finish being Dr. Doug Ross on NBC's "ER," a role he's played since the series premiered in 1994 and that he's quitting Feb. 18 to make movies and produce TV projects. In case you've never seen "ER" (maybe you've been studying wild apes in Borneo for the past five years), Doug is the show's bad boy. He's a (reformed) womanizer and a commitment-phobe, but he's also a great pediatrician who loves kids something fierce. He can't deal with adults, though. Doug has defied orders, broken rules and alienated co-workers in his mission to fix all the broken, dying, sick, abused, neglected and abandoned kids in Chicago. It's a doomed mission, of course, and he knows it. In a scene from an early episode, a surgeon suggests that pediatricians have it easy and Doug, who has had a very bad day, begs to differ. As usual, his tone is more world-weary and self-loathing than indignant: "This morning I had a little girl beat up her mom, and her mom is dead. Another kid with osteosarcoma is probably gonna lose his leg. Another one with cystic fibrosis is ... (He sighs.) It is the middle of winter, my apartment is freezing and the woman that I vaguely thought might stay with me said that I'm not the kind of guy that women marry. So, I'm gonna go shoot some hoops." What's eating Doug was never any big mystery; all the characters on "ER" schlep around their emotional and psychological baggage like passengers in an airport departure lounge. Doug's alcoholic, irresponsible, womanizing father was never there for him. End of story. But over the past couple of seasons, ever since he woke up next to a one-night-stand who was dying from a coke-induced seizure and he didn't even know her name, Doug has been working to clean up his act. He has gotten back together with nurse Carol Hathaway (the lovely, inscrutable Julianna Margulies), whom he drove to a suicide attempt in the series pilot, so, at least in his personal life, Doug (if not Carol) is evolving. N E X T_P A G E _| The consequences of following good intentions with bad choices - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.