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This week's TV premieres are strictly from Tupperware there are a few tantalizing new shows on the horizon: Fox's "Millennium" (the latest sci-fi series from Chris "X-Files" Carter), CBS's crime drama "EZ Streets," which looks like a cross between "Wiseguy" and "Crime Story," ABC's "Relativity," a relationship drama from Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick ("thirtysomething," "My So-Called Life"). But this week's premiere menu is mostly institutional lunchroom fare. ABC's sitcom "Townies" (Wednesday, September 18, check local listings for all times) stars career-stalled former "Breakfast Club" member Molly Ringwald as the Courteney Cox figure in a blue-collar "Friends" set in the seaside town of Gloucester, Mass. The pilot was heavy on jokes about Catholicism and fish. ABC's "Clueless" (Friday, September 20) is a not-bad series version of the movie, except for one teensy problem -- no Alicia Silverstone. A look-alike named Rachel Blanchard gamely takes on the role of preternaturally wise Beverly Hills teen Cher Horowitz. Stacey Dash reprises her movie role as Cher's best pal Dionne, and Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed the film, is the series' executive producer. Which accounts for the faithfulness to the original's loopy vernacular, wiggy fashions and generally sweet vibes. But lose that laugh track -- it's as out of place in this location-filmed show as a K mart on Rodeo Drive. Over at CBS, "Promised Land" (Tuesday, September 17) is a spinoff from the relentlessly inspiring "Touched by an Angel." Gerald McRaney plays a man who loses his job and, in a '90s twist on "The Grapes of Wrath," hits the road with his family to seek a better life, bringing hope and joy to the little folks they meet along the way. Whatever. Also on CBS, "Moloney" (Thursday, September 19), stars Peter Strauss as an LAPD shrink and divorced dad. "Moloney" is on opposite "Seinfeld" in most cities. "Moloney" hasn't got a prayer. CBS's best chance for a hit sitcom this season is "Pearl" (Monday, September 16), which transforms Rhea Perlman from perennial supporting player (albeit one with three supporting actress Emmys) to starring diva. As widow Pearl Caraldo, Perlman is still playing a feisty blue-collar Carla Tortelli-type, but with bigger dreams and a toned-down vocabulary. Dissatisfied with her job at an electrical repair company, Pearl enrolls in the local college, which, she notes, is 4.2 miles from her house -- "exactly the distance from Kansas to Oz." The pilot episode's warm-fuzzy quotient is distressingly high. At school, Pearl engages in class warfare with arrogant humanities professor Stephen Pynchon (Malcolm McDowell, in a very Kelsey Grammar-ish performance). It's "Educating Rita" with a New York accent. Their verbal sparring and attraction/repulsion is mildly amusing and strictly by-the-numbers. You know they'll be kissing by the season-ending cliffhanger. Perlman is energetic as usual but she was so much more effective as a champion of the working class when she was putting snobs in their place with a bar tray upside the head. And what's with the throwaway casting of Carol Kane, overacting mightily as Pearl's dim pal at the warehouse? If this is some kind of bizarre "Taxi" in-joke/deja vu thing, wake me up when Perlman summons the prankish ghost of Andy Kaufman. NBC is pushing Brooke Shields Hash. Main ingredient: one leftover ingenue whose movie career is colder than yesterday's mashed potatoes. Shields showed a surprising flair for broad comedy when she guested on "Friends" last season as Joey's obsessed fan. But does that mean Shields can carry her own show? The pilot of Shields' "Suddenly Susan" (Thursday, September 19, following "Seinfeld") has so far been re-cast, re-written and re-shot. Which is industry code for, "We can't do anything about the real problem so let's work around her and maybe nobody'll notice." Shields' love interest on the show is played by yet another "Breakfast Club" star with career problems -- Judd Nelson. There's hope for Emilio Estevez yet! Also on NBC: The sitcom "Something So Right" (Tuesday, September 17) stars Mel Harris, who played Hope on "thirtysomething" -- possibly the most humorless character in the history of television who was not a Vulcan. "Men Behaving Badly" (Wednesday, September 18) features Ron Eldard ("ER") and Rob Schneider ("Saturday Night Live") as two dumb horny slob roommates. "The Pretender" (Thursday, September 19) is some sort of "Quantum Leap"-type thing. "Profiler" (Saturday, September 21) is a "Silence of the Lambs" ripoff. I'd have more to say about these NBC shows, but the people who supply the press with advance copies of pilots over there, and who may or may not believe the Internet exists, very pleasantly told Salon that, Oops, they just ran out of tapes, which is like saying, Oops, I just lost the recipe for ice. So, watch NBC's new Must See TV. Or don't. |
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