With 32 new shows set to kick off in the next couple of months, City thought you might require some sort
of guide to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
           Otherwise, how would you be able to
tell the difference between Do Over (WB, 8:30 p.m. Thursday) and
That
Was Then (ABC, 9 p.m. Friday)? They’re both shows about disenchanted
adult males who take a blow to the head and wake up only to find themselves
back in high school (each also offers rousing student government election
speeches).
           You might not be able to distinguish
repeats from remakes, such as Family Affair, (WB, 8:30 p.m.
Thursday), and The Twilight Zone, (UPN, 9 p.m. Wednesday); spin-offs from
originals (CSI: Miami, 10 p.m. Monday); or even notice that a few new
sitcoms are thinly veiled rehashes of popular films. In-Laws, (NBC, 8 p.m.
Tuesday) is Meet the Parents, while The
Haunted (UPN, 9 p.m. Tuesday) is basically The Sixth Sense, with Matthew Fox playing an adult version of Haley
Joel Osment.
           How’s this for a statement about the
quality of this year’s new shows? I’ve seen about two-thirds of them and only
felt the need to turn two of them off — Still Standing (CBS, 9:30 p.m.
Monday) and The Grubbs (Fox, 9:30 p.m. Sunday).
           But they’re both four-camera
comedies about unfunny families with irritating fathers (Mark Addy and Randy
Quaid, respectively) married to moms who ought to be able to do much better in
the partner department (Jamie Gertz and Carol Kane, respectively). And what was
the last show like that worth watching?
           Here’s a bulletin I don’t remember
seeing on the evening news: Apparently reality television — unless it’s
already an established hit — is dead, at least on network television. Sure,
things like Survivor and The Amazing Race are back this fall, but
there aren’t any new reality shows on the slate (comparatively, there were
around a half-dozen last year).
           The closest thing we have this year
is Push,
Nevada (ABC, 9 p.m. Thursday), a Ben Affleck-produced series that plays
like a normal mystery (here, an IRS agent tries to track down a pile of missing
money), but there’s a pretty novel twist — if attentive viewers can solve the
show’s many riddles and puzzles, they can actually track down — and win —
the money themselves.
           While the reality craze may be
waning, the whole cop/doctor/lawyer thing just won’t die. Last year was bad
enough, when eight new shows featuring at least one of the aforementioned
professions were incorporated into the fall lineup, but there are 11 debuting
this year — and that’s not counting the unconventional crime fighters (like Birds
of Prey and John Doe, but more on them later).
           Remember back in ’94, when two
Chicago-based hospital shows (ER and Chicago Hope) went head-to-head on
Thursday nights? Well, it’s happening again this year on Wednesdays at 10 p.m.
with Presidio
Med (CBS) and MDs (ABC). Both are set in San
Francisco, and while the former is more female-oriented, with a cast including
Dana Delany, Blythe Danner, Julianne Nicholson and Sasha Alexander, the latter
highlights two renegade, HMO-hating male docs (William Fichtner and John
Hannah) and promises they’ll be just like Hawkeye and Trapper John.
           While there aren’t too many new
shows about lawyers (David E. Kelley’s girlsclub is all there is .. .and,
frankly, all we need), there are enough cop shows debuting to make a donut shop
owner plan his retirement.
           Three are set in Los Angeles — Fastlane (Fox, 9 p.m. Wednesday), Boomtown (NBC, 8 p.m. Sunday), and Robbery
Homicide Division (CBS, 10 p.m. Friday). Fastlane, which stars Peter Facinelli and Bill Bellamy, has one of
the better pilots of the year. It was directed by Charlie’s Angels‘ McG, so I fear the quality will drop off starting
with Episode 2, and he isn’t behind the camera.
           Boomtown has an interesting premise — the same story shown through the eyes of about a
dozen different characters — which worked rather well in the first episode. RHD wasn’t available to view, but it was
created by Michael Mann (Ali, The Insider) and stars Tom Sizemore.
           Coming in a distant fourth to the
cop/doctor/lawyer thing are television shows about television shows (adding to
this summer’s terrific Breaking News on Bravo). Life With Bonnie (ABC, 9 p.m. Tuesday) is Bonnie Hunt’s second
attempt to turn her crackerjack improvisational skills into a sitcom hit
(following 1995’s The Bonnie Hunt Show).
She plays the host of a Regis & Kelly-type
show, and the interviews she conducts are completely unscripted.
           Immediately following Bonnie is Less Than Perfect (ABC,
9:30 p.m. Tuesday), which is about a temp secretary (Sara Rue) who becomes the
assistant to a news anchor (Eric Roberts). And Good Morning Miami (NBC,
9:30 p.m. Thursday) is set on yet another morning show and comes to you from
the creators of the shockingly overrated Will
& Grace.
           It’s pretty easy to spot some of
this coming season’s hits, whether based on pedigree (CSI: Miami) or placement on the schedule (Good Morning Miami is sandwiched between Will & Grace and ER),
but what other sleepers may be lurking out there?
           Without a Trace (CBS, 10 p.m.
Thursday) has both the lineage (it’s executive-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer)
and the potentially cherry time slot (following Bruckheimer’s CSI), as well as a great cast that
features two Aussies (Anthony LaPaglia and Poppy Montgomery) and a Brit
(Marianne Jean-Baptiste) playing Americans. It’s about agents in the Missing
Persons Department of the FBI, making Trace seem like it was ripped right out of yesterday’s newspaper headlines.
           Hardly anybody stays home to watch
television on Friday nights, so it’s tough to say whether Hack (CBS, 9 p.m. Friday)
and Robbery
Homicide Division can pull in viewers. Hack, which was created by Panic
Room/Spider-Man screenwriter
David Koepp, stars the usually reliable David Morse as a
disgraced-police-officer-turned-cab-driver who pulls double shifts, takes
amphetamines and fights crime like some kind of badly dressed superhero.
           But don’t confuse Hack with John Doe (Fox, 9 p.m. Friday), which is about a regular citizen
(Dominic Purcell) who catches bad guys despite contending with a Bourne Identity-sized case of amnesia.
Instead of being able to beat copious amounts of ass like Jason Bourne, Mr. Doe
knows the answer to every question in the world … except who he is.
           And speaking of superheroes, all you
fans of the DC Universe better hold on to your hats (and, god help us, your
capes). Birds of Prey (WB, 9 p.m.
Wednesday) is a deliciously dark look at the lives of Barbara Gordon (read:
Batgirl), Helena Kyle (read: the daughter of Batman and Catwoman) and Harleen
Quinzel (read: Harley Quinn, the Joker’s girlfriend). The bad news is that WB
is probably going to lighten it up a bit. Well, that and the last-minute change
from Sherilyn Fenn to Mia Sara in the Quinzel role.
           On Sunday nights, you can kick it
all the way back to the ’60s, starting with Oliver Beene (Fox, 7:30
p.m. Sunday), a funny Wonder Years knockoff complete with pre-pubescent protagonist (Grant Rossenmeyer), suburban
’60s setting, weird older brother and Winnie Cooper-esque girl. When that’s
over, switch over to American Dreams (NBC, 9 p.m.
Sunday), a look at how the turbulent early ’60s affects a large Irish-American
family in Philadelphia. Despite casting Joey Lawrence as a recurring character,
it’s the kind of warm family show Sunday night hasn’t seen since Life Goes On ceased to go on any longer.
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2002.
