Norman Lear, burdened by the fact that he was once the man behind a show that transformed the nature of television comedy, has had every one of his sitcom products held up to unfair comparison with his ”All in the Family.”
Lear`s last venture, the older-man/younger-woman ”Sunday Dinner,” was a crushing ratings failure, dumped after only six episodes last summer.
What a minor miracle that the producer returned so quickly-and in such fine, wicked form-with ”The Powers That Be” (premiering as a one-hour special in the show`s regular 7:30 p.m. Saturday slot on NBC-Ch. 5, where it begins as a half-hour show next week).
Taking its often stinging satirical jabs at that frayed, often fatuous institution known as American politics, this is comedy that`s subversive not just at the edges but at its very core.
And that`s where we find a classic ”empty suit” in the handsome, gray-haired form of Sen. Bill Powers (John Forsythe), awakening from a nightmare in which newscaster Faith Daniels is reporting that he lost his re-election bid because he has no integrity.
”You`re as moral as any man in Washington,” says the attractive blond in bed with Powers.
”Darn,” he says, his watch alarm sounding. ”I`ve got to call my wife.”
The woman in bed (Eve Gordon) is Powers` administrative assistant. His wife (Holland Taylor) we meet later, while she`s in the midst of orchestrating her husband`s announcement that he`ll run for a fifth term.
Quickly we meet the rest of the gang: the Powerses` anorexic daughter, Caitlyn (Valerie Mahaffey); her suicidal congressman husband (David Pierce);
their son (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who shouts, ”Mom, I`m not a photo opportunity”; and Powers` tightly wound press secretary (Peter MacNicol).
Add the Powerses` cowering maid (Elizabeth Berridge), who is constantly in danger of being slapped by Mrs. Powers, and you`ve got as delightfully dysfunctional a clan as there has been on TV since ”Soap.”
These characters are drawn with broad strokes, none broader than Sophie
(Robin Bartlett), Powers` 37-year-old money-grubbing, loud-mouthed, flashy love child from a 1950s liaison. But broad strokes are needed to paint colorfully on the political canvas.
Although Forsythe, in gesture and word, evokes Ronald Reagan and Holland`s icy ambition says ”Nancy,” the show appears to be otherwise pretty impartial and unspecific in its aim-all game is fair. It`s wonderfully silly and pleasingly mean-spirited, much like the world its seeks to satirize.
– If you can`t swallow the idea, let alone the sight, of Joanna Kerns
(the mom on ”Growing Pains”) as a Southern seductress, you are going to have a very hard time getting into ”The Nightman” (8 p.m. Sunday, NBC-Ch. 5).
The film is directed by former ”Hill Street Blues” copper Charles Haid, with an abundance of arty angles. It sets up a familiar, if sordid, love triangle involving Kerns, as the 37-year-old widow Eve, who runs a fading summer resort on the shores of a Georgia lake; Jenny Robertson as daughter Maggie, 17 and yearning for carnal experiences; and Ted Marcoux as 27-year-old Vietnam veteran Tom, who arrives to take the job as night manager of the resort, not fully aware of all his duties.
The tale is told in flashbacks, which tip us off to the fact that Tom has been serving a lengthy prison term for the murder of Eve and that Maggie has grown up to be a doctor, worried that Tom is out of jail and stalking her.
The flashbacks take us back to the sweaty summer when mother and daughter both coveted Tom`s bare-chested attentions. Both were successful, forcing the inevitable jealous confrontation. There was a gun. There was a bang. There was a body.
The film`s ending unveils a silly secret and, throughout, the acting is mediocre, with Kerns almost laughable as she utters, ”I`m a woman who needs a man”; Robertson is hard to believe as a teen; and Marcoux, just a hunk.
They are all-in one of the film`s curiosities-good at smoking cigarettes. I haven`t seen this much smoking in a movie since ”Backdraft.” It`s as if the writers were trying to tell us something: smoking as sexual metaphor. Phooey.
– Another sort of love triangle is explored, with a bit more sensitivity, in ”In Sickness and in Health” (8 p.m. Sunday, CBS-Ch. 2).
At its center, in a wheelchair, is Anita (Lesley Ann Warren), a women with chronic, progressive multiple sclerosis who has been married to the same devoted man, Jarrett (Tom Skerritt), for 20 years. Into their lives comes Mickey (Marg Helgenberger), a new caretaker whose warmth has good and bad results.
It makes Anita feel less gloomy, but it stirs sexual-romatic feelings in Jarrett. What to do? Jarrett feels guilty. Mickey feels guilty. After sleeping together, they feel really guilty.
Although the film tries to elicit feelings of pity for all the characters, caught in stormy emotional seas, it`s hard not to see all but Anita as self-indulgent whiners.
Warren is really very good. She makes her character`s sacrifices believable and even courageous. But she is surrounded by such guilt-ridden self-pity that the package is simply gloomy.
– An interesting, and pretty creepy, excursion into the animal kingdom is provided on ”ABC`s World of Discovery” in ”Realm of the Serpent” (6 p.m. Sunday, ABC-Ch. 7). Those of you who get squeamish around snakes should be warned: You`ll see hundreds of them. Snakes slithering. Snakes being born. Snakes that live in trees. Snakes that eat rats or kill alligators. All sorts of snakes, from the rattler to the anaconda.
The show is narrated by E.G. Marshall and written by Nicolas Noxon with a literary touch: ”Snakes are what nightmares are made of.” We get some history of snakes as symbols in various cultures and religions, and, perhaps most chillingly, see people who like to eat snakes and others who drink their blood.
”THE POWERS THAT BE”
A new NBC series. An Act III Television, Castle Rock Entertainment and Columbia Pictures Television production. Executive producers Charlotte Brown and Mark E. Pollack; created by Marta Kauffman & David Crane; produced by Norman Lear. With John Forsythe, Holland Taylor, Eve Gordon, Peter MacNicol, Robin Bartlett, David Pierce and Valerie Mahaffey. Airing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday on WMAQ-Ch. 5.
