It`s a great, perhaps even overdue, notion: to spoof the proliferating reality cop shows. But the realization is only modestly successful, taking, as network TV so frustratingly often does, a weak satirical attack.
Watching ”Arresting Behavior,” a summer series premiering at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday on ABC-Ch. 7 before falling into a regular 8:30 p.m. Wednesday slot, makes one yearn for the off-the-wall sensibilities and off-the-wall sting of Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker, the funny folks behind the movies
”Airplane!” and ”Naked Gun” and the TV series treat ”Police Squad.”
Set in a place called Vista Valley-California, of course-”Arresting Behavior” has a fairly good feel for some of the confessional philosophizing and up-close camera angles that form the foundation of such real-cops-in-action shows as ”Cops” and ”American Detective.”
This show`s star, Leo Burmester, bears more than a passing gray-haired resemblance to ”AD” host Lt. John Bunnell.
But as officer Bill Ruskin, Burmester plays a straight arrow, pot-bellied boy in blue who, in the premiere, becomes the brunt of station house humor
(such as it is) because he was unable in foot pursuit to catch a thief who was toting a large-screen television.
Bumbling is the byword, as Ruskin and his partner, the rather dense hunk Donny Walsh (Ron Eldard), are unable to get a baby out of the car in which its mother has locked it; have to be towed when their squad car konks out; and fail to notice a red car all officers have been instructed to stop.
Other cops get in the action, most interestingly (if not amusingly)
Donny`s brother Pete (Chris Mulkey), a macho copper who appears on the brink of a nervous breakdown or the murder of an innocent citizen.
The cameras move between the silliness on the streets and the domestic travail of the officers. Ruskin`s family is a disfunctional brood along the lines of the Bundys, but without the sass and energy.
The wife is gossipy, the daughter has questionable taste in boyfriends and sexual habits, and one of the sons is constantly starting fights.
The balance between street and hearth is an awkward one, resulting in such how-did-this-get-here? plot twists as Ruskin`s trying to figure out what to get his wife for her birthday and his trying to get concert tickets for his daughter.
This family-concentration does not allow full attention to be given to the potentially richer satirical material of the squad car and crime. And it`s piled on with domestic subplots percolating: Pete`s estrangment from wife and kids and, most homophobically, Pete`s and Donny`s sister`s gay relationship.
The acting is never broad enough to succeed-where`s Robert Stack when he`s needed?-and the first two episodes strive for some sort of warm and fuzzy feeling amid the suspicious satirical intent.
– ”Trouble in Tahiti” (8 p.m. Tuesday, Arts & Entertainment cable network) may sound like some fairly predictable man-is-ruining-paradise-wi th- pollution documentary, cans on the beach, odors in the tropical air.
It isn`t. It is rather a handsome presentation of the rarely seen Leonard Bernstein opera, a jazzy take on a suburban couple living an empty life in their little white house. First performed in 1952, it`s an interesting, clever and engaging piece.
– The video dating service, an empty innovation of the 1980s, is used almost exclusively in made-for-TV movies as a harbinger of mayhem.
In ”Ladykiller” (8 p.m. Wednesday, USA cable), a lonely thirtysomething woman who has stopped being a street cop to work as an evidence technician does the video thing. And even though she doesn`t like having herself taped for consumption by anonymous potential suitors, you just know there`s trouble ahead for Michael Madison (Mimi Rogers).
You know this even when handsome stranger and video-dating dude Jack Packard (John Shea) shows up at Michael`s doorstep at midnight with a bouquet of flowers and a slick rap. You know this even when Michael and Jack engage in some very steamy sex; after Michael connects Jack to a couple of female murder victims; after Michael meets Jack`s wife and. . . .
By that time you`ll also know that this is another clunking failure from USA`s movie factory.
