Never mind what the initials stood for, does anybody even remember “M.A.N.T.I.S.”?
This time last year, it was among the newcomers dolled up for the fall-season dance, ever so hopeful that viewers would tap it on the shoulder. Instead, it, like most of the freshmen, got the cold shoulder.
This year promises the greatest number yet of shows going home to cry in their pillows, for the Big Four networks, in their infinite impatience and volatility, are offering up a heaping 34 new prime-time programs for fall, 23 of them sitcoms.
The Group of ’95-96–“Class” overstates it–includes the sublime and the subliterate, ABC’s crackling “Murder One” and Fox’s shrill “The Crew.”
But the old assumptions about networks no longer hold. Ratings-starved CBS has moved from Tiffany to Tupperware: Its great new hope is Andrew Clay. The classiest new sitcom, meanwhile, is on Fox: “Partners.”
For more about the embarrassment of new shows, turn to Page 4. And in halfhearted homage to newcomer “Dweebs,” I’ll be talking fall TV at 8 p.m. Tuesday on America Online in Chicago Online’s Windy City Chat II.
STEVE JOHNSON LOOKS AT WHAT’S NEW ON TV ’95
SUNDAY
“Space: Above and Beyond” (6 p.m., Fox): Set, luckily, in the place where no one can hear you scream. This series about galaxy-hopping Top Guns, 70 years hence, is interstellar folderol. Characterization, not gadgetry, makes these things work. And the alien costumes make you think there may have been a special at the Ed Wood warehouse.
“Brotherly Love” (6 p.m., NBC): Q. How many Lawrence brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and the other two to grow their hair and eyebrows. That’s not very funny, and the show deserves more respect than the camera-courting family often gets. Matt, as a 15-year-old, does teen insecurity proud. Little Andy, as his 7-year-old brother, isn’t just cute. And big brother Joey, playing their half-brother coming to visit after their dad dies, is much more affecting as a real person than in the hunky dolt act from “Blossom.”
“Minor Adjustments” (6:30 p.m., NBC): Standup Rondell Sheridan plays a child psychologist, which gives him the chance to do a lot of overgrown-kid shtick that’s so cute it’s disendearing. The best moments in this pallid Cosby knockoff happen at the workplace. There, a quirky orthodontist from a neighboring office drops in to drop punchlines. And the receptionist is a strong comic presence too. Are you surprised to learn that Peter Bonerz, Jerry from “The Bob Newhart Show,” directed?
“Almost Perfect” (7:30 p.m., CBS): Almost good. There’s a feeling of desperation here that mimics the desperate rushes of dialogue that pour forth from Nancy Travis. As the lead character, a writer for the hot cop show “Blue Justice,” Travis has seen all her friends marry. She meets Kevin Kilner, a dishy prosecutor who says hers is “the best of the phony cop shows.” The sparks fly until the beepers go off. Travis and Kilner are both likable, but this one, in general, pushes its themes too hard too soon. At least the writing recognizes that sitcoms need to plumb the emotions as much as they need jokes.
“Too Something” (7:30 p.m., Fox): Eric Schaeffer and Donal Lardner Ward made the critically acclaimed independent film “My Life’s in Turnaround.” So now their lives are in prime time. The pilot for this buddy comedy starring the writers careened between quirky-fresh and familiar-flat–the definition of potential. Banking firm mailroom workers, they complain that people keep trying to promote them. Their twist on the slacker aesthetic–dream a different dream–is a welcome visitor to prime time, as are the radiogenic mugs of the stars. But the pilot needed fewer potholes and a quicker pace. Fox is retooling.
“Misery Loves Company” (8:30 p.m., Fox): NBC gives you, on Thursdays, “The Single Guy.” Fox, no fan of restraint, gives you five of them, male friends in different stages of non-partnership. No tape yet.
Critic’s comment: 7 p.m. Sunday is suddenly the most competitive time on television. With “Mad About You” and “Cybill” migrating there, every network now boasts a good show, and something will have to give. My guess: The big loser will be “Lois & Clark,” and “Cybill” may eventually whimper back to Mondays. “60 Minutes” needn’t quake in fear.
MONDAY
“Can’t Hurry Love” (7:30 p.m., CBS): But that needn’t stop you from trying, especially when “love” is defined as “sex.” In the first couple of minutes of this exploration of single life in New York City, the crass-innuendo spigot opens. It threatens to rust there. We learn more about the attitude of lead character Nancy McKeon (from “The Facts of Life”) toward her chest than we do about the characters’ relationships to each other. Welcome to the new CBS. Would you like a Wet-Nap?
“Partners” (8 p.m., Fox): It’s hard to believe this is on Fox and “Can’t Hurry Love” is on the onetime “Tiffany Network.” “Partners” is the season’s best new sitcom, a sophisticated, funny, entirely plausible show about a non-traditional TV threesome (i.e., a monogamous pair and their friend). Two architect pals (Tate Donovan and the talented Jon Cryer) try to cope when Donovan decides to marry sweetheart Maria Pitillo. Proof that a simple premise can be magic if the script sparkles. From “Friends” writers Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss and directed by sitcom master James Burrows.
“Ned and Stacey” (8:30 p.m., Fox): Thomas Haden Church, ex of “Wings,” gets his own pair in this show about an utterly unbelievable marriage of convenience between yuppie-scum ad exec Church and lefty-stereotype Village Voice reporter Deborah Messing. Get this: He needs a wife to get promoted, and she needs an apartment. This is not giddy enough in the early going to get you over the logical hurdle. And that N.Y.C. apartment joke should be drawing a pension, not sparking a series.
“If Not for You” (8:30 p.m., CBS): This is the one Haden Church boasted he turned down to do “Ned and Stacey.” Bad call, fella. At least I think/hope so. No preview tape was available, which means they’re either tinkering or scared. But this comes from Larry Levin (“The Larry Sanders Show,” “Bakersfield PD”), and the female lead is the delightful Elizabeth McGovern. A business type, she is half of a couple who discover they’re engaged to the wrong people.
Critic’s comment: In what may be “Murphy Brown’s” last year, CBS hopes to rebuild its Monday night, woman-centric powerhouse, though it’s hard to imagine fans of “Dave’s World” digging its replacement, “Love.” ABC counters with testosterone: Surprise holdover “The Marshal” moves to the pre-football slot. Watch “Partners,” the show that feels more like an NBC hit than anything new on NBC, and keep an eye on “If Not for You.”
TUESDAY
“John Grisham’s The Client” (7 p.m., CBS): Let’s see. In the early going of this extension of one of the speed typist’s bound products, we see two murders and learn who committed them. The suspense is killing me. JoBeth Williams plays recovering alcoholic Southern lawyer Reggie Love, the Susan Sarandon role in the movie. Ossie Davis (back from the movie) and John Heard are among the other talents wasted in this drama that crackles like a bowl of Rice Krispies left out all day.
“Hudson Street” (7:30 p.m., ABC): The pugnacious Tony Danza is back on series television. When I informed a friend of this, she said, “Lemme guess: Divorced, with kids, maybe a cop, lives in New York.” Wrong! New Jersey! Proof that you can give a palooka’s show a jazz theme but he’s still the same palooka. Danza’s an “anti-civil rights . . . reactionary.” His nemesis and partner-in-sexual-tension is Ivy League liberal police reporter Lori Loughlin, from “Full House.” ABC’s P.R. dares summon the phrase “Tracy-Hepburn.” Try low-rent Carville-Matalin.
“Pursuit of Happiness” (8:30 p.m., NBC): The Peacock’s golden comedy touch turns to stone. Tom Amandes (Eliot Ness from “The Untouchables”) is a Chicago lawyer whose wife gets laid off and whose beefy buddy informs him he’s gay. Through on-screen titles, we learn that at least 47 weeks pass in the pilot. It feels like 48–or 44 more than this show will last.
Critic’s comment: Tuesday is the big ABC-NBC battleground. “Hudson Street” won’t hold the audience of “Roseanne” (which bows out this year), so look for NBC’s “NewsRadio,” a fine add from late last season, to pick up steam.
WEDNESDAY
“Bless This House” (7 p.m., CBS): Well, well. Andrew Clay–whom one wag tagged “The Artist Formerly Known as Dice”–at 7 p.m. Isn’t America special? Clay’s last known address was under a rock of his own creation. Sadly, it wasn’t heavy enough to crush his celebrity. So, like a particularly pumped-up Jason, he has resurfaced to play a postman/family man. He can deliver the mail, but he can’t deliver a line. Cathy Moriarty (“Raging Bull”) is quite good as Madame Dice, but this cheap “Roseanne” knockoff doesn’t give her much to do.
“The Drew Carey Show” (7:30 p.m., ABC): ABC must believe deeply in this, since it’s stuffed lovingly between “Ellen” and “Grace Under Fire.” I’ve never caught the act of the title standup, but the bits he does here, as a Cleveland department store personnel worker, are uninspired and the show unfocused. Drive-through liquor stores, Drew? Still?
“Central Park West” (8 p.m., CBS): One gamble that has paid off for CBS, at least in preseason buzz. This chronicle of scandale among New York’s beautiful people is another tasty box of Meow Mix from Darren Star, creator of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place.” The new, slightly older nest of uncivil behavior is a monthly magazine, Communique. There’s a blatant John-John Kennedy character, his devilish nightlife columnist sister (Madchen Amick) and assorted other high-livers, club- and bed-hoppers, double-crossers and cross-dressers. Our lips are moist with anticipation. “I do what I like, when I like,” announces Amick to new boss Mariel Hemingway. Go, girl.
“The Naked Truth” (8:30 p.m., ABC): Star Tea Leoni has an impressive polish to her brass, and deft comic timing. But this show that casts her as a news photographer newly divorced from her publisher husband (and proudly taking no money) feels only half formed. To survive, she lands a job stalking glitterati for a tabloid. The celebrity jokes this inspires stumble like Foster Brooks at 2 a.m. But it’s produced by Brillstein-Grey, whose stable boasts some of TV’s sleekest animals. This one could go either way.
“Courthouse” (9 p.m., CBS): Patricia Wettig used to be in “thirtysomething.” Now she’s in “Courthouse,” a show that perhaps is so messy because it’s trying to thematically reflect the big-city hall of justice it portrays. Perhaps. Good work is hard to find.
Critic’s comment: Wednesday is CBS’ big adventure, the network’s showcase night in its attempt to lure younger viewers quickly. Some–with less faith in viewers than me–pick the Clay show as a hit, and the limp but popular “Dave’s World” moves over from Monday. But “Central Park West” is the most likely winner.
THURSDAY
“Charlie Grace” (7 p.m., ABC): Mark Harmon plays a divorced L.A. detective with a 12-year-old daughter and an ex-wife in legal trouble. No tape yet, but the preview clips looked pretty bleak.
“The Single Guy” (7:30 p.m., NBC): Jonathan (“Weekend at Bernie’s I and II”) Silverman is, surprisingly enough, unmarried. But his hitched friends are determined to fix that. Never having known nuptial bliss, Silverman tries to fend off the blind dates foisted on him by his paired-off pals. Have I been as clear about the premise as the pilot, which drives it into your skull, wraps it in duct tape, then seals the whole package in polyurethane? Silverman’s comic timing is a pleasant surprise in this professional, not unpleasant effort, but his unrelenting Christian Slater stage whisper is at first perplexing, soon maddening. And his hairstylist and sideburn teaser should be horsewhipped: With thickets like that, it’s no wonder he’s single. But let’s give NBC credit for making a place in its plush Thursday night schedule for a show that dares to explore the life of young adults in New York City. Crawl down off that programming limb this instant!
“The Crew” (7:30 p.m., Fox): Four flight attendants–two women, two men, one of them gay–in Miami. The network is rewriting, reshooting and adding a new character, rendering almost moot the dismal pilot it sent out.
“The Monroes” (8 p.m., ABC): William Devane is the patriarch of a tumultuous and tumescent Virginia political family in this throwback to the days of “Dynasty” and “Dallas.” Some good dialogue and the look of luxury, but hasn’t the time for this stuff passed?
“New York News” (8 p.m., CBS): This late, as yet unseen addition to CBS’ schedule will bring Mary Tyler Moore back to prime time as a newswoman, this time a newspaper editor nicknamed “The Dragon.” The tantalizing cast includes Madeline Kahn as a gossip columnist and Joe Morton as the managing editor.
“Caroline in the City” (8:30 p.m., NBC): You, gentle reader, may be perplexed by the title, wondering which city NBC could possibly mean. There are hundreds of them, after all, in the country. Consulting the network’s publicity, we see that . . . hey, it’s New York! Where do they come up with these wild ideas? Lea (“Back to the Future”) Thompson is popular cartoonist Caroline Duffy, whose semi-autobiographical product bears the same title as the show. Her new and determinedly unemotional colorist is the aptly named Malcolm Gets, for he gets to steal the show. Just when this starts to appear unredeemable–in large measure because Caroline is a blank-slate character and Thompson the same kind of actor–Gets will do something very funny, or a crystalline line will cut through the packaging. “Why is it every time you break up with a guy,” asks neighbor Amy Pietz, “I end up at a museum?”
“Murder One” (9 p.m., ABC): A TV critic liking a new Steven Bochco effort is as predictable as NBC setting a comedy in New York. In the instance of this yearlong chronicle of one celebrity murder case, the unusual has not occurred. “Murder One” shimmers in its pilot with intelligence, drama and dramatic possibility. Bald, pudgy Daniel Benzali is magnetic as the star defense lawyer and series focus.
Critic’s comment: “Murder One” vs. “ER” is the dramatic answer to the “Frasier”-“Home Improvement” battle and a boon to blank videocassette sales. If “Murder” had help, it might wound “ER.” It doesn’t, and NBC’s reign should continue. With the competition aiming young, “Murder, She Wrote” will probably do fine on its new night.
FRIDAY
“Dweebs” (7 p.m., CBS): So, what are the kids into these days? Computers? Well, darnit, let’s order up a show about that. Peter Scolari, from “Newhart,” is the revered, Gatesian founder of a hot software firm. Farrah Forke, ex of “Wings,” is the computer illiterate office manager who’ll try to socialize the nerds. The cartoonish idea is that if you understand technology you’re an asocial emotional incompetent–and vice versa.
“Strange Luck” (7 p.m., Fox): Fox’s search for a companion to “The X-Files” uncovers this chronicle of a guy to whom unusual things have happened since boyhood, when he was the only survivor of a plane crash. As Chance Harper, D.B. Sweeney brings the right blend of wonderment and willfulness to the role, and the first episode is slick and entrancing. But a steady diet of the extraordinary can grow routine.
“The Bonnie Hunt Show” (7:30 p.m., CBS): Second City alum Hunt is a small town Midwestern TV reporter who lands a job with a Chicago station. The show will incorporate the improvisationally-adept Hunt’s comedic interviews with real locals.
“American Gothic” (9 p.m., CBS): Shaun Cassidy (!) created and writes this promising, pop-Faulknerian tale of endangered life in a small South Carolina community. Steppenwolf’s Gary “Midnight Caller” Cole, as sheriff Lucas Buck, rules with a cheery facade, a black heart and a mastery of darkly amusing psychological manipulation. Lucas Black (“The War”) is haunting as young Caleb, whose sister’s murder sets the series in motion.
Critic’s comment: Cole is a joy, but absent a “Twin Peaks” publicity blast it’s hard to imagine his series finding a big audience. “Bonnie Hunt” bears watching. And a hearty welcome back to endangered species “Picket Fences” and “Homicide.”
SATURDAY
“The Jeff Foxworthy Show” (7 p.m., ABC): A network wakes up to a phenomenon, giving a series to the popularizer of the “you might be a redneck if . . . ” series of jokes. Foxworthy plays a happily married father, a Southerner transplanted to Bloomington, Ind., who runs a new heating and air conditioning business. Anita Barone is his wife, a part-time nurse. He’s got yuppie neighbors, a hostile father-in-law and a home in a presumptuous subdivision named The Hunt Club at Avon. No tape yet.
“JAG” (7 p.m., NBC): The unfortunate acronym stands for Judge Advocate General, the Navy office from which two lawyers set forth to investigate crime in the service branch. David James Elliott and Andrea Parker play the young duo who, in the pilot, board an aircraft carrier to investigate the disappearance of the first female pilot to down enemy fighters in combat. Lots of sexy hardware and not a little promise, considering producer Don Bellisario has “Quantum Leap” and “Magnum, P.I.” on his resume. But episode one is a wee bit pat.
“Maybe This Time” (7:30 p.m., ABC): Not half bad, largely due to the wicked presence of Betty White. Playing a variation on her “Golden Girls” character, White gives what could have been treacle about three generations of women an edge. And Ashley Johnson, as her 10-something granddaughter, is zestily funny, too. Only Marie Osmond, as the newly divorced mom and daughter, lets the side down. Osmond and White run a coffee shop (where a windy Scottish character bogs proceedings down like a bagpipe soloist), and the oft-married White keeps trying to (re)marry Osmond off. The pilot is well written. Osmond asks mom whether she loved all her husbands equally. “In order,” says White, “it was one, three, five, two and four.” Osmond: “Isn’t that your Versa-Teller code?” White: “Well, it’s their money.”
“The Preston Episodes” (7:30 p.m., Fox): David Alan Grier from “In Living Color” is a newly divorced college prof who decides to pursue his dream of becoming a journalist. He can only land a job, though, on a People mag equivalent. See “The Naked Truth.” No tape.
“The Home Court” (8:30 p.m., NBC): Not only the fall’s most appealing new family comedy, but NBC’s most appealing new sitcom, created by two people with a “Wonder Years”/”Frasier” pedigree. The wonderful Pamela Reed (“Kindergarten Cop,’ “Junior”) is a no-nonsense Chicago family court judge handling 60 cases a day. At home, of course, she has trouble handling her brood of four, ages 11-19. Her ex is a presence only through his E-mail communiques. “I’m on line with Dad. He’s got a virus on the CPU,” says Reed’s 13-year-old son. Responds Reed: “That’s the single life.”
Critic’s comment: Saturday used to be date night. Now it’s divorce night. Look for “Foxworthy” to be a hit and ABC to put a dent in CBS’ family-friendly lineup. Fox cut its reality shows in half, but for what? PHOTO (color): “Murder One” (9 p.m. Thursdays on ABC) is new from Steven Bochco and it shimmers in its pilot.
