'Encore! Encore!' lives up to its name Revamped comedy starring Nathan Lane deserves a second look
Tuesdays this fall will be home to relatively few new TV shows, perhaps because ABC, NBC, Fox and the WB all have key programs crowding up the schedule, making it nearly impossible for new shows to break through. At 7, for instance, you're forced to choose between "King of the Hill," "Home Improvement," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Mad About You" and "Moesha. " Too bad those 4-head VCRs can't record four shows at once. Picks to click More, more! Believe me, that was the last thing I expected to say when I popped the long-awaited preview tape of "Encore! Encore! ", NBC's supposed stinker-in-the-making, in the VCR. The sitcom, featuring Nathan Lane ("The Birdcage") as an opera singer forced to retire and move back home with his family, earned hoots of derision when it was shown to advertisers in May. That pilot was quickly withdrawn, and TV critics saw not a trace of it or Lane all summer. Like Desdemona in Verdi's "Otello," this show appeared to be given the kiss of death. But in the fall's most pleasant surprise to date, the reconstituted "Encore! Encore! " turns out to be very much alive and easily the standout among NBC's otherwise cookie-cutter batch of new sitcoms. It makes its debut at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 41. Lane plays a wonderfully full-bodied twit; given time he might do for divas what Tony Randall once did for Type A personalities. Joan Plowright is the ideal foil as the mama. Besides getting in some good lines of her own, she serves a purpose by reining in Lane, whose carrying on at times threatens to get out of hand. What else is new Last week it was Sue Costello. This week it's D.L. Hughley's turn to try to become the latest stand-up comedian to launch a sitcom worth watching. Both need to try harder. "The Hughleys" (co-produced by Chris Rock and broadcast at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 9), about an upwardly mobile black family that moves to the all-white suburbs, has as outdated a view of race relations as "Costello" does of gender relations. But Hughley and Elise Neal ("Rosewood"), who plays his wife, are well-paired, and the show's middle-class bent makes it a good match with "Home Improvement." Maybe some good will come out of it, which is more than I can wish for "Costello." More promising is "Sports Night" at 8:30 on Channel 9, a smart, fast-paced sitcom purporting to show life behind the scenes at an ESPN-like sports news program. From writer Aaron Sorkin ("The American President"), it has personality to spare, so much that you forgive it for its romantic notion that a bunch of highly paid TV people constitutes a "family." CBS revives its Tuesday-night movie again at 8 with "Primal Fear," the 1996 thriller with Edward Norton and Richard Gere. And In two weeks UPN will introduce "Mercy Point," which has been described - when it has been described at all - as "ER in space." From a blood-and-guts perspective, that's accurate. Mercy Point is a 23rd-century spaceship that operates on both humans and aliens in trauma situations. Joe Morton (a.k.a. the third "Blues Brother") plays the head surgeon. The pacing, dialogue and (other than Morton) cast of characters fall well below that of "ER," no surprise there. In one week the WB rolls out possibly the most hype-addled show of the fall, "Felicity," starring Keri Russell as a young woman who thwarts her parents' perfect plan for her life by enrolling at New York University instead of Stanford. Now, NYU isn't exactly a school known for its slackers, and I can't imagine that many kids identifying with Felicity's contrived "dilemma. " But I wouldn't bet against the WB, which has a knack for hit teen dramas. One last new show, "Brimstone," is being held until Oct. 27 - presumably so the dark drama about a dead cop chasing souls loosed from hell can air during Halloween week. Either that or the show already has one foot in the grave. @ART CATPION:Joan Plowright and Nathan Lane in 'Encore! Encore! '
