Is AIDS too sacred for ABC? Fear of controversy prompted network to pull an episode of 'Nothing Sacred'

What are we to do with the folks who run the ABC network? Praise
them on high for bringing a controversial drama about Catholic faith
to television? Or boil them in oil for not airing one of that show's
many fine episodes because it featured a gay priest with AIDS?
Reports surfaced this month that ABC has been sitting on an
episode of "Nothing Sacred" titled "HIV Priest, Film at 11."
In it Father Ray (Kevin Anderson) learns that his old friend
from seminary days, who was keeping his HIV-positive status a secret,
has developed AIDS and in despair has run away from his parish
duties.
Until a few videotapes of the episode made it to newspaper
reporters, the "HIV Priest" episode seemed doomed to spending
eternity on the network shelf. But ABC officials are now promising to
try to work it onto the schedule this spring when "Nothing Sacred"
returns from yet another hiatus.
Having seen "HIV Priest," I'm not sure why ABC chose to hold
this episode, yet aired a much more incendiary episode on abortion
last fall.
John Michael Higgins is outstanding as AIDS-infected Father
Jesse. Higgins is probably best known to TV viewers for playing David
Letterman in the 1996 HBO movie "The Late Shift. " Here, as the
wisecracking Father Jesse, he is Trapper John to Ray's Hawkeye
Pierce. The two spend so much time pummeling each other with punch
lines that you forget briefly there's a war going on - a war for
Father Jesse's soul.
Jesse is convinced it's only a matter of time before the
monsignor kicks him out of the parish.
He tells Ray he's terrified at the prospect of job-hunting
because he feels unqualified to do anything. Ray helps him to see
that, if anything, Jesse's overqualified for most jobs he'll be
offered.
The problem, Jesse admits, is that the priesthood isn't a job at
all. "It was my life," he says, using the past tense. "It was
everything to me."
The episode concludes with a decisive scene at the priests'
weekly poker game attended by the monsignor. In the intimate coda
that follows, Jesse and Ray serve each other Communion.
Week after week "Nothing Sacred" displays a rare talent for
pursuing tough social and ecclesiastical issues while always knowing
when to release the comedy valve. "HIV Priest, Film at 11" is no
exception.
In the job-discussion scene Ray translates a priest's duties into
modern business lingo:
"I manage a franchise for a major multinational corporation
headquartered in Rome," he says.
"What do you do all day? " Jesse asks.
"I facilitate group workshops with an emphasis on the search for
personal meaning."
"Mass," guesses Jesse.
"You got it."
Everybody in this show gets something interesting to say - even
the repairman who's come in to look at the church organ and looks
like he just stepped off the set of "This Is Spinal Tap."
But the humorless detractors who want "Nothing Sacred" taken
off the air always manage to see blasphemy and insufficient respect
for authority oozing out of the show's scripts.
The head of the Catholic League, the show's most obsessed hater,
accuses the creators of "Nothing Sacred" of being "caught in a
time warp" and having a "reactionary lament for the 1960s" - as if
the church today isn't riven by conflict over hot-button issues like
abortion and the role of women. As if diversity were a nonissue in
the church, and the show's critics weren't sitting in a hermetically
sealed 1950s-vintage crypt of their own.
The protesters have apparently succeeded in driving top
advertisers from the show, as evidenced by the ads for Time-Life
Books and Colonial Penn life insurance - sponsors usually seen only
on cable TV - who have bought commercial time on "Nothing Sacred"
recently.
But they haven't stopped ABC from ordering a full 21 episodes of
the show, and that, says series co-creator and Executive Producer
David Manson, means a lot, even if "HIV Priest" never appears on
the network.
"The show has had problems with sponsorship, and yet ABC has
continued to run the show," Manson said Thursday in a phone
interview from the "Nothing Sacred" set in Canoga Park, Calif.,
where he was preparing to film the show's 16th episode. "They've
taken an economic bath, but in general, they've not buckled under to
the pressures that have been brought to bear by the Catholic League
and others. So I think it's important to acknowledge that, generally
speaking, they've been very progressive."
That said, Manson is puzzled over the singling out of this
episode.
"I think the piece is rather benign about its subject matter,"
Manson said. "This is not about the specifics of his sex life. This
is about a man trying to deal with the sense of shame over having
broken his vows and Ray's attempt to bring him back to the proverbial
table, literally and figuratively. And it's about one of the things
our show tends to be about, which is cultural inclusion.
"I have to say that when you identify something as taboo you
give it power, and by not running the episode ABC may be
unintentionally creating what it fears, which is more tension and
more controversy."
ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses told a press gathering
earlier this month that the "HIV Priest" episode would probably
surface before the end of the season, although she won't say when.
"Nothing Sacred" will return after the February ratings "sweep,"
probably in the 8 p.m. time slot Saturday left by "Cracker," which
was canceled this week.
A new cast member, Jennifer Beals of "Flashdance" fame, will
join St. Thomas parish as director of religious education.
Another bit of good news: Twentieth Television, which produces
"Nothing Sacred" for ABC, announced this week it will be shopping
reruns of the program around to broadcasters and cable companies.
Usually a show must accumulate more critical mass, so to speak, to be
considered for syndication. But the accolades for "Nothing Sacred"
suggest that it will do well in niche TV, where it doesn't need to
attract network-sized audiences.

Good luck and planning get KSHB a scoop on abduction story

KSHB, Channel 41, scooped everyone in town by 20 minutes on the
Baby Carlie abduction story Thursday night, leaving its higher-rated
news competitors in the dust - as well as the FBI.
"The suspected baby snatchers are in custody," pronounced 41's
Elizabeth Alex at the top of KSHB's 10 p.m. newscast Thursday. Citing
a tip from NBC News reporter Jim Avila, who had flown in from Chicago
to cover the story, KSHB reported that the FBI had caught up with
suspects Buddy Hall and Amanda Tull.
Other news operations in town were aware that a possible
late-breaking development could come during their newscasts. But
KMBC, KCTV and WDAF all waited until 10:19 to report an arrest. That
was when the FBI's David M. Tubbs held an impromptu press conference
outside the University of Kansas Medical Center, where Hall and Tull
allegedly had walked off with the baby 23 hours earlier.
Tubbs, however, reported the time of arrest as 10:10. Is it
possible the FBI had the suspects in custody before actually
arresting them? No, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said Friday.
"The people didn't even drive up to the house until 10:10,"
Lanza said. "Channel 41 definitely jumped the gun on this one."
KSHB news director Lynn Heider stood by the story on Friday,
citing sources.
Borrowing a page from the networks, which often send their
anchors to news hot spots, Channel 41's Alex was on the scene of the
kidnapping at 10 p.m. and her presence - as well as subsequent
reporting from Melissa Cutler and Keith King - made for a more
electric newscast than the other stations', which continued to treat
the suspects as fugitives.
After leading straight out of "ER" with the scoop, Alex tossed
to Keith King reporting from Grant City, Mo., where the suspects had
spent much of the morning and early afternoon before fleeing.
King and WDAF's Chris Hernandez both aired their reports live
from outside the Worth County sheriff's office, but King had the
better interview with a Grant City woman who had seen the couple and
the baby.
"Oh, they were very proud of it," the woman told King. "And
they were doing a very good job of making it seem like it was
theirs."
KCTV's Krista Klaus was in Grant City but never appeared on
camera. Because Channel 5's satellite truck failed, Klaus was reduced
to phoning in her report from the office of a local insurance
company.
Channel 9 was live in Grant City as well, but new KMBC
correspondent Martin Augustine said he couldn't disclose the names of
the suspects on the air.
That, said the FBI's Lanza, is the way he wished every station in
town had handled it.
"A lot of the stations started reporting the names of the
suspects before we even made an arrest," Lanza said. "If they had
heard those reports, they might have boogied. They may still have
been on the lam."
And although KSHB reported the suspects were in custody, neither
it nor any other station knew that the couple had fled to a St. Louis
suburb until the 10:19 press conference.
KSHB's Heider credited her reporters for working their law
enforcement sources effectively and King for his Grant City report.
She was also gracious with praise for KCTV's Betty Sexton's reporting
earlier in the day as well as KMBC's early-morning coverage of the
initial press conference.
Other things went 41's way Thursday. Earlier in the day North
Kansas City Hospital made available a surveillance tape of the
suspects, who had been sighted there before heading to KU Medical
Center. KSHB had remembered to bring along a VHS deck (news
operations typically use a wider tape format) and was able to put the
video on the air immediately.
StarTouch: 889-7827 and enter 8852 (TVKC). E-mail:
writeme@tvbarn.com

Speech tonight shaping up as a surreal show

It may be the most anticipated public-policy address of this
decade. Tonight, tens of millions of Americans will be riveted to
their TV sets throughout President Clinton's annual State of the
Union address.
Many of them will not be awaiting the fine points of the
president's initiatives on child care, Social Security or Medi-care.
Some may be awaiting further word on the standoff with Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein.
For the most part, however, those who tune in the speech tonight
will be awaiting any comment or revelation from the president about
the subject that has stymied his administration and generated intense
interest: the sex scandal involving Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton and his advisers remained adamant Monday that tonight's
speech would not address the scandal and that the president would
stick to his agenda. Meanwhile, the television news organizations
covering the address threw out their own plans.
As a result, tonight's live broadcast may well take on the same
surreal air of last year's State of the Union, when speculation ran
wild about whether news of the jury in the O.J. Simpson civil trial,
which had just reached its verdict, would disrupt Clinton's speech.
Lane Venardos, longtime producer of CBS' State of the Union
coverage, said Monday that his team scrapped six weeks' worth of
preparation for the address when the Lewinsky story broke. Guest
experts on social issues were canceled and replaced with a former
Clinton speech writer, Don Baer, who had spoken by telephone with the
first family last the weekend.
"It will never equal the bizarreness of last year," Venardos
said. "If the president comes out and says, 'I'm going to quit,'
that might eclipse O.J."
The Clinton team used the media to try to steer the focus back to
policy matters. Hillary Rodham Clinton booked herself on the
"Today" show this morning, and presidential press secretary Mike
McCurry took the extraordinary step of using the Monday press
briefing to itemize key provisions of the president's child-care
plan. Those are the kind of details usually kept under lock and key
until minutes before the State of the Union message is delivered.
Since the Lewinsky story went national last week, TV news
coverage has been unrelenting. The national news anchors who had
flown to Cuba to cover Pope John Paul II's visit immediately headed
home to cover the unfolding story.
Almost all the TV news magazines on commercial television have
devoted complete shows to the scandal. In the first 48 hours
following the story's appearance in the national media, more than 45
stories on Lewinsky and Clinton ran on shows ranging from "Inside
Edition" to "Prime Time Live," according to the Video Information
Show Report, an industry publication based in Lawrence. By Monday
that total had risen to 105.
On Sunday night CNN scratched a planned repeat of its magazine
show "Impact" and instead did a special edition on the crisis at
the White House. The network then took the unusual step of
pre-empting its CNN Airport Network - usually a pastiche of headlines
and travel conditions - with the program. Travelers were spotted
giving more attention than usual to airport televisions.
CNN doubled its normal audience levels last weekend, and CNBC
reported record viewership levels for its scandal-centered talk shows
with Geraldo Rivera and Chris Matthews.
Locally, some television viewers have been unhappy with the
frequent pre-emptions throughout the day for updates on the Lewinsky
story. Pat Patton, program director at KMBC, Channel 9, said his
switchboard had been fielding calls from soap-opera fans.
"One woman called me," Patton said, "and her comment was, 'You
know they wouldn't do this during the Super Bowl. ' "
Last year 27.6 million households were tuned to the State of the
Union address, according to Nielsen Media Research.
On the air
President Clinton's State of the Union address will be broadcast
live beginning at 8 p.m. today on Channels 4 (Fox), 5 (CBS), 9 (ABC)
and 41 (NBC) in Kansas City as well as on the CNN, MSNBC and C-SPAN
cable networks. The Republican response and political analysis will
follow.
The speech also will air live on area radio stations, including
KCMO-AM (710), KPHN-AM (1190) and public stations KCUR-FM (89.3) in
Kansas City and KANU-FM (91.5) in Lawrence.
CNN's coverage will begin at 7 p.m. and other TV and radio
networks are expected to have pre-speech coverage as well.
Public station Channel 19 will air the speech and the Republican
response in a delayed broadcast beginning at 11 p.m.

Halfway to nowhere; The networks reach midseason with more questions than answers

As the 1997-98 television season reaches its halfway point, it's
not hard to see why the broadcast networks are in trouble.
The centipede that is cable TV - a hundred tiny channels and
going strong - has been trampling the networks all season, and on
Dec. 29 a record 47 percent of all households watching TV that night
were tuned to cable. "South Park," an adult cartoon on cable's
Comedy Central, has generated more buzz than most network shows this
season.
Creatively, it's also a stagnant season for the networks.
The problem with top-rated NBC is not so much that "Seinfeld,"
its prize franchise and one of TV's all-time beloved sitcoms, will
soon be going away. The problem is rather that "Jenny," a mistake
practically from the moment NBC signed Jenny McCarthy to a
development deal, hasn't gone away. NBC actually did get around to
canceling McCarthy's show, as well as "The Tony Danza Show" and
"Union Square" - but long after they had worn out their welcomes.
A top NBC executive recently said he erred in putting too many
sitcoms on the air this season. What exactly would he have done
differently? Shown more women-in-danger movies? (ABC and cable's
Lifetim e seem to have that genre covered.) Still more editions of
"Dateline NBC"? More action shows like "Players"? Another
"Sleepwalkers"?
At least there's no reason for NBC to worry about Thursday nights
slipping through its fingers. The hot industry rumor is that
"Seinfeld's" time slot will be taken next season by "Just Shoot
Me," the goofy-smart sitcom from the creators of "NewsRadio" and
"The Larry Sanders Show."
NBC announced that "Just Shoot Me," already teamed with
"Frasier" on Tuesdays, will soon do double duty on Thursdays in the
plum spot opened up by "Union Square's" demise. Compared with
"NewsRadio," which was jerked around NBC's schedule for years,
"Just Shoot Me" is leading a charmed life.
George Segal is terrific as the mildly clueless publisher of a
women's fashion magazine. But Laura San Giacomo, who plays Segal's
daughter and reluctant employee, is the real center of the show. San
Giacomo embodies '90s New York sex appeal - jaded yet quietly
brimming with naive idealism. The show also has shrewdly cast David
Spade in the role of David Spade.
Wednesday nights, however, have been a disaster for NBC. Sitcom
after sitcom has withered on the vine, including the previously
unmeltable "3rd Rock from the Sun." NBC is still without a clue
what to do on that night versus ABC's hit comedies and Fox's pouty
dramas.
Here's where I think NBC could steal a page from cable: Put on
multiple repeats of the same show and make no apologies. After all,
what's the harm at this point of showing two "Law & Order" repeats
on Wednesday followed by a fresh episode?
Over at CBS, the mood is more upbeat. It won the important
ratings "sweep" in November and it recently wrested the rights to
air NFL games away from NBC. (Unfortunately, some of the cities where
CBS is hurting most for viewers have teams in the NFL's National
conference; CBS won the rights to games in the American conference.)
But in other ways CBS hasn't fared any better than NBC. It
tolerated the execrable "Dellaventura" until mid-January and has
struggled to give greater visibility to its most promising sitcom,
"The Gregory Hines Show. " Former heart-throb David Caruso of
"Michael Hayes" now has one of the oldest audiences in all of
television - not what CBS had in mind when it signed the former
"NYPD Blue" star.
ABC's season might be remembered for two outstanding dramas the
network may not even renew: "Nothing Sacred," which is taking more
direct jabs at its conservative Catholic critics with each passing
week; and "Cracker," which continues to sizzle while distinguishing
itself from its British predecessor. Too bad they've been relegated
to Saturday night obscurity.
"Dharma & Greg" is the show ABC would like us to remember, of
course; the network has been pushing hard for the romantic comedy
since the summer. But that show got a lot of help thanks to its
placement between bona fide hits "Spin City" and "Drew Carey."
And the network's promoting of Jenna Elfman is a little hard to
swallow in light of ABC's shoddy treatment of Ellen DeGeneres, who
has gotten no credit for taking "Ellen" to new heights this season.
ABC's newsmagazines appear in worse trouble than either NBC's or
CBS's. A second hour of "20/20" bombed on Thursdays, so now it's on
Mondays, where it recently aired a story that made a stunning
revelation: People aboard the same airplane flight pay different
fares! A fine story for a local TV news unit, no doubt, but hardly
worthy of network resources. What's next, stealing medical news from
Kelly Eckerman?
Fox has the shows the whole world loves - "The X-Files" and
"Ally McBeal" just won Golden Globes and "King of the Hill" is a
hit with viewers and critics. It also has those reality-based shows
the whole world hates - but watches anyway.
"Ally McBeal," starring the doe-eyed Calista Flockhart, is
unquestionably a hit, even if some fans find Ally herself annoying -
a woman uttering lines that sound like they're written by a man,
which they usually are. But other characters save the show, like the
hilariously insufferable Richard Fish (Greg Germann) and Ally's
disturbingly attentive aide Elaine (Jane Krakowski).
As for the little guys, the WB network has the distinction of
owning perhaps the best show in the Nielsen ratings basement since
the first year of "Seinfeld. " Carol Leifer, the accomplished comedy
writer who was working the standup circuit 20 years ago with Paul
Reiser and Jerry Seinfeld, finally got a sitcom of her own, "Alright
Already" - and still Leifer had to take a back seat to Tom Arnold
and his WB sitcom.
Perhaps the network doesn't think Leifer's Miami Beach shtick is
what young audiences want to watch. (Some folks said that once about
Seinfeld's New York shtick, too.) But if "Alright Already" got a
tenth of the hype the WB has lavished on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
and its new teen drama "Dawson's Creek," more people would be
watching it.