'Beauty' creator unearths a TV winner with 'Six Feet Under'

A couple of years ago there was a sitcom on ABC for about 10 minutes called "Oh Grow Up." I liked it, so I interviewed the show's creator, Alan Ball. I asked him what projects he had coming up, but so absorbed was he with running a TV show that he never mentioned a movie he had written that was having its premiere that month in Toronto. The film was "American Beauty." After "Oh Grow Up" was canceled, "American Beauty" bowled over Oscar, and Ball, vowing never to do network TV again, signed a contract with HBO. Judging by his first HBO series, a dark family comedy called "Six Feet Under," I hope he keeps his vow. "Six Feet Under," which will have its debut at 9 p.m. Sunday after the season debut of "Sex and the City," is the story of a family-run funeral parlor. But hold the word "family" loosely. This clan is barely held together by the mortuary business while it is torn from every direction by drug use, forbidden sex and barely suppressed rage. Ball has once again given us an ensemble of appealing, if miserable, characters; they started to grow on me in the second episode. "Sports Night" fans will recognize Peter Krause as the prodigal son who returns home after the father dies. Broadway actors Frances Conroy and Michael C. Hall play the mom and younger brother; Lauren Ambrose plays the smart but troubled daughter reminiscent of the Thora Birch character in "Beauty." My favorite, though, is Oscar nominee Rachel Griffiths as Krause's caring girlfriend, herself a refugee from a crazy family. Here we go again: Brassy New York chef Bobby Flay has gone to Tokyo for a rematch against rival Masaharu Morimoto on the campy cook-off show "Iron Chef." In the hallowed tradition of professional wrestling, the two-hour special, airing at 8 p.m. Sunday on the Food Network, hypes the rematch by recounting the supposed bad blood between Flay and Morimoto. We see key moments from their original showdown - including the parts where Flay cut and shocked himself while hurrying to throw together his one-hour Japanese concoction. (If you want to watch the whole contest, which Flay lost, Food Network is showing it at 8 p.m. Saturday.) The Flay-Morimoto rematch airs in the program's second hour, but don't miss out on the thrilling first hour in which challenger Kandagwa Torishiro shaves his head and puts on a game face against the show's "Iron Chef French," Hiroyuki Sakai. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just watch it. "Iron Chef" is that medium-rare show that must be seen to be believed. Summer is the traditional start of the "cable season." Although cable channels now bring out new shows year-round, June is still its high tide for original shows. I'll feature a couple of channels every week in June, starting here with Sundance Channel. The indie-films network part-owned by Robert Redford is introducing a new series, "Anatomy of a Scene," which offers a new twist on the sneak-previews concept. It debuts at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Like most movie shows, "Anatomy of a Scene" is tied to the release of an upcoming flick, in this case "The Anniversary Party" starring Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But instead of talking about the whole film, Leigh and Cumming - who also co-directed "The Anniversary Party" - will discuss just one scene from it, "from its conception through production and principal photography to post-production," according to Sundance. In addition, the interview show "Conversations in World Cinema" begins airing at 7:30 p.m. every Thursday in June, followed by a "classic world cinema" showcase at 8 that features the works of foreign directors including Antonioni, Kurosawa and Renoir. OK, enough of the highbrow. Let's take the down elevator to the very lowbrow. I'm referring, of course, to the E! channel, where somebody's trash just became America's treasure. And who better to take out the trash than gossipmeister A.J. Benza. The former irritant of E!'s "The Gossip Show" and narrator of the bottom-feeding "Mysteries and Scandals" now has an interview program, "A.J. After Hours." It has its premiere at 9 p.m. Thursday on E! with guests Heath Ledger, Luther Vandross and Victoria's Secret model Frederique. At 11 p.m. there's "Wild On " a travel-and-celebrity series that's just a repackaging of the channel's old "Sex on " series with a, well, less sexy name. You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:The cast of "Six Feet Under" includes, at far right, Peter Krause, formerly of "Sports Night." @ART:Photo (color) @ART CREDIT:HBO >>>

Jay talking; 'Nice guy' Leno keeps finishing first in the late-night ratings

Quick - which late-night host is America's favorite, Jay Leno or David Letterman? It's Leno, by a country mile. Surprised? You can't be blamed for thinking Dave, not Jay, would be numero uno. Since undergoing emergency heart bypass surgery last year, Letterman has gotten a windfall of good publicity that just won't quit. The latest was a wet kiss of a cover story by TV Guide. Leno? Nuthin'. In a city where the celebrity Richter scale is always bouncing, the King of Late Night almost never makes waves. Leno - marking his ninth anniversary as host of the "Tonight" show this week - professes not to care. "I know this is going to sound stupid and you're not going to believe me," Leno said in a phone interview last week, "but if our show is more popular with the general public, and Dave gets the publicity, that evens out." Maybe for him it does, but it's clear that Letterman would love to rekindle the late-night wars with Leno that raged from 1993 to 1996. Tune in to Letterman's "Late Show" these days and you may hear his mocking impersonation of Leno. Usually it's the diplomatic Leno he makes fun of. Leno's seen it. "When Dave does me, that's funny," he said. There he goes again! It has to drive Dave nuts. (Letterman hasn't given an interview in four years, or we'd ask.) Not for nothing did Dennis Miller once say of Leno, "He's a nice guy - but he's also in the nice-guy business." And since 1995, business has been great. In that time he has been No. 1 late night, usually by a wide margin. This season he averaged 6 million viewers to Letterman's 4.3 million, according to NBC. Leno has finished first among the key viewing group of 18-to 49-year-olds for 61 straight weeks. And despite what you hear about Dave's loyal fans, NBC research has found that Leno's audience watches the show longer each night than Letterman's does. Though Hugh Grant's 1995 "Tonight" appearance has become show-biz legend, things actually started turning around a year earlier, in 1994, when Leno went to New York to do his show from the "Saturday Night Live" stage. He coveted the intimate feel of that studio so much that he went back to Burbank, Calif., and asked NBC to build him a new set. With the help of his new executive producer, Wichita native Debbie Vickers, Leno reinvented himself and "Tonight." Johnny Carson might have had four guests on in an hour; these days two celebrities is more the norm. According to Leno, "We basically do a half-hour comedy show every night." That means more comedy material is needed - a lot more. Fortunately, Leno has a lifestyle ideally suited to the task. All he does is work. Five days a week, 230 times a year, he arrives at NBC at 8:30 a.m. and toils straight through until 5:30 p.m., when "Tonight" tapes. After the show he goes out with a camera crew to mix with the public and shoot comedy bits. From 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. he and his writers are at his Beverly Hills home, working on the next night's show. The routine has not changed in years. As if that weren't enough, Leno performs more than 100 outside dates a year - from corporate functions to a Boys and Girls Clubs benefit in March in Kansas City. Most Sunday nights you can find him on stage at the Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic Club, trying out jokes for "Tonight." The 51-year-old Leno says his late parents gave him the work ethic and humility that have served him well in Hollywood. His father, Angelo, made a living selling insurance to the hardscrabble parts of Andover, Mass. As for his mother, Cathryn, her horrified response to seeing her son's name in the "Tonight" marquee was, "People will think you're trying to be a show-off!" Hardly. In fact, Leno has spent most of the last nine years playing Salieri to Letterman's Mozart. From the start, Leno's "Tonight" was ridiculed by TV critics, who charged Leno with betraying his roots as a hip stand-up comedian to do homogenized humor in late night. Letterman, who jumped to CBS when "Tonight" went to Leno, is considered a TV genius. Nobody says that about Leno. To which America's favorite chin says: Yeah? So? "I've got a wonderful life, a wonderful marriage," said Leno, who recently signed a new contract with NBC that will keep him on the job through 2005. He is "so proud" that Mavis, his wife of 20 years, is leading a campaign to call attention to the plight of women under the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. Leno is also proud of having one of the country's premier car and motorcycle collections. He has 80 of each, including a 1930 Duesenberg, a black 1993 Dodge Viper ("the first one that wasn't red") and a 1913 Steamer. He takes them for Sunday-morning drives up Mulholland Drive and waxes prosaic about them in a column for Popular Mechanics. The magazine endows a scholarship in Leno's name at McPherson (Kan.) College, which offers a two-year degree in car restoration. "I seem to get so much grief for being contented," he said. "The real trick to show business is to make show business money and lead a normal life." You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. LENO SPEAKS OUT On Johnny Carson: "I can go back to a show from the 1960s or '70s. I saw it in college. Johnny had somebody on, a big star, talking about a pair of shoes he had made. And Johnny said, 'Are those the shoes?' and (the star) said 'Yes, and they cost $300.' Which was a lot of money back then. "And Johnny whistled and said, 'Three hundred dollars!' After the show I thought, 'Johnny could buy $300 shoes all day long!' But his reaction was honestly that of a guy from Lincoln, Neb., and that was his great gift." On Robert Blake jokes: "I don't know if people like to laugh (at murder), but they're frustrated. We're in this spin doctor mode, and Robert Blake's attorney is trashing the woman. Now, whether she's a horrible person or not, she is the victim. "Here (as with the O.J. Simpson case) you have another case of justice delayed, and a good joke can cut to the heart of the matter. I said the other night that Robert Blake's attorney has a bigger career ahead of him than Robert Blake." On calling New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a fascist: "I don't think I was wrong in what I said. "I was talking to Judge Judy (Sheindlin) and I said, 'Now what do you think about the fascist thing in New York?' And she said, 'Did you say it was fascist?' Any time you censor art, it's fascist." @ART:Graphic (color illustration) @ART CREDIT:RON CODDINGTON/Knight Ridder Tribune >>>

NBC's aliens go quietly into that good space

After five years and 139 episodes, "3rd Rock From the Sun" will depart the NBC galaxy with a one-hour special at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Channel 41). It will go quietly. In recent years "3rd Rock" hasn't been blessed with the best ratings or time slots. Critics have all but forgotten it. But I haven't. I always liked "3rd Rock," every last predictable madcap moment of it. Every week the Solomons of outer space would try to mimic the ways of earthlings (collecting Beanie Babies, making whoopee). Every week, like sociologists on speed, they'd get hopelessly addicted to their newfound custom. In the finale, earthling Mary (Jane Curtin) finally suspects that Dick (John Lithgow) isn't who he's claimed to be all these years. For no good reason at all, other than the song is apt, Elvis Costello shows up to sing "Fly Me to the Moon." If the story lines were rote, the performances were never mailed in. Lithgow and Kristen Johnson won five Emmys between them. The Smithsonian ought to ask for that Roaring '20s fur coat that French Stewart wore, rain or shine, on the show. Unlike a lot of sitcoms whose punchlines you can see coming down the street, the jokes on "3rd Rock" hit your blind side, or came at you rapid-fire. As someone once said of New Yorker cartoons, they were always the same, always hilarious. Like a metaphor for the aliens' own rootlessness, "3rd Rock" never found a home. NBC changed its place on the schedule 17 times, a record. That it lasted this long is a testimony to the quality of the cast - which also included Joseph Gordon-Levitt and "Seinfeld" foil Wayne Knight - and the brilliant simplicity of the show's concept. A comedy that fared much better over time, "The Drew Carey Show," wraps up its sixth season with a one-hour episode at 8 p.m. Wednesday on ABC. As with most "Drew Carey" shows this season, the story line is too half-baked and convoluted to recap. Let's just say the mental-health system is involved, and not all who work in that profession will be amused at the depiction. But that's the breaks with "Drew Carey," which over the years has specialized in caricature and over-the-top story lines. A reality show it isn't. What it continues to be is one of TV's top comedies with a wonderfully weird cast and a skewed sensibility unlike any other sitcom on the air. "Spin City," the now-unfunny urban sitcom, airs its hourlong season finale at 7 p.m. Wednesday on ABC (Channel 9). However, in a cruel miscarriage of justice, this show is coming back next season. That ABC was forced to renew an out-of-gas wheezer like "Spin City" says a lot about the network's bench strength. What was once a snappy, fast-paced comedy is running knee-deep in oatmeal. In the finale, rubbery-faced Richard Kind gets to shout out the same punch line six times; it's funny the first three times. What's really killing "Spin City" are the two stars, Charlie Sheen and Heather Locklips, I mean Locklear. Locklear wasn't so bad during her first season on "Spin City," but that's because she got to play opposite Michael J. Fox, who could tease bubbles out of tap water. When Fox departed, and his place was taken by Sheen, who has no comedic timing at all, the resulting vacuum sucked all life out of the show. This week the mayor (Barry Bostwick) is recognized by a homeless man who was his archrival at prep school. And golly, there may be some shenanigans going on between Heather and Charlie. They're going to have to try harder than that to keep this thing from becoming the next "Mad About You" (poster child for good shows gone bad). You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Elvis Costello (left) interacts with French Stewart in the last "3rd Rock From the Sun." NBC sends the show off for good Tuesday night. @ART:Photo (color) @ART CREDIT:NBC >>>

A boring 'Blonde,' a lovely 'Temple'; Monroe tale suffers by comparison to child star story

Depressing, dreary and dull as dishwater-blond hair, "Blonde" - a weird meditation on the life of Marilyn Monroe - confirms that the networks have run out of ideas for programming their big ratings months. Not content to let Court TV and the other cable channels have a monopoly on grisly crime tales, CBS this season has treated viewers to miniseries on the Nicole Brown Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey murders. A&E was surely the inspiration for an ABC special that showed Judy Garland crawling into a bottle of pills. They weren't just stomach-turning but channel-turning, as viewers fled these would-be blockbusters. And now we have "Blonde." Based on the 2000 novel Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, it co-stars Wallace Shawn, Griffin Dunne, Patrick Dempsey, Titus Welliver, Eric Bogosian and Richard Roxburgh. With the possible exception of Dunne's character, they're all creeps. Poppy Montgomery plays the long-suffering Norma Jeane Baker, Monroe's real name, whose victimhood begins in childhood when she's tormented by her loony mother (Patricia Richardson). It continues through four bleak hours of drug addiction, sexual and physical abuse, an abortion and a mysterious demise that is skipped over here. In the opening frame we are told that, though based on actual events, "Blonde" is "a work of fiction." Oates did that for literary reasons. "I was trying to give life to Norma Jeane Baker," she told an interviewer last year, adding that she decided the best way to do it was by writing "a posthumous narration by the subject." In other words, when we see Montgomery and other actors speaking to the camera - as happens throughout "Blonde" - it's after Baker has died. I know there's great symbolism in all this just from the few grim excerpts I've read of Oates' 738-page book. For instance, Baker's second husband, Joe DiMaggio (Welliver), is referred to in the movie only as "Slugger" - and don't you know, we soon find out why. (Slug 'er get it?) Arthur Miller (Dunne), whose marriage to Baker seemed genuinely happy at times, is simply called "The Playwright." Oates never calls these husbands by their real names in the book. See, it's that symbolism thing. If she could, Oates no doubt would've created a single male character: impotent at best, savagely cruel at worst. If you've read some of Oates' other books, you may recognize the barbarism, particularly toward women, of other novels (notably Black Water, a tale of the Chappaquiddick incident told from the viewpoint of Mary Jo Kopechne). The question is whether "Blonde" is fit for one of TV's biggest showcases - Sunday nights on CBS. Last week in this time period was that reliable heart-tugger, the "Hallmark Hall of Fame." On the other hand, "Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story," airing as tonight's "Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC, is based on a book virtually made for the small screen: Child Star, the 1988 autobiography of Shirley Temple Black's years in show biz. Frankly I'm surprised it wasn't adapted for TV sooner. Too bad it comes on before "Blonde." No one was better at making downhearted Americans feel good again than Shirley Temple, and there's enough of the spirit of Temple in "Child Star" to make viewers forget the supreme bummer of "Blonde." Ashley Rose Orr (why are they all named Ashley?) plays the 6-year-old starlet with the 56 hair curls and the unstoppable smile. Fittingly, she steals the show here, though Connie Britton of "Spin City" and Colin Friels do a fine job as her parents. In the book Black reveals that her parents naively trusted the big studio bosses and made mistakes when negotiating her seven-year deals. Yet Black also makes it clear that the bigwigs acted in Shirley's interest in contract negotiations. The head of Fox set aside a trust fund for her. Darryl Zanuck gave her a big raise and tried to make her offstage life as normal as possible. The complexity comes out in the screenplay by Joe Wiesenfeld. Shirley has her precocious moments but adapts remarkably well to her instant, runaway stardom. (At first the Temples received fan mail at home; when the load reached 4,000 letters a week, the studio took over.) Britton touches the right key in every conversation with the cigar-chompers. Friels is a loving dad who's not afraid to be tough - yet it's clear he's hiding a terrible secret that's revealed at the end. But the big surprise comes in the production numbers between Shirley and her "Uncle Bill," Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Whereas the Monroe musical numbers in "Blonde" are obviously lip-synced, Hinton Battle as Bojangles is the real deal. He's a joy to watch. And if Orr is faking it as Shirley, I couldn't tell. This is exactly what 21st-century TV should be doing - making you want to rush out and rent videos of the original stars. And don't worry, parents: Dad's dark secret won't make you wish you hadn't let the kids watch "Child Star." The same can't be said of "Blonde." You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:"Blonde," starring Poppy Montgomery, airs at 8 p.m. today and Wednesday on Channel 5. @ART CREDIT:CBS @ART CAPTION:"Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story," starring Ashley Rose Orr, airs at 6 tonight on Channel 9. @ART CREDIT:ABC @ART:Photos (2, color) >>>

CBS won't let a good 'Survivor' go; Specials will keep spotlight on Aussie contestants

You know how it is with some guests - it's a half-hour from the time they start to say their goodbyes until their headlights actually fade from view. "Survivor: The Australian Outback" is kind of like that. On Thursday Tina Wesson was named winner of the show's million-dollar prize. End of story, right? Wrong! CBS has planned at least three more appearances this week by the "Outback" contestants, who no doubt share the network's reluctance to put them in the station wagon and send them back to Obscureville. If you tune in this week at the usual "Survivor" time - 7 p.m. Thursday on CBS (Channel 5) - you'll see "Back to the Outback," a newsmagazine-ish look at what happened to the 16 "Survivor" contestants after they returned from Australia. (Does Debb still find prison work fulfilling? Does Kel sneak off into the woods in real life?) Also look for Wesson on the network's two late-night talkers, "Late Show With David Letterman" at 10:35 tonight and "Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn" (12:37 a.m.) on Tuesday. There will be yet another wedding and yet another "special guest appearance" on "Friends" this week (7 p.m. Thursday, NBC, Channel 41). This time the putative pair are Monica (Courteney Cox Arquette) and Chandler (Matthew Perry), and the celebrity - who always seems to be a little less famous than any of the "Friends" - is Kathleen Turner, pretending to be Chandler's cross-dressing father. I realize that choosing between "Survivor" and "Friends" presents a terrible sweeps-month dilemma to many viewers. But if you decide you'd rather see whether Elisabeth was able to grow back her hair and gain back those six pounds she lost on "Survivor," fear not. Turner will be in drag next week, too. During the 1970s you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of the many hit singles that Paul and Linda McCartney's homespun band, Wings, churned out like clockwork. Never one to leave any ex-Beatle's waking moment undocumented, ABC will air "Wingspan," at 8 p.m. Friday (Channel 9). The two-hour film is essentially a conversation between Paul and daughter Mary that works in snippets of Wings hits and a great deal of home movie and old news footage. A companion 40-song CD arrives in stores Tuesday. Although Linda died in 1998 of breast cancer, it is evident from "Wingspan" that she and Paul and their four children lived a charmed life. With her constant support and companionship, the ex-Beatle, who is warm and insightful throughout this film, was able to play for both love and money. We hear Linda in an old interview explain her presence on stage at Wings concerts. "I'm not there 'cause I'm the greatest keyboard player," she says. "I'm there because we love each other." Another musical special this week is just as noteworthy: "Hip Hopera: Carmen," airing at 7 p.m. Tuesday on MTV. Beyonce Knowles of the pop group Destiny's Child stars as the femme fatale of George Bizet's 1875 opera. The soundtrack has been rewritten in hip-hop verse, though strains of the original score can be heard in the background. Also starring are Mekhi Phifer in the Don Jose role (here, he's a Philadelphia cop) and Mos Def (as Phifer's corrupt supervisor) in the Escamillo role. I watched only about 15 minutes of "Carmen" - just long enough to catch Knowles rolling around on the floor in her drop-dead red dress. But I liked every frame I saw. And the concept! Injecting a 19th-century opera with 21st-century verse and bringing it to millions of young viewers. Isn't this what public broadcasting should be doing? You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. >>>