TV Land revives 'Fernwood' and 'Hartman'

TELEVISION What a great start to the summer - TV Land is dusting off "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "Fernwood 2Night" in a VCR-special marathon Friday nights starting at 11. In case you weren't around or have forgotten, these two shows put the fictional burg of Fernwood, Ohio, on the map back in the 1970s. Not an actual map, mind you, but the one where all roads lead to places with familiar names like Mayberry, Cicely and Smallville. "Mary Hartman" was a soap opera ... or maybe it was a loony lampoon of all soap operas ... or maybe it was both. Whatever it was, no network would touch the thing back in 1976. The general consensus was that Norman Lear, who had been bending network taboos for years starting with "All in the Family," this time had gone too far. By mining comedy from such topics as drug abuse, indecent exposure and wife-beating, "Mary Hartman" made itself unwelcome with the Big Three. So Lear syndicated his show to non-network stations, where it became an immediate sensation. For a while "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" was the most talked-about show on TV, and its spaced-out, Heidi-headed star, Louise Lasser, was featured on the covers of mass-circulation magazines, some of which surely found their way into the offices of the network chiefs. Who, as we all know, never learned their lesson. To this day, the networks continue to lose viewers to their non-network rivals because the latter have the nerve to put on provocative new shows (think of "The Osbournes") and the networks don't. "Mary Hartman" exhausted itself after two seasons and 325 episodes. Lear followed up with a secondFernwood-based satire that would leave a more lasting imprint and would launch the careers of such comedic talents as Martin Mull, Fred Willard, Alan Thicke and Harry Shearer. "Fernwood 2Night" had Mull playing Barth Gimble, the twin brother of Garth Gimble, Mull's erstwhile character from the "Mary Hartman" series. Led by the pasteurized host, whose press-on grin barely veiled his contempt for everyone around him - especially the moronic sidekick Jerry (Willard), who got his job through nepotism - "Fernwood 2Night" fricasseed the phony rituals of daytime television. The opening episode of "Fernwood 2Night" is an instant classic. Watching it now, what's amazing isn't that it's still funny, but that it still has the power to shock. You might have heard about "Fernwood's" most notorious sketch, in which a man in an iron lung plays the piano upside down - but wait till you actually see it. That sketch was actually supposed to be more shocking. The script originally called for a talented tyke to run on stage and innocently unplug the iron lung during a dance number while the piano player gasped for air. It was too much even for Lear. "Norman came down and said, 'You can't do this!' " Willard said last week in an interview. "It was the only time I remember anyone vetoed anything." R.J. Cutler, whose documentary series about high school life, "American High," transferred from Fox to PBS before graduating with honors, focuses once again on the next generation with his new series, "Military Diaries." It has its premiere at 9 tonight on VH1. A few young recruits serving aboard the carrier USS Stennis in the Middle East were given camcorders for making video diaries of themselves as they battled both an unseen enemy and the daily drudgery of ship life. Since this is a VH1 show, we hear a lot about their musical tastes. But the monotony is conveyed so well here that when an officer says she couldn't survive without her music, you believe her. Imagine a roomful of Muppets lip-syncing the Jerky Boys and you've captured the bizarre essence of "Crank Yankers." Airing Sunday on Comedy Central, it's from "The Man Show's" Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla. I've never been a connoisseur of prank phone calls, but there's a touch of genius in the marriage of fuzzy, fabric-covered playthings and actual audio from the calls. Listen for the voice of your favorite stand-up comic; more than a dozen are heard dialing for dummies. Now imagine Amish teen-agers on a rampage. It's not a prank, but the disturbing and absorbing documentary "Devil's Playground," airing at 7:30 p.m. Thursday on Cinemax. - You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com

HBO does 9; 11 tribute the right way

After several near-misses by other filmmakers, "In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01," airing at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO, emerges as the first essential film documentary of the Sept. 11 attacks. At first the one-hour film seems to take a straightforward approach: An interview with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani interspersed with video of the disaster. But the images have been acquired from more than 100 sources, including TV news crews, amateurs with camcorders and still photographers. The images are layered on top of one another, like papier-mache. We see the plane hitting the first World Trade Center tower, then some close-up views from various perspectives, as observers yell and curse. Then, from a distance of several miles north, comes a strikingly serene view of the tower, with smoke pouring out as though it were some far-off factory smokestack. Bedlam resumes. The audio, a montage of police, fire and news radio, captures the total chaos at ground zero. On camcorder tapes we hear screams and sobs as observers watch the doomed leap to their deaths. We see the burning towers from more and more and more angles. And then we see them buckle and fall - over and over and over. In an overhead shot, the soot and smoke appear as a cartoon cloud, chasing people under a sky bridge; in another, it comes directly at us like a lava flow. (According to HBO, the attacks on New York were the most documented news event in history.) The film moves deliberately, but not too briskly, through the entire horror in 60 minutes: the vigils, the missing-person photos, the press conferences and finally the funerals. The soundtrack, played by the New York Philharmonic, isn't intrusive, unlike the music on the CBS "9/11" documentary. Woven through the film are two story lines. One is that of the mayor, who is shown walking out of the hellish scene, unflappable, calmly urging calm, setting the tone for his city's response. After that first long day, his companion Judith Nathan tells us, Giuliani went home and read a biography on Winston Churchill. The other story is that of Giuliani's personal assistant, Beth Patron, whose husband would be counted among the firefighters killed at the scene. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she was expecting their first child. Her tearful reflection on her pregnancy is the film's emotional high point, and a reminder, as Nathan eloquently puts it, that "human nature is remarkable, and we all learn to deal, step by step, with whatever we have to deal with." Other highlights: "The Guardian" is one of those shows that seem to go out of their way to avoid detection. It's a quiet drama that has quietly asserted itself as No. 2 in an ultra-competitive time period, ahead of "24," "Smallville" and "NYPD Blue." The end of "The Guardian's" first season is this week (8 p.m. Tuesday, Channel 5). Unfortunately, "24" also wraps up this week, same time, different channel (Fox 4). If you're the kind not usually inclined to working a VCR, this would be a good time to incline. Simon Baker, the most soft-spoken lead actor on TV, plays Nick Fallin, a fallible young hotshot lawyer who's serving a 1,500-hour sentence for a drug conviction. His assignment: represent children in court who come from troubled homes. It's a task Nick did not at first embrace, and though he's come to care deeply for his young clients, he's still a work in progress. At times he seems very fragile, and when you're trying to stay on the wagon, just coping can be high drama. You don't get this from the minimalist scripts. You get it from watching Baker's eyes. It's really something how much he communicates with them. On this week's episode, they say a lot, as several crises come to a head all at once. After the final scene - in which Nick leaves a heart-wrenching voice mail for his father - you'll understand the quiet power that has drawn so many viewers to "The Guardian." Great news: I was wrong when I predicted the demise of "Andy Richter Controls the Universe." Fox announced last week that it would bring the funniest show in TV back at midseason next year.

Frontrunners play it safe at own risk; Rivals get creative to catch up to CBS and NBC

Looking over the new fall network schedules announced this week in New York, one thing becomes clear: In the television business these days, there is no such thing as a safe move. As hundreds of skeptics in the advertising community looked on, executives from ABC and Fox - two networks in desperate need of viewers - presented completely overhauled schedules and pledged to leave no stone unturned in the search for ratings gold. By contrast, NBC and CBS, the No. 1- and No. 2-rated networks this season, presented schedules designed to extend, or at least conserve, their current success. CBS rolled out a "CSI" spin-off and other formulaic shows that brought to mind its smash whodunit. NBC's fall lineup will be unchanged on five out of seven nights. Yet this strategy is also fraught with danger. It was just two years ago that ABC executives, convinced that the game show megahit "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" had unlimited appeal, unveiled the most conservative schedule in the network's history, with four hours a week of "Millionaire" and only three new programs. "Millionaire" aged rapidly, not enough new shows came along to take up the slack, and ratings plunged. WB and UPN opted for a middle road, shaking up their schedules but adding new shows that resemble their current hit shows. Several shows immediately showed promise. They include: "CSI: Miami," the spin-off introduced on an episode of "CSI" earlier this month, marks the return to series television of David Caruso (the show will air 9 p.m. Mondays on CBS this fall). "Boomtown," a stylish-looking L.A. crime series that will solve one crime each week by looking at it from the various viewpoints, including that of the victim, the police, the news media and local politicians (9 p.m. Sundays/NBC). "Cedric the Entertainer Presents," a comedy-variety series that appears partly inspired by Fox's hit from the early 1990s, "In Living Color," and plays off the humor of the versatile comedian Cedric the Entertainer. He's the large gentleman in the Budweiser beer commercials with the tag line "it's not that bad." (7:30 p.m. Wednesdays/Fox). "Everwood," a family drama starring Treat Williams as a surgeon who moves with his two children to a sleepy Colorado town after his wife dies (8 p.m. Mondays/WB). "Life With Bonnie," another attempt to build a half-hour comedy around the real-life experiences of comedian Bonnie Hunt; she plays a working mom with kids (8 p.m. Tuesdays/ABC). UPN's "Twilight Zone" remake, which will follow "Enterprise" on Wednesdays. "Dinotopia," based on the Hallmark Entertainment miniseries that aired earlier this month (7 p.m. Thursdays/ABC). "Girls Club," an as-yet-unwritten new series about three sexy young female lawyers from David E. Kelley (8 p.m. Mondays/Fox). "30 Seconds to Fame," a "Gong Show" on speed that's not much more than cheap schedule filler but looks hilarious (7 p.m. Thursdays, starting winter/Fox). Beyond these, however, winning original ideas were as elusive as ever. Fox's presentation was not short on originality, but some of the ideas that entertainment chief Gail Berman tossed out were, quite frankly, nuts. "Fastlane," a buddy detective show with elements of the street-car film "The Fast and the Furious," seemed to revel in its lowbrow appeal. The preview switched frenetically between car chases and bedroom scenes as an announcer said, "They've got the look! They've got the toys! And they've just been given the keys to the kingdom!" Or how about "Septuplets," a show about seven boys and girls who all come of age at the same time. "They live in a hotel ... adventurous ... bikini-clad ... teen-agers" - the announcer said more than that during the jaw-dropping "Septuplets" trailer, but that's all I remember. ("Septuplets" is a midyear replacement series). But at least Fox was trying to be different. Elsewhere, formula reigned. "Without a Trace" was described as a "procedural drama," but it looks just like "CSI" only with Anthony LaPaglia as a missing-persons detective. ABC and CBS will both try out doctor shows at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays: "Presidio Med" on CBS will star Dana Delany and feature female doctors, while "Meds" claims to draw its inspiration from "M*A*S*H," as two wisecracking docs take on the bureaucracy of their HMO-run hospital. ABC and WB are each introducing comedies based on an identical "Back to the Future"-inspired concept. The WB will also offer up a remake of the comedy "Family Affair" and another series based on a comic book series ("Birds of Prey," an extension of the "Batman" franchise). At UPN, "Haunted" is clearly meant to offer a companion series on Tuesdays to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," with Matthew Fox ("Party of Five") solving crimes with help from paranormal forces. Likewise, "Half and Half," a sitcom about two young African-American women who discover they are half-sisters, is obviously meant to keep viewers of the show's lead-in, the hit "Girlfriends."

For stability in TV, say 'Eye'

NEW YORK - "I'm sorry we're so boring," the president of CBS, Leslie Moonves, told his audience. By "boring," Moonves wasn't referring to his network's new fall schedule, but the fact that every year the advertising community comes to Carnegie Hall for the CBS "upfront" presentation, and every year the same old CBS executives are there to greet them. Of the Big Four networks, only CBS is run by someone who wasn't hired in a year that begins with 2. "I know at the other guys' upfronts, you get a chance to make a whole lot of new friends," Moonves added, and a loud guffaw went up throughout the hall. It was way back in 1995, a lifetime in the TV business, that Moonves took over the decrepit network with its aging viewers, aging shows and aging excuses for its own mediocrity. Moonves turned CBS around with a compelling mix of comedy ("Everybody Loves Raymond"), drama ("CSI" and its soon-to-arrive clones), reality ("Survivor") and sports (he brought the National Football League back to CBS). Along the way he consolidated his power and now oversees a second network, UPN, for CBS' parent company Viacom. UPN is best known as the place where entertainers dressed in wrestler's trunks talk trash and engage in something called "smackdowns." It's a good fit, for if there's one TV executive who loves to deliver a body slam to his opponents, it's Les Moonves. Moonves, a former TV actor, basked in the spotlight for two-plus hours Wednesday, flawlessly reading off statistics that showed CBS' superiority, singing the praises of CBS' new shows and firing zingers at CBS' rivals. His show "Judging Amy," Moonves crowed, "just killed 'Philly,' " the canceled ABC show. As for NBC, he made a crack about "the aptly named 'Just Shoot Me' " and later gleefully noted that "Scrubs," the new post-"Friends" show, had bombed in its one post-"Friends" appearance last season. "As a replacement for 'Friends,' " Moonves chortled, " 'Scrubs' is truly the weakest link." CBS has its own weak links, of course. Last year's highly touted "Max Bickford" and "Citizen Baines" died, as did that howler "Wolf Lake." Not even the latest "hit" for CBS, "Baby Bob," a show about a talking baby, seemed to impress the Carnegie crowd. As for next season's new shows, they appear to be a lot like the CBS executive suite: same old same old. "CSI" producer Jerry Bruckheimer fashioned not one but two spinoffs; the intriguing "Miami" version with David Caruso and a fuzzier missing-persons show starring Anthony LaPaglia. There was yet another dumb-looking couples comedy on Monday, the kind that audiences like but ad buyers razz ("Still Standing"). And there were a couple of D.O.A.'s, including the sitcom "Bram & Alice," in which a womanizing author played by Albert Molina tries to seduce a woman who turns out to be his illegitimate daughter. Still, all that pales next to the disaster Moonves would have faced if he had somehow let his late-night star, David Letterman, defect to ABC earlier this year. An article in the new issue of Vanity Fair suggests that CBS was a lot closer to losing Letterman than reports at the time made it seem. Moonves, however, deftly steered around the pothole. He opened his presentation Wednesday with an amusing film in which he begs Letterman to stay at CBS. Using old "Late Show" clips, Moonves inserts himself into Dave's routine, ironing his shirts, being the brunt of his paintball pranks, even putting on a bald cap and pretending to fill in for bandleader Paul Shaffer. Next, Letterman himself came out. To no one's surprise, he mocked his boss and his taste in programs. "We certainly want to find out what this year's 'Wolf Lake' will be," Letterman said. Dave's boss, dumb as a wolf, graciously thanked his star for staying "exactly where he belongs," then it was on to other business. By the time Moonves retired to Tavern on the Green for the CBS post-party, Letterman was back at the Ed Sullivan, his harmless barbs forgotten. You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves @ART:Photo @ART CREDIT:CBS

ABC, WB have 1 idea in common

NEW YORK - Was it "Back to the Future" or "Groundhog Day"? For those of us attending the TV networks' fall season announcements, Tuesday offered bizarre confirmation of the adage that imitation is the sincerest form of television. That morning, at the WB network's presentation, we watched a trailer for a new show called "Do Over," about a 30-something loser who is transported back in time 20 years and his old teen-age life. Since he has full knowledge of what lies ahead, he tries to "do over" those crucial years in the hopes of resetting his life along a more promising trajectory. And then, that afternoon, we saw it all over again. ABC Entertainment chief Susan Lyne said, "Have you ever wished you could go back and do over ... " and to the amazement of nearly everyone around me, there it was: same show, new title, with a virtually identical trailer - right down to the scene where the star freezes before speaking to a school assembly. ABC's show, called "That Was Then," went off the buzz-o-meter scale but almost certainly for the wrong reason. The immediate reaction of grizzled industry veterans was to blame the ineptitude of ABC's executives for ordering a carbon copy of a competitor's show. Of course, ABC may have had the idea first. But WB presented its schedule first, and what's more, WB's trailer was flashier and funnier than ABC's. Then again, no one will know if either show works until the season starts. The truth is you can't entirely judge how new shows will do from their reception here at the upfronts. That's the nickname for this week of network galas, so given because it initiates the annual feeding frenzy of upfront ad selling for next season. Still, there's almost one casualty every year from the upfronts, a new show that will vanish from the fall schedule after just one five-minute preview before a hostile audience. When I last attended two years ago, that show was "Schimmel," an ill-advised family sitcom for Fox starring the family-unfriendly comic Robert Schimmel. But it's harder to referee this battle of the time-travel shows because the two networks take such different approaches to upfronts. While the other networks favor entertainment shrines like Radio City, the WB holds its upfront in the ballroom of the midtown Sheraton. It is a humorless, corporate affair, where stars and suits read off the same prompter (only wild man Jamie Kennedy was allowed to ad lib). Afterward, attendees are handed a packet with so many charts and graphs in it you'd think CNBC was putting it on. ABC, by contrast, had a free-flowing presentation. That was to be expected, since not even Enron's most skilled numbers-crunchers could have turned out a favorable chart or graph from the beleaguered network's performance this season. Its big hit from two years ago, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," will not even appear on the ABC schedule this fall, though it is expected to return as a series of specials. Perhaps as a diversionary tactic, ABC offered attendees a monologue from comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel, the smarmy prognosticator on Fox's NFL pregame show and beer-swigging co-host of Comedy Central's "The Man Show," had signed the day before to take over Bill Maher's late-night spot in 2003. And speaking of politically incorrect, Kimmel roasted his new employers with a vehemence that got the biggest laughs of the night. "I don't know what I'm doing here," Kimmel cheerfully admitted. "Two months ago it looked like David Letterman was coming to ABC. Instead you got me. This is definitely not a step in the right direction." Referring to Lyne and Lloyd Braun, his new bosses, Kimmel said, "I want to thank Lloyd and Susan now, because it's doubtful either of you will be around when the show goes on the air. Better luck next time! Good night!" While Kimmel may have had the best lines, the most sublime came a few minutes later when Ted Koppel took the stage. Koppel, who off the air brandishes a wicked wit, noted Kimmel's Lebanese features and said, "It's funny. Arafat told me he was sending one of his kids over here to do a show to follow 'Nightline' and I thought he was pulling my leg." You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Bill Maher (left) is out. Jimmy Kimmel is in. @ART:Photos (2)

NBC says show us the money!

Television, which used to be aimed at all Americans, has pretty much given up on anyone over 50. Never is this fact celebrated with more unrestrained glee than at the TV networks' fall season presentations in New York. On Monday, NBC added another wrinkle: It's also pretty much given up on people who earn less than $75,000 a year. Sitting in an audience filled with media buyers - the people looking to buy commercial time on network TV next season - I lost track of the number of times NBC executives bragged that their network had "the most upscale viewers" in television. Assuming a $75,000 cutoff for admission into the upscale club, NBC's West Coast president Scott Sassa pointed out that his network's "Will & Grace," which faces CBS' more popular hit "CSI" on Thursday nights, nevertheless beats the CBS drama "in young adult and upscale demographics." Still, there is that old line about a network that can't buy a hit, and NBC is no different from its rivals this year. The five new shows that were previewed on Monday were a mixed bag, but one thing became clear: It's still hard to grow good comedy on network TV. Two dramas - "American Dreams," which takes place in Dick Clark's Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and "Boomtown," described as a high-concept L.A. crime series - looked promising, though not dazzling. More buzz was generated by a sneak peek at the midseason show "Kingpin," about a south-of-the-border drug lord. But NBC's three new comedies could have the network going to its bench early in the season. One show, "In-Laws," stars Dennis Farina as a gruff dad who likes to order around his wife and married daughter. Farina last starred as private eye "Buddy Faro" on CBS, and creatively, that ill-fated show was a step up from this one. "Hidden Hills," about life in the suburbs, scored points for inclusiveness (a black couple lives in the otherwise all-white 'burb) but lost points for opening with that overused slapstick gag wherein some hapless male receives a batted ball to the groin area. The wild card is "Good Morning Miami," a show that will certainly attract a large audience, since NBC has scheduled it to appear after "Will & Grace" on Thursday nights. It's about a young TV producer's efforts to turn around a lousy local morning show. The preview, which had its moments, was filled with zany characters, none more so than the weathercaster, an ultra-zany nun named Sister Brenda, who opens her forecasts with such lines as "I have it on good authority ... " But there is a dark side to Sister Brenda, and this may spell trouble, particularly for the woman who plays her, none other than Kansas City native and ex-"Wayne Brady Show" player Brooke Dillman. When Sister Brenda isn't in front of the camera doing weather spots she shows a wicked temper, and she takes it out on her managers when they mention perhaps letting her go. The scene ends with Sister Brenda telling one of the men to "blow it out your ... " After the presentation, I reminded Dillman that the Catholic League, an anti-defamation group noted for its shrill faxes, had made life miserable for the ABC network when it aired a show with occasionally unflattering views of Catholic clergy. Was anyone at "Good Morning Miami" worried about a backlash against her character? Her eyes grew wide. "No one has said anything," Dillman said. "I mean, she's not mean-spirited or anything. She's just a little feisty, don't you think?" Sure. But then, I'm not the Catholic League. To reach Aaron Barnhart, call (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:The cast of "Good Morning Miami" includes Kansas City native Brooke Dillman (left), who plays nun Sister Brenda in the new NBC series for fall. @ART:Photo (color) @ART CREDIT:NBC

TV's annual fall unveiling under way

NEW YORK - Before Sept. 11 turned him into the commissar of national pride, Rudy Giuliani's lasting legacy as mayor of New York was returning Manhattan to its former glory as the mass media's playground. From Times Square, now a sanitized canyon of neon, to the fishbowl morning TV shows where important messages are transmitted by tourists waving hand-drawn signs, the entertainment business has once more spilled out of the tall buildings and onto the streets. This week the atmosphere here will be more carnival-like than usual as the TV networks take over some of Manhattan's showiest venues - Carnegie Hall and Radio City among them - to give their advertisers sneak peeks of the fall schedules. The press is also welcome to attend and, of course, welcome to write choruses to the hosannas that network executives will lavish on all their new shows. And yet, wherever the attendees go, they will be met by a sober reminder that scant miles south of where they stand is ground zero, where nothing stands. Every network has warned us to expect "heightened security." Badges and bag inspections will be required at the door. No longer will just anyone in a three-piece suit be able to stroll in and get a peek at Dana Delany (CBS' "Presidio Med") or Suzanne Pleshette (NBC's "Good Morning, Miami") pitching their new shows. It's something the locals have gotten used to, though I still find security checks unnerving. I'm told, however, that many New Yorkers struggle privately, and some not so privately, to recover from the massive trauma inflicted here last fall. I am not sure what I can do to honor New York, either its living or its dead, but it seems the least I can do is not complain about the bag search. Of the more than 30 new shows introduced here last year, at least half won't be on the schedule this fall. By historic standards, that's not bad; unfortunately, the margin for error has shrunk in recent years, as the recently ousted network chiefs at ABC can tell you. That's because the costs of making TV shows have soared while audiences for network TV have dwindled. Even success can be wildly expensive, as networks pay eight-figure ransoms to keep their biggest hits from defecting to other networks or shutting down before every last ad dollar can be squeezed from them. Which brings us to the point of this annual ritual. Immediately after the galas end, network salespeople will sit down with advertisers and negotiate rates for the upcoming season. The two sides will debate the potential audience for an entire year's worth of television based on a few fleeting glances of these new shows. Some new shows seem like money in the bank: the "CSI" spinoff that will mark the reappearance of former TV heart throb David Caruso; and "Firefly," a sci-fi series for Fox from "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon. We'll see. Or rather, I'll see the previews, then I'll tell you about them in this space. Wednesday: NBC. Thursday: ABC and WB. Friday: CBS. Saturday: Fox, UPN and the week in review. To reach Aaron Barnhart, call (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com

Perhaps the wrong new show was scrubbed

So the word is that Fox has canceled "Andy Richter Controls the Universe." I blame myself. Every week that show was on the air, I should've written about it. "Don't miss this one, folks - Andy's dating a Nazi!" Yeah, that would've turned things right around. So the season's best new comedy is toast, which leaves the second-best new comedy, "Scrubs," although once the "new" label drops off next season (NBC's already renewed it), I seriously doubt it will be second-best on anyone's list of comedies. Not that "Scrubs" isn't trying hard. It hasn't gotten lazy with the sight gags or the character development. Everyone on the show seems to be working very hard. Perhaps too hard. Perhaps, in their madcap rush to be the second coming of "M*A*S*H" (more about that in a minute), these guys have ignored the fundamental rule that guided TV's other great wacky-doctor comedy - I refer, of course, to the classic "Muppet Show" sketch, "Veteranarian's Hospital" - and that rule is: Keep it simple. In last week's episode of "Scrubs" (8:30 p.m. Tuesday, "NBC 41"), it was time once again for Turk (Donald Faison) to experience an existential crisis. Turk, who nearly gave up his Christian faith in a previous episode, was on the verge of tossing away his scalpel for good when a kindly surgeon showed him the light. Touching, I guess. And I admire this show for trying to mix medical realism and lowbrow shtick. But there's so much gear-shifting on "Scrubs" - by turns funny and grimly serious - that it's become distracting. Laughter is the best medicine, guys, and we need more of it, now more than ever. Alas, there won't be much of it this week, when the two-parter that started last week wraps up, and we learn whether or not guest star Brendan Fraser will die of leukemia. Regardless of how you feel about the current rash of reunion shows, it's clear that Carol Burnett's "Show Stoppers" have become the networks' schedule stuffers, filling every leaky time period between now and Memorial Day. My rule of thumb is, if you can watch the original show on cable, do that instead. I make two exceptions this week. One is the two-hour NBC special, "The Cosby Show: A Look Back" (8 p.m. Sunday, Channel 41), a smartly-put-together clip reel of some of the funniest scenes and outtakes from the original "must-see TV" sitcom, now a Nick at Nite staple. Everyone in the show's cast (save for that snooty Lisa Bonet) shows up here, and old Cos himself steps on stage to deliver some choice reminiscences. The other is the "M*A*S*H 30th Anniversary Reunion," airing at 7 p.m. Friday on Fox. It's not the ideal time period to honor the funniest comedy ever, as CBS itself learned when it briefly scheduled "M*A*S*H" on Friday nights. Also, this really isn't the network that should be honoring the 4-0-7-7. Fox wasn't even a network when "M*A*S*H" was on the air, but because the show was produced by Twentieth, its corporate cousin, Fox had dibs on the reunion. That said, will I be watching as nearly the entire surviving cast and the show's producers get together to talk about what made "M*A*S*H" the benchmark for comedy of the color-TV era without the aid of a single catch phrase or (after a time) laugh tracks? As Sherman Potter might have said, you bet your booties I will. On this week's second-to-last episode of "24" (8 p.m. Tuesday, Channel 4), the mole who's been making life so miserable for Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) will finally be revealed. And Dennis Hopper will reveal that his ridiculous Serbian accent is actually a secret homage to the Cartoon Network show "Dexter's Laboratory." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com

'Gulag' a must-watch history lesson

I once heard of a man who offered his college-age daughters $500 each if they would read The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's difficult three-volume work about the Soviet prison camps. The girls refused. Though the Holocaust rightly remains fixed in our collective memory, hardly anyone seems to remember the Gulag - or feels the need to. Yet it is possibly the most extensive genocide of the 20th century, which is saying something. From the Bolshevik Revolution through Stalin's reign, an estimated 20 million people disappeared inside the Gulag's vast system of jails, killing fields and forced-labor camps. That is why "Gulag," a new BBC documentary airing 8 p.m. Thursday on TLC, fills an important void. The filmmakers toured some of the most notorious sites, long since abandoned, and drew on the recollections of surviving prisoners and guards to paint an unsparingly grim portrait of the Soviet terror apparatus. Most of those on the inside were arrested on bogus charges like "economic sabotage" or "attempting to assassinate Stalin." The lucky ones were shot. Many were worked to death under inhuman conditions. The psychological toll may have been even worse. One woman recalls being pulled out of school as a young girl and told that her parents had been arrested; she was put in an orphanage that night. Another woman tells of being in prison camp when a snitch reported her for helping an ailing prisoner. Thrown into solitary, she nearly died. More than 60 years later, she has a look of unbearable sadness as she says, "I have never done a good deed since." "Gulag" covers a broad sweep, from the Siberian industrial camps to Moscow's infamous Lubyanka prison to the terrible Volga Canal, an 80-mile waterway dug entirely by hand and, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, literally built upon the bodies of those who worked on it. The interviews with the guards and Gulag bureaucrats are disturbing in their own way. They kept the machine running and enjoyed perks and pensions. The secret police in each town had a quota of arrests to meet. One man matter-of-factly tells how he ran a "conveyor belt" of interrogators who kept detainees awake night and day, harassing them until they "confessed." The film ends where it begins, with the testimonies of those few who survived. "What were we guilty of?" one of them asks. "Will anyone ever be held responsible for all of our suffering?" The only way that can happen is if we remember that the suffering took place. "Gulag" is an ambitious step toward that goal.

Home-improvement project becomes extraordinary HBO film

If "Blue Vinyl" does nothing else, it has already defied conventional wisdom about what you can and can't do on television. You can, in fact, talk about a deadly serious subject without being deadly dull. You can aggressively promote a political agenda and be entertaining. And you can do a program on home improvement that viewers might actually find useful. Of course, the two young filmmakers who spent five years on "Blue Vinyl" hope their work accomplishes much more than that. Even as their self-described "toxic comedy" about the PVC, or vinyl, industry premieres at 10 p.m. EDT Sunday on HBO, Judith Helfand and Dan Gold are on the go. They're criss-crossing the nation, showing their film to local environmental groups, trying to turn what might be the best TV program of the year into a grassroots movement. This extraordinary film opens with a seemingly innocuous event. One day in 1996, Helfand's parents decide to have new siding put on their modest Long Island, N.Y., home. They choose vinyl, the "versatile plastic" used in everything from medical supplies and bathroom pipes to shrink wrap. Helfand clearly disapproves. A sweeter Jewish version of Michael Moore, she marches out to learn the truth about PVC, a scrap of blue vinyl siding (hence the film's title) clutched in her arm. Right beside her is Gold, whose incisive and whimsical eye would capture the top cinematography prize for "Blue Vinyl" at this year's Sundance Film Festival. When Helfand was 25, she was treated successfully for a rare cervical cancer. Like thousands of other "DES daughters," her mother had been given the drug diethylstilbestrol, or DES, to prevent miscarriage. Helfand's first solo documentary, "A Healthy Baby Girl," was an emotionally raw account of her cancer and an angry history of DES, a drug promoted to doctors for years even though its manufacturer knew it was ineffective. Toward the end of that film, Helfand is seen talking about DES with one of the workers installing vinyl siding on her parents' house. Though she didn't know it then, that was the genesis of "Blue Vinyl." While promoting "A Healthy Baby Girl," Helfand visited Lake Charles, La., home to a huge PVC facility. Activists there told her that the factory had contaminated the community's soil and ground water. Workers inside the factory, they said, were at even greater risk, because of high levels of vinyl chloride (the "VC" in PVC) handled there. In an interview earlier this year, Helfand said she remembered the vinyl siding on her parents' house, "and suddenly I became nauseous." Had her family just bought a product manufactured at this very facility? A product advertised as safe and beneficial _ the way DES once was? She felt kinship with Lake Charles; more than that, she felt another film coming on. But it would be a different film than her previous one. With the help of Gold, whom she eventually made co-director, "Blue Vinyl" would be not as intense; there would be humor in it. It would be aimed at everyday Americans, not save-the-Earth types. And it would be practical, with a Web site for people to find alternatives to PVC (myhouseisyourhouse.org). "We wanted to alert people to a problem, but not in a way that makes them feel helpless," Gold said in a recent interview. So, in the tradition of Moore's classic "Roger and Me," they decided to make a documentary about the making of a documentary. Helfand would start out knowing nothing about PVC (or at least pretending not to); she would educate herself along the way (albeit interviewing mostly people opposed to PVC production or suing the industry); then she would talk her parents into symbolically removing their vinyl siding. Not surprisingly, The Vinyl Institute, the main trade group representing PVC makers, is not pleased with "Blue Vinyl." An industry publication quotes a spokesman as saying, "It's an attack on vinyl that's unsubstantiated by the facts." HBO's top executive for documentary films, Sheila Nevins, disputes that. "There aren't any false moves in it," she said. "No one likes to be criticized, but the truth is the truth." According to Gold, HBO's legal department required a briefing book documenting every claim in the film. It's 1,200 pages long. "They said, 'Give us two sources for everything, and if Greenpeace is one of them, give us three,' " Gold said. Doubtless the people at The Vinyl Institute were also unhappy about their portrayal in the film. Like General Motors in "Roger and Me," the institute is the comic foil of "Blue Vinyl," a paranoid, image-obsessed PR front for an industry that, it seems, must have something terrible to hide. The fun starts when Helfand and Gold request an interview with an official at the Lake Charles PVC plant. They are referred to The Vinyl Institute. We see Helfand on the speakerphone, getting nowhere with a PR person at the institute. Later, she's handed off to a higher-up PR person, who insists on meeting off-camera in order to gauge the "comfort level." When the institute finally decides to send a spokesman, he shows up for the interview with a crew. They've been told to film the filmmakers filming the flack. No problem, says Gold _ who then brings in a second shooter to film them filming him filming the flack. Helfand says she decided to include these and other Vinyl Institute hijinks because "they were so concerned with controlling the message.We felt that was really revealing." All that makes for an amusing sideshow. Talking heads aside, though, what sets "Blue Vinyl" apart is how deftly it assembles the stories of everyday people to present the vinyl dilemma in all its troubling complexity. In Lake Charles, we see plucky citizen-activists forming a "bucket brigade" to monitor the town's air quality. The filmmakers tag along with Billy Baggett, a lifelong Lake Charles resident, attorney, inventor and one-man wrecking crew against the vinyl industry. He introduces them to the widow of Dan Ross, who worked at a PVC plant for 23 years and whose agonizing death led to a landmark lawsuit. Baggett also points them to Italy and Dr. Ceasare Maltoni, a highly excitable scientist who was the first to link vinyl chloride exposure to health problems, including an obscure type of liver cancer. There are more widows there, 150 of them. Many of them show up daily at a Venice courtroom to watch the trial of officials at the factories where their husbands worked. The charge is manslaughter. On the other hand, there is the family at the Habitat for Humanity house-raising, funded by The Vinyl Institute. A mother sheds tears of gratitude for her new home, made mostly with PVC products. Helfand looks on sympathetically. And then there are Helfand's own parents. Though obviously good-natured and fond of their only child, they are perplexed by her determination to tear off their new siding. Besides supplying comic relief throughout the film, the parents are surrogates for the home audience. Convince them of the evils of PVC and you can convince anyone. That isn't easy given the persuasive reason why they, like most people, chose vinyl: It's cheap, durable and looks nice. Helfand runs herself ragged looking for environmentally correct alternatives to the blue devil. Her mother rejects them all. Even if they do settle on a compromise, it will be expensive, and Helfand will be stuck with a U-Haul full of used siding _ which gives off deadly dioxins when burned. What then? It might all seem a little eco-freaky. But because Helfand is trying to please her mom, and honor the victims and widows to whom she feels bonded, it humanizes her quest. Eventually, Helfand concocts a vinyl-recycling scheme. It's the kind only a filmmaker would dream up, but that's sort of the point. "Blue Vinyl" calls attention to a problem. Solving it is the viewer's job. Gold and Helfand have formed a production company to create more socially conscious films like "Blue Vinyl." Consumers rejoice; corporate PR people, you've been warned. ___ You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com ___ (c) 2002, The Kansas City Star. Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kcstar.com/
JOURNAL-CODE: KC

House of blues; Home-improvement project becomes extraordinary HBO film

If "Blue Vinyl" does nothing else, it has already defied conventional wisdom about what you can and can't do on television. You can, in fact, talk about a deadly serious subject without being deadly dull. You can aggressively promote a political agenda and be entertaining. And you can do a program on home improvement that viewers might actually find useful. Of course, the two young filmmakers who spent five years on "Blue Vinyl" hope their work accomplishes much more than that. Even as their self-described "toxic comedy" about the PVC, or vinyl, industry has its premiere at 9 tonight on HBO, Judith Helfand and Dan Gold are on the go. They're crisscrossing the nation, showing their film to local environmental groups, trying to turn what might be the best TV program of the year into a grass-roots movement. This extraordinary film opens with a seemingly innocuous event. One day in 1996 Helfand's parents decide to have new siding put on their modest Long Island, N.Y., home. They choose vinyl, the "versatile plastic" used in everything from medical supplies and bathroom pipes to shrink wrap. Helfand clearly disapproves. A sweeter Jewish version of Michael Moore, she marches out to learn the truth about PVC, a scrap of blue vinyl siding (hence the film's title) clutched in her arm. Right beside her is Gold, whose incisive and whimsical eye would capture the top cinematography prize for "Blue Vinyl" at this year's Sundance Film Festival. When Helfand was 25, she was treated successfully for a rare cervical cancer. Like thousands of other "DES daughters," her mother had been given the drug diethylstilbestrol, or DES, to prevent miscarriage. Helfand's first solo documentary, "A Healthy Baby Girl," was an emotionally raw account of her cancer and an angry history of DES, a drug promoted to doctors for years even though its manufacturer knew it was ineffective. Toward the end of that film, Helfand is seen talking about DES with one of the workers installing vinyl siding on her parents' house. Though she didn't know it then, that was the genesis of "Blue Vinyl." While promoting "A Healthy Baby Girl," Helfand visited Lake Charles, La., home to a huge PVC facility. Activists there told her that the factory had contaminated the community's soil and ground water. Workers inside the factory, they said, were at even greater risk, because of high levels of vinyl chloride (the "VC" in PVC) handled there. In an interview earlier this year, Helfand said she remembered the vinyl siding on her parents' house, "and suddenly I became nauseated." Had her family just bought a product manufactured at this very facility? A product advertised as safe and beneficial - the way DES once was? She felt kinship with Lake Charles; more than that, she felt another film coming on. But it would be different from her previous one. With the help of Gold, whom she eventually made co-director, "Blue Vinyl" would be not as intense; there would be humor in it. It would be aimed at everyday Americans, not save-the-Earth types. And it would be practical, with a Web site for people to find alternatives to PVC (myhouseisyourhouse.org). "We wanted to alert people to a problem, but not in a way that makes them feel helpless," Gold said in a recent interview. So, in the tradition of Moore's classic "Roger and Me," they decided to make a documentary about the making of a documentary. Helfand would start out knowing nothing about PVC (or at least pretending not to); she would educate herself along the way (albeit interviewing mostly people opposed to PVC production or suing the industry); then she would talk her parents into symbolically removing their vinyl siding. Not surprisingly, the Vinyl Institute, the main trade group representing PVC makers, is not pleased with "Blue Vinyl." An industry publication quotes a spokesman as saying, "It's an attack on vinyl that's unsubstantiated by the facts." HBO's top executive for documentary films, Sheila Nevins, disputes that. "There aren't any false moves in it," she said. "No one likes to be criticized, but the truth is the truth." According to Gold, HBO's legal department required a briefing book documenting every claim in the film. It's 1,200 pages long. "They said, 'Give us two sources for everything, and if Greenpeace is one of them, give us three,' " Gold said. Doubtless the people at the Vinyl Institute were also unhappy about their portrayal in the film. Like General Motors in "Roger and Me," the institute is the comic foil of "Blue Vinyl," a paranoid, image-obsessed PR front for an industry that, it seems, must have something terrible to hide. The fun starts when Helfand and Gold request an interview with an official at the Lake Charles PVC plant. They are referred to the Vinyl Institute. We see Helfand on the speakerphone, getting nowhere with a PR person at the institute. Later she's handed off to a higher-up PR person, who insists on meeting off-camera to gauge the "comfort level." When the institute finally decides to send a spokesman, he shows up for the interview with a crew. They've been told to film the filmmakers filming the flack. No problem, says Gold - who then brings in a second shooter to film them filming him filming the flack. Helfand says she decided to include these and other Vinyl Institute high jinks because "they were so concerned with controlling the message ... We felt that was really revealing." All that makes for an amusing sideshow. Talking heads aside, what sets "Blue Vinyl" apart is how deftly it assembles the stories of everyday people to present the vinyl dilemma in all its troubling complexity. In Lake Charles, we see plucky citizen-activists forming a "bucket brigade" to monitor the town's air quality. The filmmakers tag along with Billy Baggett, a lifelong Lake Charles resident, attorney, inventor and one-man wrecking crew against the vinyl industry. He introduces them to the widow of Dan Ross, who worked at a PVC plant for 23 years and whose agonizing death led to a landmark lawsuit. Baggett also points them to Italy and Ceasare Maltoni, a highly excitable scientist who was the first to link vinyl chloride exposure to health problems, including an obscure type of liver cancer. There are more widows there, 150 of them. Many of them show up daily at a Venice courtroom to watch the trial of officials at the factories where their husbands worked. They are charged with manslaughter. On the other hand, there is the family at the Habitat for Humanity house-raising, funded by the Vinyl Institute. A mother sheds tears of gratitude for her new home, made mostly with PVC products. Helfand looks on sympathetically. And then there are Helfand's own parents. Though obviously good-natured and fond of their only child, they are perplexed by her determination to tear off their new siding. Besides supplying comic relief throughout the film, the parents are surrogates for the home audience. Convince them of the evils of PVC and you can convince anyone. That isn't easy given the persuasive reason why they, like most people, chose vinyl: It's cheap, durable and looks nice. Helfand runs herself ragged looking for environmentally correct alternatives to the blue devil. Her mother rejects them all. Even if they do settle on a compromise, it will be expensive, and Helfand will be stuck with a U-Haul full of used siding - which gives off deadly dioxins when burned. What then? It might all seem a little eco-freaky. But because Helfand is trying to please her mom, and honor the victims and widows to whom she feels bonded, it humanizes her quest. Eventually Helfand concocts a vinyl-recycling scheme. It's the kind only a filmmaker would dream up, but that's sort of the point. "Blue Vinyl" calls attention to a problem. Solving it is the viewer's job. Gold and Helfand have formed a production company to create more socially conscious films like "Blue Vinyl." Consumers rejoice; corporate PR people, you've been warned. You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. Pro vinyl/anti vinyl The case against vinyl "Vinyl turns out to be the most environmentally hazardous consumer product on Earth. Vinyl is the source of more persistent toxic pollutants - dioxin in particular - than any other single product in the world." - Joe Thornton, Columbia University "Dioxin ... lasts a long time in the environment. It lasts a long time in our bodies. ... A little bit of dioxin goes a long, long way." - George Lucier, former director, environmental toxicology, National Institutes of Health The case for vinyl "Almost any field you can imagine, you will create dioxin ... The good news is that dioxin emissions to the environment have been declining for the past 30 years." - William Carroll, Vinyl Institute "Take a look at all the vinyl products that are going to be in this house ... You'll have a heck of a lot less maintenance and I think this house is going to look good for years." - Jim Kosinski, Vinyl Institute, at a Habitat for Humanity house-raising - From the HBO film "Blue Vinyl" @ART CAPTION:Documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand removes vinyl siding from her parents' Long Island home in a scene from her "toxic comedy" "Blue Vinyl." @ART CREDIT:HBO @ART:Photo

It's just a 'Little' Ving thing; Rhames and Reuben star in 'American' movie for Hallmark

Ving Rhames stars in action-adventure films and Radio Shack commercials. He's played Don King and wants to play Martin Luther King. He co-stars in three upcoming big budget Hollywood films. Right now, however, he is on the phone promoting his appearance in the next "Hallmark Hall of Fame" on CBS. To his credit, he's not even trying to sound excited about it. "I like to expand," is his only response when asked why he took the part of an uncomplicated old farmer in "Little John," the "Hall of Fame" presentation airing at 8 p.m. Sunday (Channel 5). "We had a natural chemistry together," pretty much sums up his memories of working with Gloria Reuben, the former "ER" star who plays his estranged daughter in the movie. Truth is, there's not much to say about "Little John" - it's just another touching, well-acted and beautifully filmed Hallmark gem. In it, Rhames' character drives to L.A. with his grandson John (newcomer Robert Bailey Jr.) and tries to reconcile with Reuben's character, who has become, ironically enough, a judge in family court. The only thing that really stands out about "Little John" is its casting: With the exception of Patty Duke, who has a small supporting role, the actors are all African-Americans. It's the first "Hall of Fame" so distinguished since 1995's "The Piano Lesson," starring Charles S. Dutton and Alfre Woodard. Before that, only "The Marva Collins Story" (1981) featured a mostly black cast. "We just feel that we want to do a balance of things," says "Hall of Fame" executive producer Richard Welsh. "We're also looking for Hispanic stories to tell." There are no racial themes in "Little John." The script doesn't even specify that it's about a black family. But if the movie has nothing to say about race, that's not true of Rhames, though it requires a little prodding. When asked about the color-blind script, Rhames repeats almost verbatim a line he gave Hallmark's publicist that was included in the promotional materials mailed out to the press. "Little John," he says, is "an American story that would appeal to any ethnic group. ... The story is universal. It could happen to any of us." Then he adds, "I mean, in how many movies about Native American Indians have the Native Americans played the roles? Most of the time, they don't. "There have been tons of movies where Caucasians have played the roles not meant for Caucasians. You see the tide changing, slowly but surely." But Rhames does not agree that ethnic faces have become more common on television in recent years. Becoming more animated, Rhames says: "The media, in general, reports negative incidents that happen in the African-American community. That's because they don't live in African-American neighborhoods. ... "You see black youths (in gangs) on 'Cops,' but I don't see a black woman (like Reuben's character) succeeding against all odds. It's not that rare, but to the world it's rare." Then Rhames, who has been reading the works of Martin Luther King in hopes of playing him in an upcoming feature film, begins talking about love and forgiveness - favorite themes of the civil rights leader and crucial themes to "Little John." "I'm looking at a situation in Israel where I never hear the world 'love' mentioned," he says. "If love and forgiveness are not there, that situation could go on for the next hundred years. "Little John" is "almost a metaphor," he says, "it's a child that becomes the important element, because a child represents the future. The future is the most important element for peace." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Ving Rhames and Gloria Reuben star as a farmer and his estranged daughter in "Little John." @ART CAPTION:Director Dick Lowry discusses a scene from "Little John" with Gloria Reuben and Robert Bailey Jr. @ART:Photos (2, color and b/w) @ART CREDIT:ERIK HEINILA
Copyright 2002 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service The Kansas City Star
May 2, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
KR-ACC-NO: K2451
LENGTH: 1370 words