Soccer should be your World Cup of glee

As a lad, I was into soccer. I played, coached a team and even refereed a few matches. Did this make me a lifetime futbol fanatic? Hardly. Like most Americans my age, my fondest sporting memories were televised. That meant baseball, football, basketball, the Olympics - and precious little soccer. The only reliable source of games in the 1970s was a PBS import called "Soccer Made in Germany" that featured edited Bundesliga matches. Imagine a kid whose only exposure to the national pastime was Mel Allen's "This Week in Baseball." Highlight reels do not a devotee make. Still, I'm amazed to hear the sports-radio loudmouths continue to assert that no one in their right mind should get up at 6:30 a.m. to watch this year's World Cup, airing live from South Korea and Japan. Aside from its being one of the most exciting and unpredictable tournaments in a generation, the Cup is the only true "world championship" in professional sports. Most people watch the men's bobsled only every four years, yet no one declares it unfit for national consumption. So get up and tune in, skeptical viewer. You deserve an eye-opener - especially after those snoozefests put on by our basketball and hockey leagues. I've been watching most of the matches on Spanish-language Univision (Channel 26 on Time Warner Cable), where it's called Copa Mundial, and it's near impossible not to get caught up in the frenzy of its announcers. Two of their catch phrases require no translation: "GO-OOOOOOOOOO-L!" and the lesser-known yet no less riveting "PENAL-PENAL-PENALTY!" Some soccer aficionados have griped that ESPN takes a "Futbol for Dummies" approach, but I don't see that. Play-caller Jack Edwards is accurate, doesn't over explain and has an obvious enthusiasm for the game. When South Korea scored the winning goal to upset Italy before 41,000 Korean fans last week, Edwards wisely closed his mike and let viewers take in the pandemonium. For some reason Univision's coverage runs about 11 seconds ahead of ESPN's. This lets you fashion your own instant replay with a press of the remote. Except for a couple of handheld cameras Univision uses down at field level, the video offered by the two networks is virtually identical. World Cup semifinals air at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday on ESPN and Univision, repeating later in the day on ESPN2 and ESPN Classic. You can catch the final live only in Spanish, 5 a.m. Sunday on Univision. It's called in English on tape delay at 11:30 a.m. on ABC (Channel 9). Ever since Louis Rukeyser found himself on the outs with Pat Mitchell, PBS president, a funereal tone has settled over his old "Wall Street Week" program. Rather than take the show off the air after firing Rukeyser, PBS soldiered on, using caretaker hosts like Ray Brady and Marshall Loeb who, by comparison, made the 69-year-old former host seem vibrant and youthful. That's a joke, of course. Rukeyser, who quickly struck a deal with CNBC, remains a throwback to an older, unhurried style of financial television. And if Mitchell was unhappy with it, Lou's fans, many of whom subscribe to his $39-a-year newsletters, aren't. They appreciate that for three decades he's done his broadcast the same way Rosedale Barbecue does brisket - always keeping it low and slow. This week PBS unveils the retooled and renamed "Wall Street Week With Fortune" (7:30 p.m. Friday, KCPT and KTWU). Geoffrey Colvin and Karen Gibbs, veteran editors of the business magazine, take over as anchors of a new format that promises tougher questions, more newsmakers and less of the clubby familiarity of Rukeyser's show. Instead of an opening monologue, Colvin and Gibbs will banter about the financial headlines of the week. Then will come the interview segments, done in the more conventional Sunday-morning style, with journalists - not Rukeyser's Wall Street pals - asking the questions. Viewers won't have to choose between these programs because "Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street" airs more than once - 7:30 p.m. Friday on CNBC, opposite "Wall Street Week", but again at 10:30 p.m. And if you don't have cable, Lou has you covered, too. In a rebuff to PBS, Rukeyser offered rebroadcasts of his program to public TV stations. In a further rebuff to PBS, more than 100 stations so far have signed up. Topeka's KTWU re-airs Rukeyser three times: 12:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Saturday (late Friday) and 10:30 Saturday night. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com RECOMMENDED SHOWS ALL WEEK: World Cup 2002 on ABC, ESPN and Univision. Reviewed in today's column. TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: "American Idol," 8 p.m. Tuesday and 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Fox (Channel 4). Fox has a summer hit with this competition that hilariously debunks the show-biz glorification by previous shows like "Making the Band." Judges are delightfully brutal to wannabe pop stars (sample response: "That was terrible, I mean, seriously terrible"). SUNDAY: "P.O.V.," 10 p.m., KCPT, Channel 19. Public TV's annual documentary series begins with "The Smith Family," a breathtakingly intimate film about a Mormon family that tries picking up the pieces after learning that Dad has AIDS and Mom's HIV-positive. It also airs at 9 p.m. and midnight Tuesday on Topeka's KTWU.

WDAF manager leaving to run two Florida stations

WDAF-TV general manager Stan Knott had a great season. Now he's going to Disney World. Fox Television on Monday named Knott the vice president and general manager of its newly formed station duopoly in Orlando. He'll run WOFL-TV, a Fox affiliate, and WRBW-TV, a UPN affiliate. Fox, which also owns WDAF, acquired WOFL in a recent station swap with Meredith Corp. Knott, who joined WDAF in 1998, leaves Kansas City with his station achieving some of its highest ratings since becoming a Fox affiliate. And thanks to WDAF's 49 hours per week of local newscasts - believed to be the most of any station in the country - "Fox 4" is reaping the rewards with its large local ad inventory. Industry insiders believe that WDAF will challenge KMBC this year as the highest-billing station in Kansas City. No replacement for Knott has been named. Orlando is the fastest-growing area in the nation, with an estimated 5,000 new residents arriving each month. It is the 20th-largest TV market, with $221 million in spot revenues in 2000, according to Mediaweek. Kansas City is the 31st-largest TV market, with about two-thirds of the ad revenue of Orlando. Knott will have his work cut out for him. WOFL runs a weak fifth in local news, and often finishes in sixth behind "UPN 65," its new sister station. In April, Fox traded a station in Portland, Ore., to Meredith - which also owns KCTV - in exchange for WOFL and a station in Ocala, Fla. Add up all those deals and Fox is over the government limit for station ownership. Using the formula devised by regulators, its signals now reach 39 percent of the United States. The federal limit is 35 percent. The station cap was the premise for a staff meeting last summer at WDAF. Knot announced that Fox was selling WDAF to a private investor group to get back under the 35 percent limit. Fox never officially confirmed that news. After an appeals court questioned the government's right to cap station ownership, the sale rumor went away. To reach Aaron Barnhart, call (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com.

Dog eat dog days of summer TV are here

Pet psychics? Matching blondes? Insult-a-thons? This can only mean one thing: Still more low-rent programs have begun subletting space on TV's summer schedule. The Fox affiliate in Los Angeles has a popular morning show. Some Fox network executive got the idea of beaming it to the whole nation. (Fox network executives pretty much all live in L.A. - coincidence?) Thus, "Good Day Live" (1 p.m., WDAF, Channel 4), a one-hour yapfest in which gray-haired news anchor Steve Edwards and matching blondes Dorothy Lucey (the husky-voiced one) and Jillian Barberie (the football-pregame-show weatherbabe one) read the news and banter. The difference between this show and "Live With Regis and Kelly" - another local morning show that went national - is that ABC's version has Regis Philbin. The blondes are sassy and interesting but unfortunately for Steve, he's no Regis. "Dog Eat Dog" (8 tonight, NBC, Channel 41), another meaningless bit of filler from NBC to go with its taste-deprived "Fear Factor," features six contestants on a refurbished "Weakest Link" set. They exchange insults, answer trivia questions and brave various challenges that all seem to involve being suspended 10 feet above a swimming pool. The contestants try their best to feign dislike for one other, something they've obviously been coached to do by the show's producers. But their put-downs are lame. This toothless game is more like "Dog Gum Dog." I caught only a few minutes of Animal Planet's "The Pet Psychic" (7 tonight), but that was enough to channel its mindlessly simple formula. British-born clairvoyant Sonya Fitzpatrick sidles up to an owner and his/her pet, determines that the pet is happy/sad and relays a special message from the pet to the owner. Fitzpatrick can even deliver messages from deceased pets. Scooby-Doo might call this "Rossing Rover." I take it from Fitzpatrick's Web site - she has practical pet-raising tips and advocates no-kill animal sanctuaries, a worthy cause - that talking to animals is more than a shtick to her. But that's all it is to Animal Planet. "The Pet Psychic" is a shameless John Edward knockoff that reduces its host to a carnival act. And now, something worth staying inside for. Never have I recommended a program having seen so little of it. In my defense, when you watch "Red Gold: The Epic Story of Blood" (8 p.m. Sunday, KCPT, Channel 19), you too may find yourself shielding your eyes during the program's numerous and, gulp, highly realistic depictions of bloodletting. As we learn during the fascinating first part of "Red Gold," bloodletting was a popular medical procedure for more than 2,500 years, even though there wasn't a whit of evidence that it ever did anyone much good. Nor did that stop its practitioners from inventing dozens of mechanical devices for extracting a patients' blood. Because of my encounter with leukemia (I'm over it), I've had plenty of experience giving and receiving blood. I always thought I handled it rather stoically. But I now know I am a sissy-boy compared with the hardy souls who let themselves be sliced and diced by such devices as the "automatic lancet." I winced and looked away when a museum curator demonstrated this blood-taker which, with its spring-loaded metal claw, surely must have found its way to the Marquis de Sade's medicine chest. For all that, "Red Gold" is very entertaining and watchable (and you won't have to turn your head after the first hour). The program's lead expert is author Douglas Starr, who is terrific, vividly descriptive and often quite funny. As are many of the other assembled experts. I loved the professor who, referring to such early experiments as transfusing humans with animal blood, says, "These were crazy experiments! But somebody had to do them." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com

They hope you'll need oxygen; Upstart channel takes the fun, witty approach to women's cable programming

NEW YORK - While you're waiting for the elevator to the studios of the Oxygen cable network, there are two TV screens to look at. One is showing Oxygen; the other, an overhead view of whoever's in the elevator. If you don't want the passengers to know you've been staring at them, look away when the traffic signal - the one mounted next to the elevator - turns yellow. Welcome to the consciously quirky world of Oxygen. The women's channel, which was recently added to 310,000 area homes of Time Warner Cable (Channel 73), has a joke-cracking yoga instructor on its workout show, an omnipresent black stripe on-screen where Oxygen staffers type in snarky comments during "Xena: Warrior Princess," and programs with titles like "Visible Panty Lines" and "The Sunday Night Sex Show." While the leading cable channel for women, Lifetime, is noted for its dramas and true-life stories about women triumphing over adversity, a recent edition of the daily talk show "Pure Oxygen" featured comics Stephanie Miller and Joe Piscopo plugging a goofy "dogamentary" film and interviewing its "star," a Shih Tzu named Chelsea. "We're not looking at life with a woe-is-me attitude," says Oxygen's chief executive, Geraldine Laybourne. "Our audience thinks of us as bold, optimistic and witty." By offering lighthearted fare served with a side of knowing irony, Oxygen hopes to be the alternative that makes women laugh, as opposed to Lifetime, which makes them cry. This fall, Candice Bergen will appear in a new "real people" series for Oxygen in which, among other things, she rides a street luge through downtown Los Angeles and interviews a man who freeze-dries deceased pets. That same, almost programmatic zaniness runs through Oxygen's other talk shows, which star fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, actress and author Carrie Fisher and comedian Tracey Ullman (her "Visible Panty Lines" returns at 9:30 tonight). All of this has not yet added up to many viewers (see sidebar). But that's not for lack of publicity or star power. Thanks to its high-profile investors - notably Oprah Winfrey, who holds a 25 percent "founder's stake" in the channel - Oxygen has gotten more press in its first two years than the Weather Channel did in 20. Many women learned about Oxygen from a darling TV commercial in which infant girls in a hospital nursery defiantly toss off their pink caps to Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman." These viewers, however, may have been surprised to tune in and see a not-so-liberated schedule of talk shows, stale movies and even staler reruns ("Love, American Style," anyone?). That's not uncommon for an upstart cable channel. Because of the huge costs involved in launching a network and persuading cable operators to carry it, Oxygen couldn't afford to make Lifetime-style movies even if it wanted to. It does, however, have the power of Oprah. This week's announcement of a new series, "Oprah After the Show," should make Oxygen a destination channel for new viewers when the show launches Sept. 16. "Oprah After the Show" will be a half-hour of bonus material taken from the same "Oprah" program shown earlier that day in syndication (it airs locally on KMBC-TV). In a press release, Winfrey promised she and her guest will "kick off our shoes," with a looser format than the one-hour "Oprah" show. An Oxygen publicist said Winfrey literally plans to kick off her shoes and bring her two cocker spaniels on stage for "After the Show." Though Oprah is a television legend, Oxygen's CEO is nearly as legendary in the TV business. Gerry Laybourne runs Oxygen from an unpretentious corner of the channel's combined studios and offices, built on the site of an old Nabisco factory in New York's historic Chelsea Market. Sitting at a simple round table, she exudes both warmth and professionalism. At 55, she is confident about where she has been and where she's going. And she's not shy about invoking her past when talking about the future. It was 1980 when Laybourne, a former elementary teacher, joined the kids' channel Nickelodeon. She rose to general manager and, by emphasizing fun and creativity, turned Nick into a cable phenomenon. One of her early achievements was expanding the channel to 24 hours by creating Nick at Nite. With its mix of cheekily promoted reruns, Nick at Nite popularized "classic TV," one of the most influential concepts in cable history. Combined with the playful spirit of daytime Nick, Laybourne shaped a personality for her channel. That, she says, is what she's trying to do with Oxygen. "What we're doing now is getting witty," Laybourne says. "It's much harder to get witty with women than it is to get witty with kids. It takes a long time to develop a hit." "Rugrats," she notes, came along seven years after she took over Nick. Laybourne says 80 percent of the new shows she's developing are comedies, and she has some star power to draw on here as well. Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach built Hollywood's most successful independent TV studio on such hits as "The Cosby Show" and "Roseanne." The three own part of Oxygen and are creating new comedy shows for it. Oxygen also gets to air "Roseanne" reruns starting next year. As for her most famous investor, Laybourne seems determined to, as she puts it, "Oxygenate Oprah." Last month Winfrey appeared in an Oxygen spot, gamely trying to promote herself as a wild and wacky woman. It looked, frankly, contrived. Still, it's hard to imagine Winfrey not giving the new show her all, even if it plays to a much smaller audience than the one watching "Oprah." Not every Oxygen program will strive for yuks. The channel has a fair amount of what could be called empowerment TV. Documentary filmmakers Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus are behind a short-run series, "Sixteen," focusing on the real-life stories of teen-age girls. It premieres at 6 p.m. Sunday. Oxygen also airs WNBA games formerly seen on Lifetime, as well as women's pro golf, tennis and volleyball events, and a magazine show with profiles of female athletes. The channel's online service, oxygen.com, hopes to empower women through interactivity. The Web site is doing extensive polling of its users and more on-air polls are planned for this fall. Viewer polls have paid off for the Web sites of ESPN and CNN, but those networks play to much larger audiences than Oxygen does. So how will Oxygen increase its audience? One key is getting into as many homes as possible. Lifetime reaches virtually the entire cable and satellite audience of 87 million U.S. homes. Until recently Oxygen was available in only about 20 million homes. That number has since doubled, as operators like Time Warner Cable have added it to their lineups. Given the great success of that other women's channel, Laybourne says, that says something about Oxygen. "Lifetime is doing a great job of serving its audience," she says, smiling warmly. "The heartening thing is that cable operators have recognized the need for something else." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com Women's cable choices begin with Lifetime Lifetime isn't just cable's top-rated network among women - it's the country's most popular cable channel, with more viewers than Nickelodeon, USA Network or TBS. On average, every night, about 1.7 million adult women watch Lifetime's mix of original movies, "Golden Girls" repeats and inspiring true-life stories. And now a spinoff channel, Lifetime Movie Network (LMN), is quickly becoming a hit. Among "women's channels," these have the highest prime-time averages: Lifetime, 1,958,000 viewers (channel is offered in 85 million homes). LMN, 185,000 (23 million homes). WE (Women's Entertainment), 138,000 (46 million homes). SoapNet, 123,000 (23 million homes). Oxygen, 64,000 (42 million homes). @ART CAPTION:Women's cable choices begin with Lifetime @ART:Graphic @ART CREDIT:Source: Nielsen Media Research, May 2002 @ART CAPTION:Oh, the insanity: At left, Oxygen host Tracey Ullman (left) clowns with guests Cindy Crawford and Mell Campbell on "Visible Panty Lines"; below, the host of Oxygen's "The Isaac Mizrahi Show" goes bowling with actress Juliette Lewis. @ART CREDIT:Oxygen Media @ART CAPTION:Oprah Winfrey @ART:Photos (3, color and b/w)

'Stranded' leaves nodire plot point unturned

Hallmark Entertainment, always on the prowl for a Great Book to turn into Good TV, has turned to the story of the original castaways, the Swiss Family Robinson. As readers of Johann Wyss' book know, the family was shipwrecked on a tropical island. Unlike the participants in "Survivor," they didn't hold tribal councils and didn't get to leave after 39 days. "Stranded," a miniseries airing in two parts, 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Hallmark Channel, is beautifully filmed, like most Hallmark fare. But the dire-sounding title gives you a pretty good idea where Hallmark's going with this production, which differs considerably from earlier movie versions of the "Swiss Family" story. Disney's 1960 "Swiss Family Robinson" - the best-loved adaptation of the 1813 book - featured romance, adventure, lots of laughs and cuddly animals. "Stranded" has persecution, murder, endless squabbling and an almost primal obsession with survival. This updated Swiss family story begins in a British courtroom, where Mr. Robinson (played by Liam Cunningham) is being sentenced to hard labor in Australia for his religious beliefs. His wife (Brana Bajic) and four children (none of whom sounds terribly Swiss) decide they will accompany him on the prison boat. During a storm and subsequent melee to abandon ship, one child is lost. He is put on a lifeboat with a group of pirates, who then raise him with buccaneer values. When he visits his family in Part 2, he has become a problem teen. Back at the island, Dad and the kids have run-ins over who knows best how to survive in the wild. Predictably, these arguments are decided in favor of the smarter and nobler children. Even on the South Seas, it seems there's no escaping Hollywood cliches. A bitterly contested union dispute inspired "American Standoff" (7 tonight, HBO), a humanistic documentary about 20th-century labor tactics and 21st-century economic realities. In 1999 Teamsters president James P. Hoffa Jr. picked a fight with Overnite Transportation, a mostly nonunion trucking company where organized labor has tried to expand its influence. The resulting strike has dragged on for nearly three years, with no end in sight, and with seemingly little effect on Overnite's bottom line. The film suffers somewhat from a lack of closure, though first-time director Kristi Jacobson had no control over that. She makes up for it, however, with some compelling subjects - not just Hoffa but the rank-and-file who work the picket lines and somehow keep the faith despite ever-shrinking odds of success. Bringing comic book heroes to the small screen is nothing new. Still, there's something distinctive about TNT's "Witchblade" series, which returns at 7 p.m. Sunday for a second season (regular episodes will air at 8 p.m. Mondays on TNT). Not only is the show's hero not cut from the familiar Super-Spider-Bat-man mold - she's a hero-ine. And she's a heroine in her day job as well, as a New York City cop named Sara Pezzini. The legend is that Sara stumbled upon an ancient metallic glove called the Witchblade. It gave her myriad powers, from stopping a bullet to reading someone's mind. Naturally, this discovery made her the target of Bad Men who had their own to-do list for the Witchblade. With its outsized violence, surreal dialogue and visual stylishness, TNT's "Witchblade" captures the look and feel of the print medium it's adapting. It's an ambitious effort. Yancy Butler, who plays Sara, is spared the embarrassment of earlier TV superchicks. No parading around in skin-tight outfits for this wonder woman. A note to the uninitiated: Last season's finale showed Sara using the Witchblade to turn back the clock and reverse the death of her partner Danny (Will Yun Lee), who is very much alive in Sunday's premiere. If you'd like more backstory, TNT is helpfully re-running season one of "Witchblade" on Tuesday nights, at 10 p.m. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com.

Numbers battle rages on for local news stations

The great thing about Nielsen ratings is you can slice them any way you want, as local TV stations proved once again following the season-ending May ratings "sweep." Who won mornings? Depends on who's slicing. The nice people over at KMBC, Channel 9, point out in a neatly typed press release that their "First News" was "the market leader between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m." What's more, their early-bird newscast from 5 to 6 "dominated during May." But wait. "Fox 4 Morning News ... was No. 1," proclaims a dueling press release from WDAF, Channel 4. How can this be? Simple: Fox 4 just took a bigger slice of the pie. By using the Nielsen rating for the entire four-hour period from 5 to 9 a.m., WDAF declared itself the winner in local morning news. Of course, WDAF is the only station in town with a four-hour local morning newscast, so it's kind of hard to imagine the scenario in which they lose that one. (KMBC and KCTV are obliged to carry lower-rated network shows from 7 to 9 a.m.) WDAF's press release also brags that Fox 4 "is now the most watched television station in Kansas City," based on the average audience for the entire broadcast day. That piece of pie is so big that - if it were actual pie - you'd need a forklift to pick it up. Before you put down the paper and head for the icebox, I'll switch metaphors. It wasn't long ago that KCTV, Channel 5, was taking the ratings elevator down to the ground floor. A useful metaphor, since most of the station's management left the building last year. Now their fresh-faced replacements have arrived, and guess which button they're punching. "Up" is a word that appears 20 times on KCTV's rundown of the May sweep. Noon news? Up. Daytime programs? Up again. Morning news? Up, up, up! The morning gains are especially welcome at KCTV, which started airing a newscast for insomniacs at 4:30 a.m. in December. Even though it still loses that time period to a Fox 4 repeat of "Cops" (something Channel 9 not-so-nicely pointed out in its press release), KCTV's morning audience is finally trending upward. Also riding the up elevator was Fox 4, which noted that it was "the only local station to see growth in its 10 p.m. newscast." Other items from the May sweep: The queen of the courtroom edged out the queen of talk, as "Judge Judy" on Fox 4 pulled in 16 percent of the audience from 4 to 5 p.m. "Oprah" got 15 percent. KMBC can't wait for Oprah Winfrey's favorite family therapist to get his own talk show this fall. Dr. Phil McGraw, who as a teen-ager used to race hot-rods through downtown Kansas City, takes over for that clunker "Jerry Springer" at 3 p.m. ("Springer" is moving to mornings). "Dr. Phil" should deliver a larger and more compatible audience to "Oprah" at 4. No thanks to Oprah, KMBC came roaring back at 5 p.m. with a newscast that - the press release, please - "out-delivered the 10 p.m. newscasts on WDAF, KCTV and KSHB." Yep, KMBC's 9.2 rating at 5 is higher than the 9.0 rating for KCTV at 10. One rating point represents about 8,500 households in the Kansas City viewing area. As usual, KMBC also won handily at 6 and 10 p.m. "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," which boosted the fortunes of NBC affiliates across the country during its six-year run, never caught on in Kansas City. NBC 41 finally lost patience with "Rosie" and moved it from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. It finished the May sweep with a 2.0 rating - not much lower than the 2.2 rating "Rosie" averaged five years ago at 4 p.m. The lack of a decent afternoon lead-in has been a continual source of frustration to the newsies at NBC 41. With help from NBC's prime-time lineup, the station's 10 p.m. newscast routinely finishes in third place or better. But the 5 p.m. news, which is preceded by the aptly named "Weakest Link," runs a distant fourth. And "NBC 41 News at 6" actually finished fifth behind repeats of "Everybody Loves Raymond" on KSMO, Channel 62. By the same token, a strong local newscast can help the show that follows it. Just ask Jay Leno; thanks to NBC 41's growing presence at 10, "The Tonight Show" has gone from fourth to second place at 10:35 p.m., behind "Seinfeld" on KMBC. Sadly, "Tonight" may also have gained by not having to follow "Kansas City Crossroads." NBC 41's acclaimed five-minute local history segment was airing at 10:30 p.m. until February (it's now seen during newscasts on Friday and Sunday). The more things change ... The two highest-rated programs on KMCI, Channel 38, in May were the repeats of "The Simpsons" that start at 6 p.m. Those were also the two most popular programs on KMCI nearly six years ago, when it became "38 Family Greats." And the two highest-rated shows on Pax TV's KPXE, Channel 50, were repeats of "Diagnosis Murder" and ... "Bonanza." Today's 1 p.m. "Bonanza" rerun is an episode titled "Square Deal Sam" that first aired Nov. 8, 1964 - before either KCTV general manager Kirk Black or KSHB news director Laura Clark were born. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV BarnWeb site at www.tvbarn.com

Law & disorder on HBO's 'The Wire'

To nobody's surprise, HBO has introduced another new series, "The Wire," in which morally ambiguous characters find themselves caught in ethically compromised situations. What's a little surprising, at least to me, is that after two episodes I can't decide whether to keep watching. "The Wire" airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO; if you missed Sunday's premiere, it repeats several times this week. The show comes to us from David Simon, whose books formed the basis of NBC's "Homicide" and HBO's "The Corner." Like those stories, this one is set in Baltimore's seething urban core, where drugs and guns and despair interact in violent and sadly familiar ways. The difference this time is that as much emphasis is placed on the lives of the criminals as on the cops. More than that, they reside on the same moral plateau, mere shouting distance from each other, and the law forms a very narrow chasm between them. On the criminal side, we meet D'Angelo Barksdale, a young drug trafficker who aspires to be as cold-blooded and successful as his uncle and mentor, Avon Barksdale. You know just by looking at D'Angelo, played by the appealing young Larry Gilliard Jr., that he's going to suffer some pang of conscience. Even Avon (Wood Harris) doesn't seem like such a bad guy; he cleans up a couple of D'Angelo's impetuous messes and sends him off with some sound fatherly advice. On the police side, the central figure is the less-than-mesmerizing Det. Jimmy McNulty, played by Dominic West. He mumbles a lot, and he does a lot of strange things early on, putting himself in needless danger with both his bosses and an oncoming train. His partner Bunk, played by perennial sitcom buddy Wendell Pierce, offers a semblance of comic relief. In interviews, Simon has called his new show "a drama masquerading as a cop show." I gather that some of the drama will revolve around an act of betrayal: somebody wearing "the wire," or surveillance mike, of the show's title. Without reading too deeply between the lines, it's pretty clear that "The Wire" is about two symbiotic systems that need each other to survive. If that's so, the war on drugs will never end - too many law-enforcement careers hang in the balance. We see this in the show's other potential breakout performance besides Gilliard's: that of Lance Reddick as an ambitious lieutenant stuck between incompetent officers and fickle superiors. I also counted three instances in which drug dealers were called "terrorists" - which to me is Simon suggesting that a perennial War on Terrorism may be the new form of job security at the Pentagon. OK, so "The Wire" has a lot of nerve, and it's comfortable looking at the big picture. It's the little picture that's the problem. The show is willfully depressing. The dialogue, from the David Mamet school, features abundant though not very creative use of profanity. Nobody of any consequence here seems to take pleasure in anything except other people's suffering. Is this entertainment? Your call. But right now, I'd rather watch FX's "The Shield," another series about hard-bitten careerist cops. At least it has a sense of humor. Unlike basic cable, however, HBO shows are not always meant for the immediate gratification of viewers. "Six Feet Under" took some getting used to; perhaps the same will be true of "The Wire," though I can tell already, it won't be that easy. When "Farscape" had its premiere three years ago on Sci Fi Channel, I sensed that it would have some appeal even to people who don't fancy themselves sci-fi buffs. Now the show returns for a fourth season at 9 p.m. Friday, and returning to it, I find the story lines so convoluted that I was grateful for the cheat sheet sent to me by the network. That said, the show - about an American fighter named Crichton who travels through a wormhole and immediately finds himself in some sort of intergalactic car chase - remains one of the most imaginative shows on TV. It's so creative that I enjoyed even those scenes in which I had only the faintest idea who was doing what to whom. In one scene a Muppet-like creature gives our hero a lecture in affairs of the heart: "Oh, Crichton, for once listen. When a woman, whether she's your wife, your lover - or a slave you've purchased to be your wife or lover - leaves you repeatedly, take a hint!" Did I mention the Muppet was holding the severed hand of a female alien while saying this? You just don't see that every day - not even on HBO. "Farscape" is preceded at 8 by the season premiere of "Stargate SG-1." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com.

TV's big bargain summer; New reality shows dominate the forgotten season

This summer the big TV networks are cranking out all-new shows in record numbers. But don't hold your breath waiting for a first-run episode of "CSI" or "Friends"; there simply aren't enough people watching TV during the summer months to pay for shows like that. Instead, the networks have ordered a raft of new documentaries, "reality" shows and similar fare at a fraction of the price of a typical drama or sitcom. Some look like cut-rate specials; others are bargains waiting to be found. Here's what's coming up: "Mole 2" (8 p.m. Tuesdays, ABC, Channel 9). Pulled shortly after its premiere last fall, this globe-trotting game show restarted its second season last week with host Anderson Cooper not only protecting the identity of the infiltrator, but slyly concealing his own betrayal as well (after the show was taped, Cooper left ABC for CNN). "Adoption" (7 p.m. Sundays, with its premiere tonight, Hallmark Channel). A beautifully done series documenting both sides of the adoption process. One segment follows a couple's arduous adoption of a baby living halfway across the globe; another profiles a single woman torn over whether to give up her child. "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska" (8 p.m. Sundays, starting tomorrow, Fox, Channel 4). Fox's newest dating game is "Temptation Island" in parkas. In a nice 19th-century touch, each woman gets a "dowry" that gets larger the deeper she digs for gold - er - I mean the better she plays the game. The few minutes I previewed were so awful that it seems certain to become a hit. "The Hamptons" (8 p.m. Sunday and Monday, ABC, Channel 9). Esteemed documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple bummed around Long Island's tony Hamptons last summer, documenting the party scene of the rich and famous. Reviewers have not been kind; the New Yorker's critic called Kopple "a promoter of the privileged." "Boston 24/7" (9 p.m. over six nights beginning Tuesday, ABC, Channel 9). ABC dispersed crews throughout Boston for three months, capturing video from a troubled high school, a prosecutor's office, the mayor, a firefighter and many other people with "everyday struggles and triumphs" in this follow-up to last summer's "Hopkins 24/7." The two hours I saw were raw and riveting. In one terrifyingly long scene, a student grows angrier and angrier at a teacher he thinks has "disrespected" him. In another, a press secretary to Boston's mayor seems overwhelmed by her job. Not many scenes here play out quite as you'd expect. "Spy TV" (7 p.m. Tuesdays, NBC, Channel 41). Doritos chip babe Ali Landry takes over emcee duties of this candid-video program. NBC is promising "wackier and funnier" stunts than last year's edition. Even so, a supermodel is no substitute for a guerrilla host like the WB's Jamie Kennedy, whose new show, "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment," has reinvented Allen Funt's format. "Cold Case Files" (8 p.m. Tuesdays, A&E) and "Minute by Minute" (9 p.m. Wednesdays, A&E). The latest makeover of A&E's prime-time schedule bumps up two occasional series to weeklies. "Cold Case Files," about crime cases that are kick-started after years of dormancy, is produced and narrated by Bill Kurtis, who has just the voice for it. "Minute by Minute" retells famous news stories in detail that can be excruciating (JFK's assassination) or gratuitous (the O.J. "chase"). "World Diary" (8 p.m., Wednesday, National Geographic Channel). Another must-see installment in the quarterly news series about corners of the world we rarely hear from. This edition tells the heart-wrenching stories of children victimized by Colombia's long-running drug wars. "American Idol: The Search for a Superstar" (premieres 7:30 p.m. June 11 on Fox, Channel 4). Ed McMahon is nowhere to be found on this star-search series imported from England. Vote live for your favorite act. "State v." (9 p.m. Wednesdays starting June 19, ABC, Channel 9) and "Crime & Punishment" (9 p.m. Sundays starting June 16, NBC, Channel 41). Competing real-life justice shows, one from ABC's news division, the other from Mr. "Law & Order," Dick Wolf. "State v." makes excellent use of it's extraordinary access to all aspects of a murder trial, including jury deliberations. The episode I saw had great drama, with a grizzled prosecutor pitted against an idealistic and plucky public defender in a complex case. By contrast, the verite style of "Crime & Punishment" may work for a show like "Cops," but is too minimalist for a one-hour story. It didn't help that the episode I saw featured a slam-dunk case for the prosecution. Making the defense look silly is a time-honored tradition on "Law & Order," but it just doesn't work here. "Married in America" (8 p.m. June 17 and 9 p.m. June 20, A&E). Director Michael Apted, who has documented the lives of British children into adulthood ("7 Up," "14 Up" etc.), does the same with a group of American newlyweds. Apted plans to follow up with the subjects of this intriguing film in 10 years. "P.O.V." (10 p.m. Sundays starting June 30, KCPT, Channel 19). Public television's consistently outstanding summer anthology of documentary films opens with "The Smith Family," a film about a Mormon family torn apart by AIDS. Later films include "Senorita Extraviada," a chilling tale of more than 200 young women missing in Juarez, Mexico. And in July ... "Big Brother 3" (July 10, CBS, Channel 5). He's BA-aaaaaaa-ck. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Five women search for Mr. Right on "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska" at 8 p.m. Sundays starting tomorrow on Fox, Channel 4. @ART CREDIT:Fox @ART CAPTION:Producer Dick Wolf @ART:Photos (2, color and b/w)