"Crash" and "Crusoe": Terrific TV shows? On a Friday? Are they HIGH?

 

Before you make other plans for Friday, read this review of two unusually strong new entries on the TV schedule.

Let's start with "Crash," a series that marks the debut of the Starz movie channel as a producer of original drama for TV. Starz is promoting this "Crash" (airing at 9 p.m. CT on Starz and Encore)as being "inspired" by the other "Crash," that took home the Best Picture award at the 2006 Oscars.

While the cast -- led by Dennis Hopper -- looks completely different from that of the movie, the premise is much the same: Several seemingly unrelated characters from a range of ethnic and class backgrounds will see their lives collide violently in sweltering L.A.

Behind the camera, much is the same as well: Don Cheadle, star of the original "Crash," steps out of frame to serve as producer, joining four other producers from the movie. (One of them is Paul Haggis, who created the excellent "EZ Streets" for CBS and "Black Donnellys" for NBC, and has said that "Crash" was originally conceived as a TV series.)

Hopper plays Ben Cendars, a lonely, aging, self-destructive music producer who may or may not be based on the real-life case of Phil Spector. In the show's opening scene, he exposes himself in the back of his limo, and you know right away that this is another gift-wrapped role for one of Hollywood's leading weirdos.

Like the eight other characters in the "Crash" ensemble, Ben appears in short, angry bursts throughout the hour. As has become customary on TV, no storyline takes up more than a couple of minutes of our time before rushing on to the next.

And so, in fairly short order, we meet Christine (Clare Carey), a desperate housewife in fashionable West L.A. who's just learned her father is ill and will need home care; Anthony (Jocko Sims), Ben's new driver straight outta South Central; and Eddie (Brian Tee), a onetime Korean gangbanger trying to go straight as a paramedic.

It's a long season (13 episodes), but other lives begin entangling right away. Eddie quickly meets up with Axel (Nick E. Tarabay), a cop pursuing a murder as well as a Bebe (Arlene Tur), a sexy fellow LAPDer whose partner Kenny (Ross McCall) is trying to get into the pants of Inez (Moran Atias), a not-so-innocent bystander whose cars, aptly enough, collide on the streets of L.A.

No amount of interwoven narrative gimmickry can cover for a show's weaknesses, but it appears "Crash" has few. Thanks to the fact that Starz is pay cable and can say and show pretty much whatever it wants, this show ramps up the dramatic tension quickly and effectively. The characters play familiar parts (even Ben reminds me of someone -- Dennis Hopper).

I have no idea what a wigged-out producer has to do with Korean ambulance jockey, but I'm going to find out.

Contrarian view: My pal Ray Richmond hated "Crash."

"Crash" has the luxury of a guaranteed 13-episode season that Friday's other debut, "Crusoe," does not. However, as far as I'm concerned, this latest reimagining of Daniel Defoe's classic tale of a man shipwrecked on an island far from home has already earned its keep.

The two-hour premiere at 7 p.m. CT on NBC uses another popular storytelling technique -- flashbacks -- to thrust us into the lives of Robinson, or Robin as he's called here (played by Philip Winchester), and Friday (Tongayi Chirisa) as they are fending off a boatload of pirates who have invaded their tropical prison/paradise.

The marauders arrive on an island already festooned with defensive boobytraps set by Crusoe. They do not know that the two men dwell high up in a sophisticated bamboo penthouse filled with such conveniences as an all-wood orange-juice squeezer (what would that fetch on eBay?), elevator and a Rube Goldberg contraption that creates a massive smoke signal should one of the men happen to spot a passing ship.

But then, this is supposedly the late 17th century, and seamen wouldn't learn about the importance of citrus in curing scurvy for several decades yet. These little conceit to 21st-century tastes, however, is so well integrated with elements of Defoe's novel that it's charming.

I also like what they've done with Friday. He's Robin's co-equal in every way, a linguistic savant and logistical genius who only sticks around because the white man saved his life. (This is not a spoiler; it was also in the original book first published in 1719.)

Because it's on an ad-supported network, "Crusoe" will be expected to earn its keep each week. "Crash," meanwhile, merely has to deliver critics and attention to Starz, which it hopes to convert into new subscribers as it steps up its competition with HBO and Showtime.

Contrarian view: My pal Tim Goodman hated "Crusoe."