Never mind that twenty-somethings watch less TV than teens or boomers. They must be pandered to. Advertisers demand the slacker demographic. So on CBS’s numbingly bland “The Boys Are Back,” Hal Linden and Suzanne Pleshette’s two Gen-X sons “boomerang” back home to live with their parents. NBC’s heavily premeditated “Friends” flaunts every other X-er cliche: coffee bar, ’70s kitsch TV references, a Speed Racer poster – even Courtney Cox. (Having been both a Springsteen video girl and Alex Keaton’s girlfriend on “Family Ties,” the 30-year-old Cox is a fully credentialed poster babe for aging X-guys.) Sandwiched in the neurotic-New Yorker time slot between “Mad About You” and “Seinfeld,” this group comedy is supposed to be smart. Fox’s “Wild Oats” is the opposite. Two nakedly hormonal guys hang out in singles bars and chase after the same girlfriend. Critics are already greeting this show as the end of televised civilization. But like “Hardball,” Fox’s young, good-looking jock-com, “Wild Oats” is smart about being dumb.
ABC entertainment president Ted Harbert dismisses all this Gen-X pandering as a “bandwagon” and proclaims boldly, “I want to be the first to jump off.” But wait a minute. “Blue Skies,” another sophomoric relationship a trois (two guys, one girl) set in a Patagonia-like catalog company, is on ABC. How did that happen? According to “Blue Skies” executive producer John Peaslee, “They [ABC] said what’s important to us is to go after the twentysomething group.” Those crazy kids’ll probably be too busy slacking to notice anyway.
Fear of zapping. Because research says that people channel-surf during theme songs, ABC’s Harbert decreed that none of his new shows will have an opening ditty. The Harbert Initiative has met with catcalls from TV critics, many of whom not only know all the lyrics to the “Gilligan’s Island” song but cherish them. How will the public respond? CBS’s “Murphy Brown” has been themeless for years and nobody seemed to care. Likewise “Frasier,” which saves its little “Talking Seattle Blues” for the end. Fox entertainment president Sandy Grushow’s ideal is a “seamless night” of no commercials between his shows on Sundays, just Al Bundy and Bart Simpson plugging themselves – a prospect that may leave viewers begging for those Snapple ads again.
The War on Drugs gave us “Miami Vice” (or was it the other way round?). Now, health-care mania has infected prime time: two hos-pital shows set in Chicago, one on NBC, one on CBS. It’s a showdown in the O.R. cor-ral. The good news is they’re both good. The bad news is they’re on at the same time, Thursday at 10. Unless you have an advanced degree in VCR programming, you’ll have to make a hard choice. Of the two, NBC’s “ER” is younger and more appealing. A Michael Crichton-Steven Spielberg Production, it’s based on Crichton’s emergency-room experiences as a young resident. The pace is heart-poundingly fast, the writing no-nonsense and leading man Anthony Edwards wears the white coat with the right mix of pragmatic authority. “Chicago Hope,” befitting CBS’s more geriatric audience, boasts seasoned actors like Hector Elizondo and E. G. Marshall. Mandy Patinkin, being Mandy Patinkin, performs while performing surgery, singing and cracking wise a la Hawkeye Pierce. Created by David E. Kelley (“L.A. Law,” “Picket Fences”), the show rips scripts from the headlines with more sensationalist piety than “ER,” though Kelley promises he “won’t be separating Siamese twins every week.” Both shows get more splatteringly graphic in the O.R. than “St. Elsewhere” or “M.A.S.H.” ever did.
Insiders suspect CBS won’t have the stomach for head-to-head competition against NBC and will move “Chicago Hope” to Monday night, where “Northern Exposure” is likely going to lose resident physician Rob Morrow to the movies/ (starting with Robert Redford’s imminent “Quiz Show”). Fox’s new hospital show is still in the waiting room, a midseason replacement dubiously titled “Medicine Ball.” It’s a “Melrose, M.D.” set not in Chicago but in Seattle, where the doctors have goatees and make creative use of supply-closet daybeds.
Oops, sorry, Mr. Littlefield. It doesn’t seem to bother Warren Littlefield, the president of NBC entertainment, that Coleman has failed multiple times on TV over the last decade, starting with his critically acclaimed yet widely unwatched “Buffalo Bill.” Turns out Littlefield was the NBC program exec back then on “Buffalo Bill.” “I put it on the air,” he admits brazenly. “I think Dabney Coleman is a consummate actor and he’s certainly a great comedian.” Capable of being as ornery and cantankerous off-screen as he is on, Coleman is already being “very demanding” on the set of his new NBC comedy, “Madman of the People,” according to executive producer Chris Cluess – but in a “good” way, he hastens to add. The 62-year-old Coleman plays an ornery and cantankerous columnist, the titular “Madman,” whose daughter (Cynthia Gibb) takes charge of his magazine and becomes her dad’s boss. Let the hilarity begin! Coleman plays one thing well: a jerk, for which people love him, or, more often, hate him. “Madman” tries to warm-and-fuzzy his edge, which could alienate both the love and hate camps. “We know he’s failed before with us and other people,” Littlefield argues. “Bill Cosby failed before “The Cosby Show’.” (Dr. Cos, by the way, resurfaces on NBC as a retired forensic pathologist who can’t resist a good crime scene on “The Cosby Mysteries.”) Still, “Madman” is being picked by advertisers as the by-default hit of the season, entirely because of its prime post-“Seinfeld” position on Thursday night. As Grey Advertising senior VP Jon Mandel explains, “In that time slot, my resume would do a number.”
Not so far, but there’s still hope. ABC’s Harbert has promised no more sleazy movies-of-the-week, no more “families killing families.” NBC and CBS have also pledged more “uplifting” fare. It would be nice to think of this as a noble gesture made in the name of Quality TV. The truth, as in an Amy Fisher movie, is more sordid. Congress complained about TV violence and threatened legislation. More important, the highest-rated MOWs and mini-series were the squeaky-clean variety. MOWs depicting electrocutions and the brothers Menendez did not do well last year. All those Hallmark Halls of Fame did. ABC has ordered remakes of wholesome family flicks like “Freaky Friday” and “The Shaggy Dog,” as well as a TV adaptation of Woody Allen’s first play, “Don’t Drink the Water,” starring Woody as his earlier, funnier self and Michael J. Fox, who continues to be his current unfunny self. Only Fox – the network, not the actor – isn’t buying into the New Wholesomeness, with biopics in the works on O.J., Mia, Roseanne and Madonna. Can “Buttafuoco: The Early Years” be far behind?
Fox’s “Party of Five” may be the best new show of the season, and the neediest. It’s a quietly moving ensemble piece about a family of kids (ages 1 to 25) left to raise themselves after their parents die in a car crash. (ABC’s cloying “On Our Own” churns the same parentless premise into sitcom cheese.) The kids are amazing, the writing more shaded than the self-absorbed “My So-Called Life,” which has gotten all the press. “Party of Five” is also on after “Melrose Place,” a hard act to follow, since it means lots of viewers already tuned in, but not necessarily those looking for smart, nuanced drama.
“The Five Mrs. Buchanans,” a CBS comedy about squabbling in-laws, is better than its gimmicky title sounds, with Judith Ivey and Harriet Harris among the fully empowered female cast. “Under Suspicion,” also at CBS, stars the enigmatic and sexy Karen Sillas in a sort of American “Prime Suspect.” This dark detective drama is supposedly being lightened up to make it more “compatible” with its corny lead-in, Dick Van Dyke’s “Diagnosis Murder.” But turning this intriguing TV noir into TV au lait would, next to hiring Dudley Moore, be the biggest mistake CBS could make.
Moore, in the lascivious “Daddy’s Girls” on CBS, isn’t the only aging has-been you thought you’d heard the last of. Gene Wilder, in NBC’s “Something Wilder,” plays out a weird May-December scenario that is easily the most horrendous show of the season. And that’s saying a lot. The Brit-accented hero of Fox’s Bond ripoff “Fortune Hunter” actually introduces himself as “Dial. Carlton Dial.” Bad. Very bad. In case anyone was wondering why Cicely Tyson and Melissa Gilbert are costarring in NBC’s Nutra-“Sweet Justice,” it’s because they have the same manager. In Hollywood parlance, this is known as packaging. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of package you can’t send back. And what can one really say about the rest? “The Martin Short Show.” “Me and the Boys.” “McKenna.” “New York Undercover.” “Touched by an Angel.” The words “Change it, Butt-head! Change it!” come to mind.
