December 16, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Television writers usually sit on their butts all day under fluorescent lights -- at a cubicle, or in a tiny office if they're lucky. So picketing during a strike is a huge break in routine.

"We have to be outside, which is like our Kryptonite," says Seth Meyers, one of the head writers of "Saturday Night Live."

"People have said, 'This is gonna be a disaster: We're gonna have writers with well-toned legs. Color on their faces,' " says Eileen Heisler of "How I Met Your Mother."

Comedy writers are especially used to the gallows humor that comes with the strike's career interruptus. "Even when things are going really well, we think things are going badly," Meyers says. "So a strike appeals to our natural state."

Meyers -- a Northwestern grad who rose up through ImprovOlympic -- says writers are in a good mood, though, because they finally get to hang out en masse at picket lines.

"It's just kind of nice, because it can be very solitary, writing," says Meyers, who's picketing in New York. "You sort of feel like you're part of something bigger" on the picket line.

This is Thania St. John's first big taste as a striker, although the writer of Sci-Fi's "Eureka" grew up seeing picketers here. "It was normal," St, Johns says. "Somebody was always on strike in Chicago and you knew the little guy had to fight the big guy to make their lives better."

Striking in Hollywood is sweatier.

"It's 80 degrees," she says. "We're all in our strike T-shirts."

And even if writers aren't working, they can make up stuff at home. They can't do it for an employer, but no matter. During downtime, a writer will always pick up a pen.

"I've been signing checks and e-mails," Meyers jokes. "I haven't cut it off cold."

Doug Elfman

December 15, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Patti LaBelle used a fairly disturbing racial analogy to inspire choir members to sing better on NBC's weeklong competition show, "Clash of the Choirs."

"I said, 'Scream like a woman with a black man chasing you, trying to get your purse,' " LaBelle revealed in a telephone press conference.

But in LaBelle's choir of 20, she said, "I have more white than black. So I'm not prejudiced. I don't have no racial thing going through this."

Alrighty then.

"Clash of the Choirs" runs live four nights in a row, starting Monday. Five choirs compete to win charity money for hometown causes. Viewers phone in votes.

Each choir is run by a music star who assembled it. So LaBelle found people for her choir in her hometown of Philadelphia: Nick Lachey in Cincinnati; Michael Bolton in New Haven, Conn.; Kelly Rowland in Houston, and Blake Shelton in Oklahoma City.

The phone conference with LaBelle and Bolton was weirder than most, since LaBelle was on her mobile phone, shopping, and couldn't hear some questions.

"I'm in a store buying lamps. I'm in a lamp store, and everybody is talking. So I messed up. I didn't hear," she said. A few moments later: "Let me go in the -- can I use your bathroom, miss? I'm going in here. Oh. Somebody's in there. Oh gosh."

What in the world is going on with Patti LaBelle?

Anywho, each choir had to learn seven songs, a mix of pop, rock, country, gospel and a Christmas song.

I asked if, since there'll be a Christmas song, will there also be, say, a Jewish or Buddhist song. I was making a halfhearted serious point, but no one cared.

"I got kicked out of Hebrew School for betting on the dreidel," Bolton said, then added seriously, "Hanukkah would be done" by Monday.

"If you'd like to submit some Buddhist songs," executive producer Jason Raff said, "we'd be happy to ..."

OK, all right, already. Geez. But oh, according to Raff, there might be a Bon Jovi song. Oy-tastic.

At least there's no ageism in "Choirs." Bolton's group ranges from 20 to 77. Maybe that's why LaBelle was predicting victory in TV ads.

"I saw this [commercial] on last night," LaBelle said. "It was a piece where I said, 'I know I'm going to win.' Now, that's not good to say that, because suppose I don't win. I'm going to look like a fool."

Yeah. Probably.

November 30, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

She scaled a rock-climbing wall in high heels in a single bound. And she was the chatty "girl" who provided "America's Next Top Model" with its best TV this season. But Heather Kuzmich was eliminated Wednesday, perhaps partly because she has a mild form of autism.

Kuzmich -- a student at the Illinois Institute of Art at the West Mart Center -- has Asperger syndrome. It makes Kuzmich slightly socially clumsy.

Some rivals made fun of her, like when she jumped in a shower with two freaked-out naked girls, because she'd called dibs.

But Kuzmich, a 21-year-old native of Valparaiso, Ind., isn't bitter in the slightest when she watches the show.

"It's pretty accurate, other than the fact that they weren't that mean to me. Bianca and I got along pretty damn well" despite a few televised squabbles, Kuzmich says.

"They aren't really showing parts where we bonded" because "they only have a certain amount of time" to produce an episode.

"I do believe I got a fair shake," Kuzmich says. "If I hadn't mentioned that I have autism, the girls would have not [claimed] I got treated specially. I never felt like I got treated specially."

In fact, Tyra Banks and other judges dumped her after saying they wouldn't show favoritism because of her syndrome-related troubles: Flubbing a TV ad big time; and failing to navigate cab rides while trying to book gigs.

I ask Kuzmich if contestants get secretly happy when a rival fails a challenge. That's only "kind of true," she says.

"Girls do get worried about each other, because you do realize we're human beings," she says. "So in the back of the mind, we do think that. But truth be told, we are worried about each other," too.

Often, reality show stars are villains, but Kuzmich was likable and earned a lot of face time -- and body time. She stripped nude on TV with ease when she showered.

"I knew they weren't going to show [nudity on the air]," Kuzmich says. "But at the time I was like, 'Ha.' I really didn't care at that moment. I was stressed out."

Then there was the small fit Kuzmich threw over sleeping arrangements. Bianca laughed at her.

"Wish I could get the joke," Heather responded.

"You!" Bianca clarified. "YOU'RE the joke."

Kuzmich does wish other girls had been given more airtime.

"There's people out there that think I said certain things so I could get more [TV] time. And honestly that's not what I was trying to do."

Kuzmich plans to pursue modeling. She won CoverGirl model of the week eight times. But she's also headed back to class to study videogame art and design, to have "something to fall back on."

"When I was on the show, I sneaked in a [Nintendo] Game Boy," she says, though producers took it away, along with other girls' iPods.

She rolled with it all.

"The experience was like modeling camp. It was very much fun," she says. "All of them were really great."

delfman@suntimes.com

November 29, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

It's shocking that actors haven't hired goons to drag Kathy Griffin out of Hollywood by the roots of her screaming-red hair. She's like a spy for the rest of us, sneaking around L.A., then reporting back to us on how celebrities really are in private: egotistical, vapid and disconnected from reality.

Yet, stars keep hanging out with her. Griffin told Howard Stern this year about a juvenile toga party she went to in honor of Drew Barrymore: "Well, she didn't have a childhood, and now we all have to pay."

If Griffin held a bigger media megaphone, she could become a national treasure, like Stern. But at least we get her special reports on Bravo.

The newest is "Kathy Griffin: Straight to Hell." Filmed at the Chicago Theatre, this is the Oak Park native's best stand-up routine in a while. It's a tight hour of excellent jokes wrapped in true-adventure storytelling.

Here's one bit: Griffin ran into idiot Paris Hilton and realized she's "all limbs, kind of like a tarantula, crossed with a horse. Like a horse-tantula. Like, if a horse [mated with] a tarantula. You know, in a good way."

Griffin's best stuff this time is a dissection of Paula Abdul's craziness. ("I don't know what she's on. I'm not a pharmacist.")

But the "D-Lister" also dishes funny dirt on events she was involved in: appearing on "The View" the week Rosie O'Donnell split, and getting politically crucified for telling a Jesus joke after winning an Emmy. But you know, Griffin craves attention.

"It has been heaven for me," she says of the Emmy aftermath. "I mean, I was in Time and Newsweek and CNN. ... You can't buy this publicity!"

Spoken like a true comedian: Not even Jesus can be spared for the sake of a good joke and a showbiz minute of fame.

delfman@suntimes.com

November 28, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Hey, parents of little kids: You'd better set your recorder for "Shrek the Halls" tonight, so the kiddies can watch it 130 times in the next 27 days.

Lucky for you, "Shrek the Halls" is cute and funny enough not to drive adults completely out of their minds. For kids, it's quick and slick Shrek shtick.

I say this as a childless adult who enjoyed "Shrek," hated "Shrek 2" and skipped "Shrek the Third." I'm Shrekked out. And still, I laughed a few times and smiled more often than not.

The story picks up where "Shrek the Third" left off. Shrek (Mike Myers) and Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are bringing up triplets in their ogre swamp, when Donkey (Eddie Murphy) begins pestering Shrek that Christmas is coming.

The only problem: "I have to make a Christmas," Shrek tells a store clerk, "and I have no idea what it is, or how to do it."

Then, for most of "Shrek the Halls," Shrek and Fiona play host to Donkey and the movies' other characters as they run around the swamp house, tell flashback stories about Christmases past and nail things to Pinocchio's legs.

I rolled my eyes only at the 1950s patriarchal nature of Shrek's leading around his woman, in her fuzzy slippers and nightie and passive-aggressive mom-wifery. Also, the third act is a predictable climax of conflict resolution.

But before that, director Gary Trousdale does right by the Dreamworks/Pacific Data Images animation. He finds new nuggets of humor and story in the already overcapitalized Shrek narrative.

Could "Shrek the Halls" become a classic? My guess is no, since it's fluffier than it is profound or touching, which are traits of, say, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (which follows "Shrek the Halls" tonight at 7:30).

But "Shrek the Halls" does a very good job of top-to-bottom production. Even the music fits in bits of charm, ranging from the "O Fortuna" movement from Carl Orff's cantata "Carmina Burana" to the Waitresses' new-wave "Christmas Wrapping."

Nothing's more endearing, or funny, than the two most engaging characters, Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) and Gingerbread Man (Conrad Vernon). Puss in Boots goes cute, with those big eyes; I'm a sucker for that gag every time. Banderas and Vernon sell the charm of the cat and the cookie like nothing else in the "Shrek" universe.

Fourth and fifth "Shrek" movies are in the works, reportedly, as well as a Puss in Boots movie planned to play in between those two sequels. I'd rather Dreamworks focus first on the Puss in Boots flick. Shrek and Fiona are sweet and all. But that is one bad cat.

delfman@suntimes.com

November 26, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

People I know sometimes ask me why I hate a lot of things on TV.

First of all, I like plenty of good shows. But also, these people only turn on the shows they want to watch. They don't watch all the crap I have to watch.

They don't sit through all of a "Notes From the Underbelly." If they did, they would see I am always right about everything, and they would find it remarkable that watching so much bad TV hasn't turned me into an alcoholic or a member of an opium den.

"Underbelly" is a terrible, awful, unfunny "comedy." It sucked in its first season, although, granted, there were a few good lines every now and then, just as a stomach virus occasionally provides moments of relief.

In tonight's debut of the second season, pregnant Lauren gets aroused when her husband Andy finally starts asserting himself after years of saying "yes, dear." And Julie hires a foreign nanny who swaddles Julie's baby awesomely, and Julie really, really wants to know how she does it so well!

Each short scene ends with wacky music to try to convince you the painful scene is funny. The actors try their best. Some, especially Peter Cambor as Andy, would be great if they were in a funny comedy.

Alas. They are not.

November 18, 2007
By Doug Elfman
Television Critic

Lynette got the good news that chemo was working to "clear" her cancer. She strolled outside and smiled at a black sky of white stars. Then she looked down at her garden, where she had sprinkled poison to stop a hole-digging possum.

Dead, the possum lay sprawled in a disjointed pose. Lynette (Felicity Huffman) buckled to the ground. How could she have done this?

"I'm sorry," she sobbed to the possum.

It's called quiet desperation, this feeling of Lynette's. And after all these years, "Desperate Housewives" finally, finally humanizes it.

What took so long? I know the answers. It's been overly cutesy and stupidly soapy. Inherently, it still is that, for good portions. But this is the melodrama's best season, following its worst.

It's hard to believe but it's true: In the past, the show's worst enemy has been its music score. This season, though, it's rarer to hear plucky, upbeat pizzicato destroying the hard, humanizing work of actors.

There have been bad exceptions. Early in this very season, Dana Delany (as Katherine) did some heavy-lifting acting in a tearful party scene that could have played sad. But jokey orchestral strings stomped all over her, projecting to the viewer that: "Everything will be just fine, nothing low to see here."

Even so, the show is stronger than before. What else has improved? Most things, especially the scripts (love the new gay neighbors) and the acting (especially Huffman, Ricardo Chavira, Kyle MacLachlan, Eva Longoria and Dana Delany).

Perhaps as a result, "Desperate Housewives" is experiencing a resurgence in ratings and critical praise.

It's hard not to also credit three narrative threads defining the season so far -- a darker tone, a political parable about a homeowners' association and well-thought-out liberal undertones.

Compare "Desperate" to a few other dark shows. As a stranger told me at a party recently, TV is focusing on evil, particularly "Dexter" (a serial killer) and "Reaper" (guys who do good deeds for Satan).

But "Desperate" can be the most morbid series on TV. I've seen nothing more disturbing this year than the decline and death of Katherine's Aunt Lillian.

While Lillian went bed-ridden at Katherine's house, the niece really just wanted her aunt to perish, since Lillian intended to spill a nasty secret to Katherine's daughter.

As Lillian pleaded for help, Katherine shut Lillian's door, and there she gasped gruesomely for breath and for a chance to confess from her deathbed.

The camera focused quietly on Lillian, slipping slowly into a lonely, depressing last descent. It was really nasty.

"It occurred to Lillian, death couldn't come quickly enough," the "Desperate" narrator said beforehand. "This thought came to her niece, as well." (The lack of an uptempo music score helped sell the scene.)

Katherine is evil-ish. But "Desperate Housewives" implies, and I agree, that the real cherry pits of evil are the homeowners' association and the murderous, adulterous members. For three years, housewives made friends and enemies by geography. Upping the ante, Katherine reinstated their defunct association, won its presidency and set out to crack down on Lynette's kids' innocent tree house, plus a waterfall sculpture in another yard. Lynette vowed to take down Katherine, that "jack-booted hausfrau." The association election temporarily split Lynette's friendship with Susan. And for a while, the homeowners' association was, no doubt, a mechanical microcosm of heartless politics.

If this sounds like a liberal premise, you're right. "Desperate Housewives," one of the most-watched shows among suburbanites in homeowners' associations, veers left.

Not only did Lynette get emotional comeuppance for killing the possum, she had to be shown in a crazed state of mind asking icy Republican Bree for gun advice regarding the possum. Bree suggested she buy a little rifle at a store -- next to a Baptist church.

When Lynette's mom snuck marijuana into her brownies, it was for comic effect, not for just-say-no messages.

And the gay couple arrives in an era when the right vilifies homosexual families. One neighbor was chastised for criticizing "the gays."

Meanwhile, gay humor is doubling as a satire of acceptance in suburbia. Susan (Teri Hatcher) tripped over herself trying to welcome the gay men, saying she was familiar with "you folks" because she watches cable TV.

The couple, Lee (Kevin Rahm) and Bob (Tuc Watkins) are portrayed not as outsiders so much, but as equal wits, so they snipe at Susan just like the others do.

"Neighbor," Lee said, rejecting a perhaps allergy-inducing gift from Susan, "why don't you take your store-bought, warmed-up, possibly poisonous cookie bars and give them to someone more likely to survive your generosity."

There are still sections of "Desperate Housewives" -- a live-action cartoon of comic mysteries -- that run a bit too broad and stretched out. But it's tauter than it has ever been. And for the first time in four years, I can see it for what it should be. Human.

delfman@suntimes.com

November 14, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN delfman@ suntimes.com

Like "The Apprentice," "Project Runway" gives us competitors who actually have skills. For three seasons, "Runway" rivals have been a welcome relief compared to people on redundant "Survivor" (those backstabbers with a high tolerance for pain) and the car drivers of dull "Amazing Race" (goal: who can make a plane reservation the fastest?!).

So in the fourth season (starting tonight), there's a designer from Ralph Lauren, another who already has released a jeans line for Victoria's Secret, and so on.

The Chicago contestant is free-lance designer Steve Rosengard, 29. He passes time by drawing an illustration of a naked man, then saying to the camera, "Damn, I wish I could remember this guy's phone number!"

Since Rosengard is from here, his first flourish isn't flashy. His creation has a classic, pared-down look. (That's his description. I had no idea.)

Rosengard is one of 15 designers vying to win a spread in Elle, a clothing line, a car and $100,000.

Tonight, everyone gets along. But later, there will be catfights.

"Don't these bitches know I'm better than them?" a sassy contestant says in an upcoming episode.

"Bitches" guy is the young and flamboyant Christian, 21. He considers himself fierce. "I'm kind of a celebrity -- in my head!" Christian says.

He's the mouthy one, and oddly, Christian and at least one other designer wear their hairdos like they're standing in line for a Flock of Seagulls concert in 1982. Swoop, there it is.

Hosts Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are back. And once again, there's more meat to the competition than there is on the bones of the models.

It's compelling to see the talents of designers in action. Since I'm a layman whose closet begins and ends with sleek Kenneth Cole, I appreciate the prettier outfits more than the fancier couture. (I like the first dresses from Victorya and Marion.)

Since my layman's knowledge of good clothes ends with Kenneth Cole, I lose interest sometimes when designers sound a little too arts-and-craftsy for me: "Does anybody have a pinking shear with, like, a larger zigzag?"

But as Gunn says, they approach an empty canvas (for them, a design mannequin) with a ticking time constraint, and they "make it work."

The judges clearly pick the right loser to lose in week No. 1. How satisfying, except for the loser, although that's how competition-reality shows go, bitches. Someone tries, someone cries, and big dreams are ripped to shreds.

November 13, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

The three 5:30 p.m. newscasts may be little more than headline news in a 1970s format. But since cable news is obsessed with politicians, the Big Three broadcasts are the last evening frontier where TV reporters interview regular people for stories about what it's like to live in America.

Last week, ABC's Dan Harris talked to Cleveland residents about the "economic rape" of mortgage foreclosures on hundreds of houses, which are morphing into crack dens.

You don't see that kind of work, much, during the same half-hour on cable news.

I realized this while watching far too many hours of the past week's news on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC. The broadcasters essentially cover the same stories the same ways. But there are slight differences:
The groove finder

After catching flak for a fluffy first year at "CBS Evening News," anchor and managing editor Katie Couric now flexes traditional news judgment in a conventional show.

In fact, two back-to-back stories on Friday were riveting and hard-hitting -- and they profiled ordinary people: about Vioxx's $5 billion bad-drug settlement, and about an insurance company giving bonuses to employees for dropping cancer patients to save money. (ABC and NBC also did those stories well.)
Best talker

Brian Williams writes descriptively and exercises the most solid news judgment at "NBC Nightly News."

Williams has a knack for boiling things down without sounding like he's condescending to 8-year-olds. He said about a dangerous kid's product, "If you have this toy in your home, take it away from your children." Introducing another story, he quickly defined ethanol as being "squeezed from corn."

Williams also had the week's best Chicago reference, saying of the space shuttle landing: "May your next landing at O'Hare be this smooth."
The steady hand

"ABC World News With Charles Gibson" is the sober, succinct newscast. It's basically just the facts. And for all the grief we critics have heaped on Couric, it was Gibson who twice teased a story with the crazy sentence, "They call him 'The Bear Whisperer!' "

I've always liked Gibson. But Elizabeth Vargas filled in Friday, and she presented an even more serious-toned half-hour. Maybe there's hope for her yet.

The three 5:30 p.m. newscasts may be little more than headline news in a 1970s format. But since cable news is obsessed with politicians, the Big Three broadcasts are the last evening frontier where TV reporters interview regular people for stories about what it's like to live in America.

Last week, ABC's Dan Harris talked to Cleveland residents about the "economic rape" of mortgage foreclosures on hundreds of houses, which are morphing into crack dens.

You don't see that kind of work, much, during the same half-hour on cable news.

I realized this while watching far too many hours of the past week's news on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC. The broadcasters essentially cover the same stories the same ways. But there are slight differences.

KATIE COURIC

'CBS Evening News'

Couric has abandoned her failed experiment of fluff and now presents a statelier newscast, with just a smidgeon of goofy features (no goofier than ABC and NBC's lighter fare).

After catching flak for a fluffy first year at "CBS Evening News," anchor and managing editor Katie Couric now flexes traditional news judgment in a conventional show.

In fact, two back-to-back stories on Friday were riveting and hard-hitting -- and they profiled ordinary people: about Vioxx's $5 billion bad-drug settlement, and about an insurance company giving bonuses to employees for dropping cancer patients to save money. (ABC and NBC also did those stories well.)

CHARLES GIBSON

'ABC's World News'

The news old-school style: no fuss, no muss.

"ABC World News With Charles Gibson" is the sober, succinct newscast. It's basically just the facts. And for all the grief we critics have heaped on Couric, it was Gibson who twice teased a story with the crazy sentence, "They call him 'The Bear Whisperer!' "

I've always liked Gibson. But Elizabeth Vargas filled in Friday, and she presented an even more serious-toned half-hour. Maybe there's hope for her yet.

BRIAN WILLIAMS

'NBC Nightly News'

For graceful narratives that give stories clear meaning in context, he's the winner.

Brian Williams writes descriptively and exercises the most solid news judgment at "NBC Nightly News."

Williams has a knack for boiling things down without sounding like he's condescending to 8-year-olds. He said about a dangerous kid's product, "If you have this toy in your home, take it away from your children." Introducing another story, he quickly defined ethanol as being "squeezed from corn."

Williams also had the week's best Chicago reference, saying of the space shuttle landing: "May your next landing at O'Hare be this smooth."


Stating obvious is a big turnoff


November 13, 2007
By Doug Elfman

Regular Americans are an endangered species on TV news. Instead, cable newscasts in particular -- but broadcasters, too -- pay ex-politicians and their aides to lobby the same opinions, over and over and over.

That system isn't news. But the result is depressing from a journalistic standpoint: Ordinary people have been replaced in news reports by political wonks engaging in a national poli-sci class, arguing over just two social theories (Democratic and Republican) and their horserace for a leader.

It's no wonder some fed-up viewers have given up watching TV news.

CNN and Fox regurgitate congressional infighting the way local newscasts cover city councils. It's just louder than that. And it's not the news. It's news-eque. News-ish. Or as the logo behind Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room" brags, "CNN = Politics."

Several things seem obvious, watching the news in the past week:

Snooze-a-rama: PBS' "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" is claustrophobic and boring, because everyone just sits and delivers. Can PBS not afford to send reporters to the field to interview Americans? At least "News Hour's" political round tables are calm affairs balanced on the left and right, unlike conservative-centric ditto heads on Fox.

Funniest 'Tell': On Fox's "Special Report With Brit Hume," Ainsley Earhardt announced, "The GOP went one-for-two in Tuesday's gubernatorial races." Fox denies it's the GOP News, but that's hard to believe when something's phrased in terms of how the party is batting.

Biggest Smirk: Hume looks like he gets a charge out of any negative Clinton story. And there are oh, so many negative Clinton stories on "Special Report."

Sloppiest News: CNN's Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room" deals in so much political shorthand that talking heads sometimes forget to attribute statements. Reporting on an anti-discrimination bill, CNN's Jessica Yellin referred to Nancy Pelosi's "radical homosexual agenda," making it sound like the reporter's thoughts rather than just a Republican attack ad.

Write What You Know: The broadcast and cable newscasts are obsessed with the stock market. Is this because anchors are rich? Blitzer candidly admitted: "We're also following another very important story right now -- one that's devastating to a lot of us who invest in the markets."

November 8, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

David Letterman wouldn't stop making jokes at Paris Hilton's teary-eyed expense. She lost her smirk for once. A few months out of jail, her voice cracked, and all she wanted to do was promote her perfume on TV.

A guy in the audience screamed, "I love you, Paris!" She said back, "I love you too."

"Somebody you met in prison?" Letterman quipped.

Paris complained the interview was making her sad.

"Please don't be sad. Are you really sad? Nooo," Letterman pleaded to Paris like a father, then said a nanosecond later. "Are you feeling better now? I'll buy you a parakeet!"

There won't be any new moments like that for a while, now that the Writers Guild strike has stopped the flow of new episodes from Letterman, Leno and friends (although you can still see the eight-minute clip if you look up "Letterman Paris" on YouTube.)

Then again, this was one of Letterman's finer and more unusual moments of the year: a celebrity interview on late-night TV that wasn't cloying.

There's the rub. Late-night hosts can either provide sharp entertainment for wakeful viewers like me, or they can continue to offer butt-kissing tedium for drowsy viewers who don't want to be jarred from sleepy time.

Except for the occasional Letterman interview of Paris or Michael Richards -- safe stars to scorn, since the news vilified them first -- nighttime hosts adhere to the dead-fish formula of asking stupid questions of smiley celebrities telling us nothing genuine or interesting.

Questions and answers are worked out in pre-interviews. Who could possibly experience a safer state of mind than film stars and politicians sitting on Jay Leno's couch?

It's been no surprise "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" has taken the place of Letterman and "Saturday Night Live" as the zeitgeist of late-night. Stewart killed the dead-fish template and serves up shark and snark. He and "The Colbert Report" do not go gentle into that good night.

So maybe the other bedtime talkers should embrace the writers' strike as an opportunity to view Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and re-evaluate how they can similarly approach guests.

If Leno were to break free of his "love me, I'm a nice guy" DNA and tried to engage actors more forcefully and stop shilling for politicians, it would be awkward at first. He's not used to it. And some viewers who want sleepy-time Jay might turn him off.

But it would make for more interesting TV. And isn't good TV what Jay wants? Or must we be content with letting stars giggle us into dreamland?

delfman@suntimes.com

November 8, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

David Letterman and Johnny Carson honored the 1988 writers strike by airing reruns -- for a while. They eventually went back on the air without writers, partly to help directors and other cast members pay their bills.

Some of today's late-night talk shows could pull off an hour without skits and monologues, though others might just seem awkward.

"Late Show With David Letterman": Since Dave has the biggest brain and the most gravitas, he could ad lib endlessly with interviewees and during desk blab. But how many thoughts do actors and actresses have in there?

"The Tonight Show With Jay Leno": How on Earth could Jay string together an hour every night without the aid of aides? Seems highly unlikely as a creative endeavor.

"Late Night With Conan O'Brien": Conan at least tries to get guests to do wacky things, since he considers "Late Night" to be more of a variety show than anything else. That style would be too hard to do now.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live": Jimmy is smart. Too smart to attempt his choreographed segments without a full staff.

"The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson": Craig is in a good position to wing a monologue, since that's his approach most nights anyway, riffing freestyle on news and pop culture. Only Letterman might have an easier time making the transition look easy.

"Last Call With Carson Daly": No friggin' way.

Doug Elfman

November 4, 2007
Doug Elfman
TV Critic

Nate observed the party. Debauchery was to begin shortly. But Nate unexpectedly questioned his idle life of wealth. His pinky young face flushed under an anime hairdo.

"The money, the drugs, the privileges," Nate told his best friend Chuck. "They're just keeping us numb, so we don't know it's better out there in the real world."

Chuck sneered, appearing fey/preppy/same thing with his upturned collars and old-money affectation. (He rides a limo to prep school).

"Everyone out there wants to be us," Chuck clucked back at Nate. "We are to be aspired to, and not run away from."

Unconvinced by Chuck's logic, Nate strayed, then returned like a good trust-fund baby after he tasted the real world for an hour or two. The real world is bitter and poor.

Nate (Chace Crawford) and Chuck (Ed Westwick) make up the male half of "Gossip Girl," the best-watched TV show among teens. It was last week's No. 1 and No. 10 downloads on iTunes. It's a big online video draw. Culturally, it could be the new "O.C.," maybe even the new "Melrose Place."

Funny. When it debuted a month ago, "Gossip Girl" seemed cardboard, smarmy, yet so bad it was almost good. Soon, it became not just popular but a rarer thing: actually entertaining while simultaneously ridiculous.

For one thing, "Gossip" teens talk much smarter than the girls of "The Hills" do. Dan, the requisitely ethical "poor" boy (the son of a former rock star), judged one mean girl as being a "95-pound, doe-eyed, bon-mot-tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil. ... I'd barely be exaggerating if I told you Medusa wants her withering glare back."

The pace, produced by "O.C." creator Josh Schwartz, doesn't rush or stall. Other soaps stretch dramas for a season. "Gossip Girl" cycles through spats in weeks.

It is a girly nighttime soap, so the main half of "Gossip Girl" visits the jagged friendship of Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair (Leighton Meester).

Blair understandably behaved maliciously with Serena for a while, after Serena bedded Blair's boyfriend Nate. But now the girls are BFF again, which prompted the voice-over narrator (Kristen Bell) to exclaim, "WTF?"

Before Serena and Blair made nice-nice, they cat-fought in short school uniform skirts during field hockey, and Serena unleashed some wicked nasty.

"I always knew you were a whore. I never took you for a liar, too," Blair simmered at Serena, who wishes to attend Brown University, though as Blair pointed out, "Brown doesn't offer degrees in slut."

It helps matters that the makers of "Gossip" realize this is a big crazy show, but the characters don't: The actors avoid going over the top; they play motivations straight. As opposed to, say, "Ugly Betty," in which actors seem delighted to portray wacky.

As things stand this week, everyone's getting along. Although, there are always complications.

Nate can't bring himself to break up with Blair (who's somehow a virgin). Nate thinks he loves Serena, but Serena is falling for Dan (Penn Badgley). Dan said Nate had an original thought last year, but it died of loneliness.

Viewer appeal for "Gossip Girl" seems simple to deduct. First, our heroes and villains are fresh-faced. They feel love and spite sooo much, but in a young way, not a jaded way, not like the old sores of "Sex and the City" or the cold bores of "Dirty Sexy Money."

"Gossip Girl" offers wish fulfillment via the Manhattan social scene. But it's also hate fulfillment. That is, everyone is fairly easy to despise or envy, because like in any soap, the "good" people do bad things, and the "bad" people do good things.

Yet, boys and girls have the wherewithal to know if devils or angels alight their shoulders.

"I am a bitch when I want to be," Chuck snarled while collecting dirt on Serena with cruel intentions.

Chuck and his future Ivy Leaguer pals profit on their Upper East Side crests (the van der Woodsens, the Waldorfs, the Archibalds) like so much affirmative action for bluebloods.

But which class is watching "Gossip Girl"? If commercials give any indication, it's not the van der Woodsens, Waldorfs and Archibalds. Ad breaks push $4 hair products, McDonald's, Payless, TJ Maxx and birth control pills. Jaguar isn't buying airtime.

As ad dollars roll in, "Gossip Girl" is getting flashier in budget, as seen in a delicate costume ball in the last episode. And a current promotional ad is one of TV's slickest of the year, flashing "LUST" and "REVENGE" in between throbbing images of bedroom romps and cherry-licking.

In that ad, a "Gossip" girl asks, "You can keep a secret, right?" If she expects discretion, lasting sympathy or easy living on "Gossip Girl," she is wildly mistaken. But these kids are always mistaken about something. Wrong is what they do best.

delfman@suntimes.com

November 4, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN delfman@suntimes.com

Howard Kurtz gave his new book the wrong title. Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War is really about The First Inconsequential Television News War, since it's obsessed with the current TV news anchors.

Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and Katie Couric earn certain merits. But the last Great TV News War starred Peter Jennings vs. Tom Brokaw vs. Dan Rather. Or Bill Clinton vs. Fox News.

As Kurtz points out, the winning newscast on a given night draws 8 million viewers. A few Wednesdays ago, NBC's "Deal or No Deal" barely made the prime time Top 20 with a mere 12.4 million viewers.

In other words, who cares this much about these anchors? Especially since Kurtz thinks it's terrible that just about the only people still watching are political junkies and dying old ladies?

Oh, wait. We're supposed to care about the quality of TV news. Oh, right. Well, here's Kurtz, who's probably America's most exposed media critic (in the Washington Post and on CNN), but he doesn't include his own extended firsthand critique of the anchors until he gets to the Epilogue on page 427! He then criticizes them for not using their power more often to make risky social statements -- at the same time Kurtz is not issuing many risky statements about the anchors or the evening news.

Worse still, this eight-page epilogue credits Gibson, Williams and Couric for being "as good as any in the past," and it's a good thing they're national hand-holders -- even though they sensationalize "rip 'n' read" stories from the New York Times. Huh? What? Can you repeat that in my good ear?

Kurtz's holding back on his judgments makes no sense. He spends the first 426 pages reciting the daily machinations of the anchors and their bosses. The style is thus: Kurtz interviewed them, then he wrote up the thoughts from their egotistical heads in omnipotent third person.

As with Tom Wolfe's style, you always know you're actually reading the words these people told him, minus newspapery attributions of "he said" and "she said."

While Kurtz goes into 10,000 emotionless outlines of minutiae, he lets you the reader draw conclusions about the players. Hello?! You are Howard Kurtz. Don't you know who you are? You are on the witness stand. Testify, already.

To put it bluntly, Reality Show is a snooze for no good reason other than he doesn't wish to seriously slam his fellow TV stars and their bosses. Either that, or he doesn't believe they deserve wrath or indignation.

The reason I'm being so hard on Reality Show is: A) it bored me unmercilessly; B) Kurtz squandered a great opportunity to use his weight to file serious grievances about TV news; C) each chapter reads like the lighthearted profile features he complains are filling up TV news, and D) there's not one reference to PBS or Web sites such as Wonkette, and barely any to CNN, Fox and DailyKos.com, so contextual pressures from other information sources is lacking.

Kurtz has plenty of material he could have riffed on. Two little moments in particular are appalling -- events that should be journalistic scandals.

Worst of all: CBS's crack Iraq reporter Lara Logan tried filing a serious story featuring graphic video of various deaths on a day of war, but producer Rome Hartman wouldn't run it, because it was too "raw" for him. Aww, poor baby Rome didn't want to report THE NEWS because it was REAL and INFORMATIVE like it's supposed to be.

Logan was, however, asked to do an upbeat feature story about women soldiers who distracted themselves by "keeping cyber-pets online."

"I would rather stick needles in my eyes than spend one second of my time on that story," she e-mailed her boss.

Maybe Logan should have written this book.

Second-worst of all: When Couric was at the "Today" show, NBC President Bob Wright pressed Couric to be softer (after she asked Condoleezza Rice hard questions) by forwarding one -- ONE -- nasty reader complaint to her.

Aww, big baby Bob Wright didn't want a journalist to do journalism for fear of insulting a single Republican viewer while millions of others did not complain.

How could Kurtz let these bits of his reporting go into Reality Show without weighing in intensely, or blowing them into full-on chapters unto themselves? These are exactly the kinds of decisions that are destroying TV news, which is supposed to be a big topic of the book.

As for his writing, there's no compelling voice in Kurtz. No poetry. No prose. Just fact, fact, fact. All the President's Men was free of eloquence, too, but it was about a most serious thing. Reality Show is about TV anchors. Not so grave.

If you believe everything in it, you see three anchors with small but discernible differences in news judgment. Williams is sharper than he's been given credit for, though he's too sensitive to criticism from viewers and politicians. Gibson honors Peter Jennings' legacy with his presence; his weakness is talking too diplomatically with politicians, using such phrases as "I mean no disrespect in this"; and thin-skinned, "shell shocked" Katie "Bite Me" Couric could be a solid anchor in 10 years if she doesn't quit or get canned by 2009.

All of them should stop bending over backward to snap photos with politicians and giving into their stupid on-the-record and off-the-record interview "gets" and "gotchas." "Gets" and "gotchas" are good for internal crowing among journalists. Few others care or notice. In the meantime, TV journalists are selling their souls for "exclusives" and presidential access, which usually only serves the interests of politicians.

But Kurtz mostly muzzles his own such findings. For instance, he portrays NBC's David Gregory as a respectfully demanding White House Press Corps reporter. Very true, but Kurtz never tsk-tsks Gregory for dancing on stage with Karl Rove at a press event last winter.

To glean such analysis from Reality Show takes suffering through chapters that read like long Wikipedia entries regarding tidbits which, oftentimes, were already reported these past few years.

So, if I ever want to read this stuff again, I'll wait for Wikipedia volunteers to steal the best parts and post them online. As Kurtz keeps insisting, the Web is where the action is now, anyway.

Doug Elfman is the Sun-Times TV critic.

REALITY SHOW

INSIDE THE LAST GREAT TELEVISION NEWS WAR

By Howard Kurtz

Free Press, 480 pages, $26

October 30, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Like a lot of people on Monday, three tourists tried walking in front of the Tribune building. But a TV show was being filmed on the sidewalk, and a guy yelled at the out-of-towners to get out of his shot.

They sauntered to the entrance of the building. That's where they got walled in by actor-extras for a while.

"We're trapped -- in the set!" tourist Tracy said in good spirits. "They're being a little bossy with their movie thing, you know."

None of the tourists -- well-dressed thirtysomethings from Raleigh, N.C. -- would reveal their last names. Tourist Bob pointed to a red-headed guy wearing sunglasses and said, "Is that Horatio from 'CSI: Miami?' ... Why are they filming here?"

It wasn't "CSI: Miami." It was "CSI: NY." Gary Sinise and crew came to Chicago to film a day's worth of exterior shots for an episode running at the end of November.
Looking for evidence

The hit detective drama came downtown not only because Sinise grew up around here and is a product of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, but because producers want to explore the local background of his character, Mac.

A few months ago, a writer for the show informed his colleagues that there was this building in town with old rocks sticking out of it. The rocks were perfect because "we're constantly mining trace evidence" for forensic mysteries, said co-writer Zachary Reiter.

In some scenes filmed Monday, Mac was looking for trace-y clues in the rocks while kind of going rogue from his New York cop shop.

Temps were in the sunny 50s. Hollywooders in the crew of 150 (about half the size of the regular ensemble) shivered and suffered.

Eddie Cahill, who plays Detective Don Flack, said it was different but fun to shoot around the city's elements. "When you come to cities like Chicago and especially New York, you're almost squeezing them" into a scene, he said. "Hollywood was designed for this; it's like skiing in Vail."
In case acting dries up

Sinise, 52, was just in town Saturday to play bass in the Lt. Dan Band, named after his "Forrest Gump" role. "Most of the band's from here," said Sinise, a lifelong Cubs fan. "We'll be back in May at Joe's Bar on Weed Street."

Asked if his homecoming would have been rosier had the Cubs gone to the World Series, or if the Bears were doing better, Sinise chuckled. "It would have been nice. But the Cubs made it to the playoffs. That's all right. We had a good season. The Bears lost [Sunday]. That's not so great," he said.

"But I was worried it was gonna rain, or it would be too cold. We have a perfect day here for what we need to do."

October 28, 2007
By Doug Elfman
TV Critic

This summer, I went to a TV star party at an amusement park and won a giant stuffed doll of Peter, from "Family Guy," for Kelly Carlson, the actress who plays Kimber the porn star on "Nip/Tuck." I'm not bragging. There's relevance to this story, in addition to full disclosure, for my "Nip/Tuck" review.

Carlson couldn't knock three milk jugs off of a platform by throwing a beanbag at them. I was standing there. She asked if I'd try. I won.

She gave me a polite hug, I told her I like her performances on the show, and I walked to the short bus we TV critics rode into the night. I thought it was funny, but I didn't take any of this personally.

What I'm getting at is, not every guy who steps off the plane at LAX immediately becomes entranced with celebrity to the point that they fantasize about ingratiating themselves into stars' lives. Maybe we rub elbows because of sheer geography, yet we don't all feel the need to try to become buddy-buddy beyond chance settings.

On the other hand, in the season premiere of FX's "Nip/Tuck," Drs. Christian Troy and Sean McNamara move from Miami to Hollywood, and they immediately succumb to the corrupting star-sucking-up of L.A.

They're new to the shimmer-glimmer, and they hope they, too, will become stars, first by proxy and then by design.

Over four years, these doctors have faced a serial killer, blackmail and seriously crazy sex and doctoring. Seeking fame will clearly become their next undoing.

As the fifth season opens, they pad around their new, beautifully decorated but empty offices. No one's coming in for plastic surgery. After all, how many people in L.A. don't already have their own personal face-lifters?

"I feel like I'm trying to sell semen in a whorehouse," Christian says.

Then they hit the jackpot. A publicist (Lauren Hutton) gets them working as consultants on a TV melodrama called "Hearts and Scalpels," a doctor show that's a send-up mostly of "Grey's Anatomy." The star of "Hearts" (Bradley Cooper) screams at nurses, "We are saving a life today, people!"

Once Sean (Dylan Walsh) and Christian (Julian McMahon) get into showbiz, their nipbiz picks up.

The producer behind "Nip/Tuck," Ryan Murphy, says this year will be lighter and funnier, as well as occasionally dark. I'm a longtime fan, so I'm interested to see how that develops.

My friends who are fellow fans worry the show might go south now that it's based in fluffier La-La Land, because a lot of the appeal has relied in seeing Christian, Sean and their extended family deal with the oddities of people in South Florida who are regularly strange (as opposed to Hollywood strange) and always getting caught up in the doctors' freaky lives.

To wit, the show has presented characters doing the following things: circumcising oneself; killing a murderous rapist; participating in a mother-daughter menage a trios; having tranny relationships; altering the voice of a phone-sex operator (guest star Kathleen Turner); replacing testicles (Larry Hagman), and transplanting an ear (Rosie O'Donnell).

But in L.A., Sean and Christian are older and a tad saggier. They begin there as unknown nobodies in America's town of everybodys.

Christian pines for his Miami status next week: "Men, women -- they all wanted to be me, or be with me."

"You should have picked a different venue to have a midlife crisis in," his publicist responds. "You're never going to be the new face in town; just some fortysomething dying to have a comeback."

This storyline is, in the first two hours, not as sexy as the Miami plots were, even though Cooper, Hutton and Tia Carrera (as a dominatrix) are on board. Other guest stars in the premiere include Oliver Platt, Daphne Zuniga and Jennifer Coolidge.

There's little of "Nip/Tuck's" usual sexcapades in the first two weeks. But it's still solidly entertaining (if less so) thanks to Walsh and McMahon's dependable character arcs.

The doctors, plus other major characters who also will move to Los Angeles, consistently behave the way you'd expect while doing bizarre things. Matt alone has killed a guy, done drugs, joined Scientology and hooked up with she-males. But you always believed Matt was capable of all these things.

John Hensley, who plays Matt, said during a promotion for the show, "I've honestly been waiting for Matt to commit suicide for three years now." (Me too.)

But unlike the ones on many TV shows, the writers and actors never force the men and women of "Nip/Tuck" to do or say something out of character.

So, it's totally believable within the "Nip/Tuck" universe when, next week, Christian sympathizes with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who feels inadequate enough to get a boob job -- before he crassly bids to bed her.

During a press conference, McMahon said he wants the show to ratchet up the kink. I asked him, like what?

In "Silence of the Lambs," he said, "remember when he cut the guy's face off and hung him up?" McMahon said. "I said, 'Do you think we could have sex like that? Could [Christian] be hung up like that?' "

Don't expect Murphy to allow that amazingly twisted scene to happen. But of all the dramas on TV, it would be least surprising to see such a spectacle on "Nip/Tuck." It remains the nuttiest show on TV.

October 25, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

TV couples who draw out long romances never figure out how to truly wrap it up after they slap it up. Oh, these on-again, off-again affairs. Will they? Won't they? Seesaw. Hee-haw. Pshaw.

Enough already.

Tonight's debut of the seventh and final season of "Scrubs" is as funny as ever. But it's a well-crafted comedy despite the up-in-the-air romance between J.D. (Zach Braff) and Elliot (Sarah Chalke), not because of it.

Chalke delivers a great "too soon" monologue. "Beard face" works. "Pig whore" works. The "dong" T-shirt works. All the actors are hitting their finely written lines.

And creator Bill Lawrence starts the season's long goodbye with a more down-to-earth approach than last year, when "Scrubs" went super goofy to mixed results.

Tonight's boil-down: J.D. and Elliot almost make out, which causes Elliot to question if she should marry her fiance Keith. Hmm, you think?

Meanwhile, as they say, J.D. is pondering why he doesn't want to go home to his pregnant woman. Gee, I wonder.

And Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) falls in like with a male patient, whose symptoms are a half-mystery.

It's a relief "Scrubs" begins with laughs, since I was beginning to agree with Brian and Stewie's "Family Guy" song at the Emmys, when they harmonized that "Scrubs" "reminds us that a sitcom doesn't have to make us laugh."

But still, I wish Lawrence would issue a statement today, now, telling fans whether J.D. and Elliot will be together forever by the end of the season, as I'll probably still not care by the series finale.

You already know their dance won't stay in limbo, if only because Turk (Donald Faison) gives J.D. a good theory as to why he's stuck in his doomed relationship with Kim:

"You knocked her up on your first date, and before you could get to know her, she betrayed you. And now you don't have strong feelings for her, and the only reasons you're together is because a kid's involved."

That's so ponderous. Remember the good old days when J.D. and Elliot just had crazy weird sex, and it was funny? How about going down that road too much, instead of the clashy love road?

Besides, J.D. and Elliot will always wonder whether they're true loves, because they're flakes.

There is one good thing about this love line. It's a fitting parallel to "Scrubs" itself. I used to love "Scrubs," then I fell out of love with it, and now it's good enough to be friends with again. Not sexy friends. But a peck on the cheek wouldn't be objectionable.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 24, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'CSI: NY' Rating 3 out of 4


- - -

Aw, look how cute. The old executives at CBS are trying to be "cool" or "hip" or whatever. In tonight's "CSI: NY," Mac goes snooping in the virtual world of "Second Life" to catch a killer. Artificial art imitates artificial life.

The mystery is traditionally linear. A dolled-up woman shows up dead, and her corpse looks exactly like her costumed persona in "Second Life." The good guys track a suspect. Then another. Then another. There's a highly unlikely climax.

But Mac (Gary Sinise) and tech-xpert Adam (A.J. Buckley) go trolling in "Second Life" in search of a real life killer hiding behind the anonymity of a nasty avatar.

Lucky for "CSI: NY," this promotional stunt is a fairly entertaining diversion, even if everyone on the show spits out the word "avatar" repeatedly, as if it's on fire and burning their tongues. They're trying to clue in semi-Luddite viewers at home that "avatars" are online illustrations, which represent persons/bunnies/ etc.

Anywho, Part Two of this adventure doesn't air until the sweeps ratings period known as "February."

If delaying the sequel doesn't sound gimmicky enough, look at this trick: CBS will run ads tonight for a new "CSI: NY" section in "Second Life"; it was crafted to be an easier entry point for "Second Lifers" who are older and just now finding out what an AVATAR! AVATAR! AVATAR! is.

Obviously, this episode isn't a groundbreaker. Remember, "The Simpsons" once turned Homer into an avatar, and there was "TRON," and that "X-Files" episode where Scully saved Mulder from a hot murderess lurking in a multiplayer shooter.

But "CSI: NY" does a good job of composing story elements in its modern way, since this is the Age of the Howdunit, not the Whodunit.

Cops make use of fancy computers, ballistics and forensics. (Music video montages!) They sift through impossible clues. (A splinter!) There is the devilishly smart killer. (Avatar!) And cop chatter around the autopsy table runs thicker than blood:

"I'm thinking [a tick] burrowed into our vic just prior to T.O.D," says Dr. Sid. (If you parlez vous procedural, I bet you know "vic" means "victim", and "T.O.D." stands for "time of death.")

"CSI: NY" is a worthy distraction. This is quite the silly little accomplishment, considering it's just another crime drama on CBS, which posts 10 howdunits in the Top 20 of the ratings. Half of those procedurals even have the word "crime" in the title, or a variation of the word "crime."

"Crime, crime crime!" "Avatar, avatar, avatar!" CBS takes no chances you'll be confused about anything, ever.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 21, 2007 by Doug Elfman

Kids say the darndest things, like the little girl who didn't want to pray with non-Christians on "Kid Nation": "I don't want to be with Jewish people or atheist people, or anything like that."

That girl really makes you finally believe Nina Tassler, the CBS president of entertainment. This summer, Tassler tried to convince skeptical TV critics that the kids on her show had a "statement" to express:

"I think it will surprise virtually every person in this room when ... you hear the astute comments that they make."

Yes, "Kid Nation" is astute. It couldn't possibly signal the need to ban all children under 16 from entering professional show business ever again. Nooo, a legal ban on professional child performers would be insaaane.

I know it would break your heart if you didn't get to see cute TV kids -- who haven't formed superegos yet -- eating slop, cleaning outhouses and screaming at each other until they cry. Especially since their very responsible parents went to the trouble of pulling their offspring out of school for 40 days to star in a reality- competition show.

A law against child actors? Perish the thought. I know you couldn't live without the antics of the next Danny Bonaduces, Britney Spearses, Lindsay Lohans, Paris Hiltons, Dana Platos, River Phoenixes and Coreys.

I know it would tear you apart not to see any more Olsen twin babies forced to spend their whole "Truman Show" existence growing up in public, until one of them went into rehab.

Who cares if sensible people consider "Kid Nation" an odious, putrid and villainous mismanagement of 40 children ages 8 to 14? Producer Tom Forman is nothing but a hero for helming this eye- opening spectacular.

After all, there was this one astute conversation between a girl and a cursing boy that went:

Boy: "Everybody just shut up and get away from me right now!"

Girl: "You're acting like the village idiot!"

Surely, it was astute when an 8-year-old was questioned about leaving the set after he went into hiding from other kids, and cried to go home.

"I think I'm way too young for this. It's scary," the boy said.

Host Jonathan Karsh exclaimed, "Do you want to leave this entire experience and go back home?!"

"Yeah," the kid squeaked.

Certainly, it was astute when kids chugged root beer while screaming "go, go, go" as if they were pounding at a kegger. OK, it looked like binge training, but that was way more astute than when kids began to casually toss back root beer out of shot glasses in their saloon.

You have to admit, it was clever of CBS, in all its Cuban-like autocracy, to convince parents of these kids to sign agreements promising never (for the rest of their lives) to talk publicly about the show. Anyone who speaks without CBS' approval may face a $5 million breach-of-contract fine.

During filming, four of their kids drank a little bleach accidentally, and another kid burned her face, but whatever, kids do the silliest things! That's why it was sheer genius of CBS to write into this $5,000 contract (just $5,000 per kid!) a clause that said parents couldn't sue if their kids contracted disease, lost a leg or died. Isn't that awesome? CBS worked around one or maybe even two basic rights of 40 families. So smart, those lawyers!

And the parents signed the contracts.

Clearly, Hollywood executives and moms and dads can totally be trusted with children's show business futures.

Maybe someday, some of these kids will turn on their parents. I hope not! It would be just like when other former child performers developed rifts with their parents, like Angelina Jolie, Brooke Shields, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Gary Coleman and Macaulay Culkin. They're just ungrateful!

And really, who needs laws to protect children from stage parents and L.A. suits?

Not CBS. To try to navigate mean old child welfare laws, "Kid Nation" lawyers declared the series to be a summer camp, as opposed to the TV production that you're watching right in front of your eyes.

Communist nations don't need to adhere to American ideals, either. Maybe we've all been too hard on the Commies. Commies ... corporations ... commies ... corporations. Hmm, what's the difference, again?

Oh, that's right, the difference is marketing prowess! The original title of "Kid" was "The Manhattan Project" -- you know, like the project that invented the nuclear bomb.

What an achievement. The FCC won't even allow adults to say curse words on broadcast TV, because kids might be watching. But CBS paid kids to toil on a set where they curse each other (it's muted on the air), so CBS can sell ads to Mazda and Denny's. Money talks, baby!

When the kids went home, they couldn't be legally left alone without parental supervision. But for the show, there had to be child psychologists behind the scenes to help them cope without their parents during "this entire experience." Such chutzpah, network execs!

Hail, hail, CBS. The new Cuba. May it long honor laws, constitutional rights, ethics and dignity. Casting has already begun for "Kid Nation 2." Make sure you send in a headshot. Prey, I mean pray, that your kid will be next!


THE GOOD SEEDS


1 On "Ugly Betty," Mark Indelicato, 13, portrays the first almost openly gay child on a TV show. Chris Rock used to joke some kids are obviously gay, they just don't have anybody to be gay with. Mark's character, Justin, seems like that. He hasn't come out of the closet, but he's being positioned as a flamboyant gay man to come. The role may give some kids the feeling they're not alone. And Mark is great in the part.

2 Bindi Irwin, 9, isn't just some precocious little Aussie trading on a famous name. The Crocodile Hunter's daughter is charismatically leading a pro-environment series, "Bindi, The Jungle Girl," that is so entertaining, the social awareness messages don't feel anything close to preaching. She's honoring her dad's legacy remarkably well.

3 Madeleine Martin, 15, plays the only child on TV with an intellectual and literary brain, and an age-appropriate BS detector. As the daughter of David Duchovny's Hank on "Californication," her 12-year-old character Becca talks to her split parents with a searing honesty that hasn't been done this well on screen since, maybe, Quinn Cummings' performance as Lucy in the 1977 film "The Goodbye Girl." Madeleine is magnificent.

4 Tyler James Williams, 15, faced a tough challenge when he won the lead in "Everybody Hates Chris" two years ago. He had to portray a young Chris Rock, minus the cussing. But "Chris" has become a fun family show (cleaner than some shows on ABC Family). And Tyler gives captivating performances as a put-upon kid growing up poor in New York.

5 Angus T. Jones has an unenviable part, playing the half-man in "Two and a Half Men," specifically performing as Charlie Sheen's nephew. The show isn't funny, but Angus, 14, brings a naturalness to his role. And if my one interview with him this summer was any indication, he is slightly addicted only to video games.

Doug Elfman

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 18, 2007 by Doug Elfman

Don kisses his wife on her forehead and his mistress on her mouth. The only time he doesn't light a cigarette is after sex with his other mistress.

Don puffs out a mirage of an icon others wish to see, an illusion of confidence and machismo. But he's a ghost in a shell, a fake (a k a an ad man).

Don is a glorious character in AMC's "Mad Men," a real-ish portrait of 1960: pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside. Admire the acting, design, sleek stage direction and cinematography, and the throwback of dialogue and interactions.

Don's boss Roger rode the back of a model in his office before he used the carpet as a casting couch, then clutched his smoky, boozy heart.

Roger once complained to Don: "We live in troubling times."

Don sat unconvinced, a cigarette and whiskey tumbler in hand.

"We do?" Don responded. "Who couldn't be happy with all of this?"

These men are not just misogynists. They are kings. Whites. Protestants. Entitled. Their housewives and secretaries are submissives. Powerless. Voiceless. The psychology of them all has been revealed patiently for 13 weeks.

As even his wife apparently doesn't know, Don was born Dick Whitman. After a terrible childhood, he fought in Korea, changed his name to Don Draper, then self-actualized himself as a honcho at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency on Madison Avenue.

Don is Jon Hamm, 36, a previously little-known actor. Yet, Hamm's portrayal of Don Draper may be the greatest acting discovery on TV this decade.

Hamm appears to be interacting not with other actors but with other characters. He has been performing as Dick performing as Don, convincingly, flawlessly and engagingly, for an entire first season of a new show. Incredible.

Don and "Mad Men," which concludes its first season tonight, blow up the nostalgic notion the past is preferable to the present, not just with a dressed-up dressing down of 1960, but with Don's all- American rotten childhood and manly facade.

Like men everywhere, Don is an approved liar. Another boss, Mr. Cooper, found out Don used to be Dick, but he didn't care.

"The Japanese have a saying," Cooper said. "A man is whatever room he is in. And right now, Donald Draper is in this room."

Don Draper is not merely in the room. He owns it. Yet, he is but a lost little boy in a big boy's suit.

delfman@suntimes.com

'MAD MEN' Rating 4 out of 4

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 17, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'VIVA LAUGHLIN' Rating 1


Omigod, omigod, omigod. Melanie Griffith is singing on TV. I just wanted to watch this little CBS show, and all of a sudden she started singing in it -- and not badly -- to Blondie's "One Way or Another."

What the hell is going on here?

"Viva Laughlin" is a bizarre little gamble for TV. It's the semimusical story of a devoted husband-father who builds a casino from scratch in a town outside of Las Vegas called Laughlin.

Every now and then, he and other people (including Griffin, playing a seductress) start breaking out in song and dance. But they're vocalizing over tracks of classic pop songs. In other words, you hear both the actor and the original vocals of a song at the same time.

Odd, yes. Effective? Sort of, kind of, not really, maybe. It's not as heinous as it sounds. I'm confused about where I stand on this.

The songs aren't so bad. What stinks is -- since this is on CBS, the Crimey Bloody Station -- "Viva" comes with a dumb murder mystery, because CBS doesn't think you can care about characters unless some of them kill each other.

Well, maybe that's unfair. "Viva" is a remake of BBC's "Blackpool," which also profited from murder. So CBS is guilty merely of borrowing blood from the Brits.

The hero is Ripley (Lloyd Owen). He finances his casino's construction by selling his very successful chain of convenience stores.

This makes Ripley dumb-ish, I think. In Nevada there are actual hotels called Terrible's and convenience stores called Terrible's. The company smartly never sold those convenient little cash cows.

Anywho, "Viva" begins with Ripley coming up short of moolah after an investor pulls out and winds up dead. Ripley is a prime suspect.

Meanwhile, Ripley has an archenemy named Nicky Fontana (Hugh Jackman), who owns a rival casino. As a villain, Nicky gets all the cool glamor. He sings over the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" while scantily clad cocktailers swirl around him with lustful fingers.

Griffin enters the picture as a lascivious woman who likes Ripley a lot and looks like she's invested a fair amount in plastic surgery.

Despite seeming like a train wreck in the making, "Viva Laughlin" is a well-filmed train wreck in the making. Owen is the only engine firing on all cylinders. He commits to the entire nonsense and sells this thing about as much as he can.

So why exactly are you supposed to tune in every week? For the songs? Yeah, if you enjoy semimusicals. For the murder mystery? No, who cares about another pointless, long-term whodunit on TV at this point?

The bottom line is, there's blood on the tracks of this derailment. Don't care whose blood it is. Can't imagine tuning in again. But before I watched it, I sure did think "Laughlin" might be more laughable than it is.

delfman@suntimes.com

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 16, 2007 by Doug Elfman

It was time for Matt Lauer to do a live "Today" show "teaser" for a Texas affiliate. But there was no copy in front of him to read. He spun in his chair, confused for a second, then calmly got the job done.

"I realized I'm on live to Dallas-Fort Worth, and yet there's nothing in the monitor," Lauer told me later, bending a funny grin.

"At that point, the only thing you train yourself not to do is go, 'What the hell am I doing?' We train ourselves: No four-letter words until we're off the air."

This was the only snag Lauer faced Monday while he and Al Roker co-hosted half of "Today" from Chicago, bringing airtime to local chefs, choirs and comedy troupes.

Lauer anchored a few local-centric segments from NBC's downtown studio. Then he speed-walked outside, where about 130 "Today" gawkers engaged in the usual sign-holding battles. ("Ask Me About [some company]!")

A few women over 60 from Downstate Danvers wore $3 sequin tiaras from Walgreens and waved under an iridescent-orange sign proclaiming their group's superiority as "Danvers Dollies."

Lauer looked "thin," said "Dolly" Bev Miller, who was happy to see him nonetheless. "And maybe not quite as tall as I thought."

After Monday's show, Lauer flew off to conduct an undisclosed "big" interview. He's piling up newsmakers, lately. Over the weekend, he sat down with Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and his wife to ask about Craig's gay-sex-bathroom scandal. Portions run at 7 tonight on NBC, with more Wednesday on "Today."

In between "Today" segments, I half-joked, "Did you ask him why he's a big liar?"

"That's not my job," Lauer said. "My job is to ask middle-of-the- road questions and let the audience judge for themselves."

Observing the "Today" crowd, it became clear how easy it would be for someone to scream a curse word live to the nation. Lauer and Roker say that's never happened. In fact, they've seen only one seriously weird incident in 12 years of outdoor "Today"-ing.

"A young woman showed her ta-tas," Roker said. "There were two thoughts. First of all: Your parents have to be so proud. And two is: They weren't that good. Put those away. They were real, and not so great."

"As it turns out," Lauer said, "we have a lot of wholesome people that just want to wave home."

Engaging the crowd while broadcasting -- shaking dozens of hands and posing for photos -- looked simple but exhausting. Lauer celebrates his 50th birthday in December. He's starting to question his future on "Today." He can't "run up and down the stairs as I used to be able to."

And he'll want more time to coach soccer and such, once his kids turn 10, 7 and 4, when his contract runs out in three years. (Lauer and Roker employ nannies but say they're home most of the day.)

"You start to think, 'OK, I'm 50. How long am I going to live? How old are my kids going to be?' Some of [those thoughts] are a little morose," Lauer said. "As much of a privilege as ['Today'] is, getting up at sometime other than 4 o'clock in the morning sounds good."

delfman@suntimes.com

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 14, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'Anchorman" was such a pop-culture hit for Christina Applegate, she could have parlayed its success into more movie work. Instead, she ran off to star in "Sweet Charity" -- first at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre, then on Broadway.

More than one Hollywood exec thought she was nuts.

"Probably in the minds of most people in this business, [performing in the musical] is one of the stupidest things I could have done," says Applegate, 35. "I could have been doing films this whole time.

"I even had a huge producer say to me, 'You're an idiot.' And you know what? That's something I had to do. Each thing that I do is something I have to do for me, and a great opportunity for me to completely change" as an actor and as a person, she says.

"Sweet Charity" -- her favorite musical since she was a kid (she earned a Drama Desk nomination) -- wasn't merely emotionally fulfilling. The intensity of live theater ultimately boosted her self-assurance to find the core of a character.

"At the end of that show, every single night I had to break down with tears running down my face. And I had to make that happen, or the show would not work. So that muscle? It's just innately there now. Where maybe before, you'd get so afraid and go, 'Oh God, it's gotta happen. Oh God, that scene's coming up where I have to flip out. What am I going to use?'

"I don't use anything anymore. It's all there. It had to be there."

This fall, Applegate gets to flex her acting muscles in "Samantha Who?" a new comedy beginning Monday on ABC. Quite a few critics have declared it a top new show.

Applegate plays a VIP cocktailer who wakes up from a coma, has amnesia and quickly discovers she used to be a lying, cheating drunk.

"I'm an alcoholic?!" Samantha exclaims, determining to begin a nicer life.

But even with "Samantha," "Anchorman" and Broadway on her resume, Applegate is still calmly answering journalists who want to know if her role as Kelly Bundy on "Married With Children" ever pigeonholed her career.

"That was almost 20 years ago," she says. (Addressing the question, her demeanor is determined, not bitter.)

"I wasn't her," she says. "When I left [the 'Married' set] on Friday night, I put on my long flowy skirt, took off my makeup, put my hair in a ponytail, and lived the life of somebody completely different."

If people in the casting business ever had Kelly Bundy in mind when she auditioned for them, they had the wrong woman.

"I never did anything like that ever again," she says. "I haven't repeated her."

delfman@suntimes.com

FOR A CHANGE, IT'S A BAD WOMAN ON THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION

'SAMANTHA WHO?' Rating 2 out of 4

8:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays on

WLS-Channel 7

There are a lot of fictions about the redemption of bad men. "Scrooge." "Groundhog Day." "My Name is Earl." But you don't often see a story like "Samantha Who?" -- the redemption of a bad woman.

"Samantha" opens with Sam (Christina Applegate) lying in a hospital bed, waking from a coma. She has amnesia. But she soon finds out she used to live as a mean, high-powered executive who dumped on people. Now, she wants to be kinder and gentler.

Applegate is perfect for this kind of role. To put it bluntly, she's got the beautiful but sharp face of a tough and controlling woman. And yet, she's an underrated comedic actress (perhaps because of soured projects like 2002's "The Sweetest Thing"), and she can generate sympathy and establish a believable, whole person.

As Sam, Applegate is terrific at managing the space around her. She owns almost every scene she's in. And she sells the occasional funny chitchat, like when Sam tells her angry boyfriend, "Your grateful face feels like your mrrah! [monster] face."

"Samantha" is more of a smiler than a laugher. That's fine. But the comedy straddles straight-up storytelling with clumsy moments of broad comedy (no insulting pun intended). And the broadest stuff, like broad comedy across the board at ABC, doesn't quite work. Dunno why. Maybe because it's Herculean for any writer and director to get it just right.

There's a lot of good in the first two episodes. The rest of the cast, especially Rick Hoffman as Sam's boss, can hit comic notes perfectly. Yet normally excellent comedic actors (Jean Smart as Sam's mom, and Jennifer Esposito as Sam's friend) get drowned a bit in that vague broadness.

I think ABC is banking on "Samantha" fitting its cutesy (and by now, overdone) formula of a strong woman speaking in voiceover about life and growth, when that woman is not blurting things out a little too frantically.

To wit, ABC is airing "Samantha" not after another half-hour comedy, but after "The Bachelor" and its bevy of frantic and desperate wannabe housewives.

But unlike some of the networks' other shows in this vein, "Samantha" lacks an elephant walk of fatless man candy strutting around with their shirts off.

Speaking of men, it might be expected that Applegate could attract male viewers because she's iconically attractive. To sell Applegate merely as a trophy or a trend, however, is to sell her very short. She's a presence. And if the tone of "Samantha Who?" settles down into a funnier, steadier groove, it could end up being worth remembering.
delfman@suntimes.com

IT'S ON

What's on and worth a look this week

TONIGHT

"GIRL MEETS COWBOY": WE tries to wrangle women viewers by sending easy-crying girls from Chicago and other metropolises to the ranch to meet shirtless macho dudes who get them to play strip poker. I'm not sure this kinda down-home, hick-accented formula works on TV anymore. Fox's new "Nashville" was DOA commercially. The Nashville Network has long since been changed to Spike. And "Friday Night Lights" bombs in the ratings. Is Southern culture on the skids? 9 p.m., WE

MONDAY

"GOTTI'S WAY": Rap producer Irv Gotti starts his own reality show on VH1, because there must be something sympathetic about the head of the formerly named Murder Inc. music label, since he was acquitted of money laundering and is the subject of violent rumors. You know, the same-old new American love story that Viacom profits off of on MTV, VH1 and BET. 9:30 p.m., VH1

TUESDAY

"FRONTLINE": One of the only serious news shows left on TV begins its 26th season with a study of "Cheney's Law," how the VP helped turn the Executive Branch into an imperial force above the law. 9 p.m., PBS

WEDNESDAY

"BET HIP-HOP AWARDS": Chicago hip-hop heroes (?) Kanye West and Common perform, and so does the biggest nominee, T.I.

7 P.M., BET

THURSDAY

"VIVA LAUGHLIN": Dude opens casino. Doesn't sleep with wife because he's stressed. Everyone struts around singing over tracks of classic pop songs by Elvis, Blondie, etc. A very suspicious template for a TV show, considering how "Cop Rock" got ridiculed and canceled. But "Viva" isn't as asinine as it sounds. Or maybe it is, because this is blood-and-guts CBS, so (yes!) there will be a murder mystery threading through the first season (if "Viva" lasts a whole season). 9 p.m., CBS

FRIDAY

"THE NEXT GREAT AMERICAN BAND": "American Idol" producers make fun of horrible bands while ostensibly looking for talent. 7 p.m., Fox

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 11, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'WOMEN'S MURDER CLUB' Rating 1/2 out of 4

- - -

I was watching "Women's Murder Club" when I realized I didn't need my brain to pay attention to it. People just talked and talked about nothing. So I removed my head off of my body and stared in a deep coma. Ahh. TV, bad. Coma, good.

I tried to stay interested. I promise. But "Women's Murder Club" looks cheap and filmed too quickly. And I've seen more interesting storylines on "Matlock." Seriously. "Matlock."

Angie Harmon stars as a police detective, blah blah blah. Her ex- husband Tom, whom she still loves, becomes her boss, how awkward, blah blah blah. Her female friends work as a D.A. and a forensics body inspector, and one vomits at the site of blood, yada.

Together, these women solve crimes and talk to each other about the men they're sleeping with, or used to sleep with, or still pine for, or are cheating on.

"Women's Murder Club" will air on Fridays, which everyone in the business knows is the kiss of death. Fridays make money for nightclubs; they make mincemeat of TV.

"Women's Murder Club," based on characters in books by James Patterson, meets Friday as a corpse. DOA. Deep six. The big sleep. The great hereafter. Ann Coulter's heart. Soulless. Dead to the world.

A while ago, ABC gave critics a planned first episode that was not bad. The club of women leaned on each other nicely and didn't backstab each other. The actresses got up in front of critics this summer and talked about how great it was to be in a women- supporting-women show.

But reportedly, ABC scrapped that episode because execs thought its mysteries were too complex for stupid American TV viewers to keep up. I kept up. I thought it was fine. Not great, but good enough that I recommended it to my feminist mom, who loves "House."

But now, the new debut episode climaxes with a confusingly written yet completely unoriginal plot twist at the end. And the women characters are less confident than before, frazzled and more judgmental.

Here's a loving conversation from the earlier, scrapped premiere: "You know Tom getting remarried doesn't make what you had mean less, right? You'll meet someone."

Compare that to the new premiere, where woman C carps at woman B: "Given your usual terrible taste in men, I actually don't hate Luke."

So there you have it. Producers dreamed up a show about somewhat ideal women (smart, grounded, supportive), but second-guessed themselves and clubbed it into a sleep-inducing non-thriller about uneasy characters.

"Women's Murder Club": Welcome to Friday nights.

ON AIR:

FLIPPING THROUGH OTHER CHANNELS

COMING UP

"Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead" (8 p.m. Friday, Lifetime): The Englishwoman with second sight goes to Hollywood to tell strangers what their dead brothers and moms are up to on the other side. It's the start of a second season. At 9, the new "America's Psychic Challenge" makes soothsayers compete. And at 10, the drama "Blood Ties" begins a second season of spiritual detective work.

"Wizards of Waverly Place" (8:30 p.m. Friday, Disney): It's a new comedy series where young wizards use their power to do things like appear in two places at once, so they can attend a function while also going shopping.

"Men in Trees" (9 p.m. Friday, WLS-Channel 7): The second season starts for romantic co-stars/real-life lovebirds Anne Heche and James Tupper.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 7, 2007 by Doug Elfman

There's no such thing as an original idea, supposedly, and you can see that in new fall TV shows. For instance, Kelsey Grammer on Fox's "Back to You" is clearly Frasier Crane, with a bigger ego, working in the newsroom from "Bruce Almighty." So at a glance, here's a little guide. If you liked "Frasier," you might like "Back to You." If you liked "Angel," there's a chance you'll like "Moonlight." And so on. I've also included my star ratings (zero for "Back to You") and a look at how other critics view new shows, according to Metacritic.com. That Web site compiles reviews from across the country and computes an average review score on a scale of 1 to 100. So, on average, TV critics gave "Back to You" a score of 59 out of 100. True cliche No. 2: There's no accounting for taste, yours or mine.

delfman@suntimes.com

IT'S ON; WHAT'S ON AND WORTH A LOOK THIS WEEK

SUNDAY

"Life Is Wild": Over the summer, some of us critics praised this drama as genuinely endearing. An American family (two parents, four kids) moves to South Africa and finds new life in the wild. But since then, tonight's first episode was reshot and reshaped to introduce more cardboard conflicts between family members, like: "I'd rather be in jail with my real father than here with you." And, "How drunk are you?" It's also ludicrous why they've moved to South Africa -- to shake up their troubled teen son -- since now the flirty city kids are in danger of being clawed to death by lions. Plus, CW somehow found a way to include a swimming pool of white teen girls lounging in bikinis in the middle of nowhere. There's a good show trying to get out of the body of "Life is Wild." The cast is quite good. The landscapes and animals are pretty. We'll see if the * show gets on track. 7 p.m., CW

MONDAY

"The Boondocks": Aaron McGruder's cartoon won a Peabody this year for mixing comedy with social commentary. The new season brings guest voice-acting from Mos Def, Katt Williams, Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah, Busta Rhymes and Aisha Tyler, among others. 10:30 p.m., Cartoon

TUESDAY

"House": In a **** episode, House keeps seeing his old teammates roaming the hospital. Is it really them, or is he hallucinating while interviewing doctor recruits? 8 p.m., Fox

WEDNESDAY

"Pageant Place": Donald Trump brings daddy issues to Miss USAs and other sash-winners rooming in New York, as they hash out (as MTV puts it) jealousies, drama, temptations and, of course, friendships, since women who don't eat together, stay together. 9:30 p.m., MTV

THURSDAY

"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": One of TV's funniest shows gets a new episode (Dee thinks her new guy might be mentally challenged), followed by a classic repeat (everyone gets hooked on steroids). 9 p.m., FX

FRIDAY

"Women's Murder Club": One of ABC's stronger new shows (based on clips I've seen) is a female-bonding procedural where a detective (Angie Harmon) and friends solve crimes and support each other emotionally. I've recommended it highly to my mom. 8 p.m., ABC

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 9, 2007 by Doug Elfman

Some journalists don't exactly understand Larry David's humor. I won't name names, but judging by their stories lately, a few members of the press seem to think the creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a jerk.

Why? Because he's getting divorced, and because he delivered a comedic performance at a press conference in July.

David spoke to fawning TV critics the way his TV character would: caustically, with a knowing smirk. It was, without question, the funniest press conference in history.

Critics in the room laughed throughout. But some press people who weren't there read bits of the transcript, took the tone the wrong way, and aren't on board.

It may seem strange to print the bulk of a press conference in a newspaper, but I think someone should in this case. So here we go. Just remember, each funny line was part of a truthful but comedic performance, not jerkiness.

Q. So what made you decide to keep doing ["Curb"]?

A. Well, [last] season ended, and all the editing was done. And I went into my office, and I was sitting at my desk, and I went, "Jeez, I don't have anything to do." ... And I thought, "This is very uncomfortable. I better do another season." So I did.

Q. Why are you so willing to portray yourself ... as such a shmuck?

A. I'm portraying you, shmucko! [Laughter.] That's you, too, not just me!

Q. But you're portraying yourself ...

A. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm sacrificing myself for the betterment of humanity.

Q. I wonder if things happen to you in life now ... where you're angry at what's happening to you, but you're glad, because you're going to get your revenge by acting them out [on "Curb?"]

A. Yeah, if something happens, if I'm angry or something, I'll go, "I'm going to use that." Yeah, so it works like that. Does that answer your stupid question? (Laughter.) ... I can get away with that because there's a very fine line between TV Larry and me. Very close, very close.

Q. Larry, you talked about being raised in this small apartment in Brooklyn as a kid where everyone was yelling. So if everyone was yelling, in the midst of all that chaos, what was the voice of reason that enabled you to believe in yourself?

A. OK, there was no such person. (Laughter.) Nobody told me to believe in myself. Even if they did, I wouldn't have believed them. ... My mother said to me, "You're not special. You're not special, Larry." She begged me to take a Civil Service test to work in the post office. That was her dream for me to work in the post office, deliver the mail, and I thought, "You know, maybe she's right, not such a bad job." But I didn't take the test and, I don't know, one day, you know, I was funny and somebody said, "You should be a comedian."

Q. So you shattered your mother's dreams.

A. Right! [Laughter]

Q. If you do come back for a seventh season -- since there is such a thin line between TV Larry and real Larry -- would you and Cheryl have marital problems?

A. (Looks at actress Cheryl Hines.) Too bad. You're going to be off the show. [Laughter] Oh. What a shame.

Hines: What a way to find out!

A. Good idea for a seventh season, by the way. That's a good idea.

delfman@suntimes.com

REVIEW

Hail Larry once again

The one shining gem remaining on HBO finally returns tonight for its sixth season. Thank ye gods, the first new episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is as funny as usual. The plots weave archetypal "Curb" conflicts. A) Larry tries to party-hop in a bizarre way, and drags his wife, Cheryl, into a mess of angry confrontations at their friends' houses. B) Meanwhile, Cheryl tries to convince Larry they should shelter a homeless New Orleans family displaced by Katrina. There is a "penis" cake. There is a smoke detector that won't stop beeping. And it's all just swell to have one of the best shows on TV back.

'CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM' Rating 4 out of 4


Honesty is Garlin's middle name

Jeff Garlin's claim to fame is playing Larry's often flustered manager. But in real life, the Chicagoan is just as honest as Larry David is. For instance, he openly proclaims he filmed "Daddy Day Care" for one reason: cash.

"If you see me in something now that's not great, know that I was paid a lot of money," Garlin says. "You know when you have reviews that say, 'So-and-so must have been paid [a lot to be in it],' well, they were."

Garlin's not the only actor eyeing cash. He's just rare for admitting to cashing in.

"Michael Caine is the king of that," he says. "He's won Academy Awards -- and done 'Jaws 3-D' or whatever! And Gene Hackman! He's done his share of crap, but who's a better actor than Gene Hackman?"

I ask him if he also makes a ton of dough performing for private parties thrown by corporations and wealthy fans. He does a few stand- up gigs, he says, but won't name his price. Instead, he names other entertainers' prices.

"I make good money," Garlin says. "But guys like Jay Leno make $750,000 or a million dollars an appearance!"

Garlin does have principles. He wrote, directed and starred in a small movie, opening Oct. 5, called "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." He plays a depressed Second City actor. His co-stars are Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Dan Castellaneta and Paul Mazursky.

But he turned down a "Daddy Day Care" sequel, since he wasn't offered a good salary.

"I will be honest when it's called for. Why am I going to protect the people who made 'Daddy Day Camp?' " he says. "I've got no reason to protect them. Let 'em pay me enough money, and I'll do it.

"I'm even friends with Cuba Gooding Jr., who's starring in it. Our kids are friends. But you gotta pay me," he says. "And by the way, even when you're doing something for the money, you regret it while you're doing it."

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 4, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'30 ROCK' Rating 4 out of 4

- - -

Thank God, thank God, thank God. "30 Rock" is still the best show on TV. The producers had talked about making it "less dense" in its second season. Did they? I can't tell. It's still seamlessly funny.

Surprise, surprise. Alec Baldwin gets the first great piece of dialogue in the first new episode, when NBC executive Jack Donaghy counts his ridiculous blessings:

"All of my summer replacement shows were big hits: 'America's Next Top Pirate.' 'Are You Stronger Than a Dog?' 'MILF Island.' ..."

As usual, "30 Rock" looks like it could be the next "Seinfeld." Only, the ratings have never been great, since it competes against behemoth hits on other networks.

So NBC is trying to make a splash with "event" casting when the second season debuts tonight. Jerry Seinfeld appears as himself. I don't want to spoil your pleasure of seeing the story unfold, but I'll say Jack decides to digitally insert the star's image from "Seinfeld" into all of NBC's current programming.

As "30 Rock" creator and star Tina Fey said this summer, "We could not be more excited to have Jerry Seinfeld on the show because hopefully then, regular America might actually find out that we have a show and watch it maybe at least that one time."

Hopefully. Stunt casting is stupid by definition. But I wouldn't be opposed to Britney Spears making a fool-of-herself appearance if it got more eyeballs pointing "30 Rock's" way.

If you've not seen much of the comedy, you don't need to know much to jump right in. The cast, writing and directing are so perfect, you should be able to get the who's who and what's what.

Tonight, TV comedy writer Liz Lemon (Fey) eats the pain away after her breakup. Jenna (Jane Krakowski) puts on loads of weight but remains a narcissistic actress. Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) gets dumped by his wife.

And it only seems like Jack gets all the best compliment-insults to deliver, because Baldwin is the funniest person on TV since I don't know who or when.

"Lemon," he tells Lemon (and Baldwin is a Zen Buddha of comedy here), "don't ever say you're 'just' you. Because you are better than you. ... Now give me the ham."

Seinfeld's performance is slightly uneven once or twice, but when he's on, he and Baldwin -- and he and Fey -- are excellent.

There is a funnier comedy on TV (Fox's "Family Guy"), a bigger risk-taker (FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") and a more socially relevant half hour (Showtime's "Californication").

But there's something about "30 Rock" that speaks to me. I think it's the perfect live-action TV comedy, at least the first since "Seinfeld" to take no prisoners in constructing a funny story, a dumb gag or an unpredictable punch- line.

The approach is one other comedies should adopt. Plots can be outrageous, but they're played straight. The actors and rhythms create a pretend land where everyone is eccentric and funny without going annoyingly over the top. None of them is winking at the camera.

Well, Seinfeld addresses the camera once, but it works, because everything works on "30 Rock." It is not anywhere near a sophomore slump. Nay, it is the most masterful thing on TV, reveling in the splendiferous bosom of its nascent glory. Or something. I'm not sure how else to end this without sounding like a total tool in love with a TV show.

ON AIR:

FLIPPING THROUGH OTHER CHANNELS

SEASON PREMIERES

TONIGHT

"Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" (7 p.m., WFLD-Channel 32): The game show starts a second season by replacing last year's fifth- grade models with new, shinier smartypants kids. One is Olivia, a 10- year-old Chicagoan who loves Greek mythology and Eleanor Roosevelt. Another installment airs at 7 p.m. Friday.

"Supernatural" (8 p.m., WGN-Channel 9): A third season starts for the brother-brother detective mystery, beginning with a demon- slaying fest.

"Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (9 p.m., USA): "CI" moves from NBC to USA as part of a deal that kept the original "Law & Order" and "SVU" on NBC. Back are Vincent D'Onofrio, Eric Bogosian, Kathryn Erbe and Chris Noth. Julianne Nicholson is on leave having a baby, so Noth is partnered for now with Alicia Witt. Before this new episode airs, USA runs a marathon of oldies from 5 a.m.-7 p.m. The new episode reruns at midnight.

FRIDAY

"Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. Friday, WMAQ-Channel 5): The acclaimed high school football drama starts its second season. Finally, "Friday" airs on Fridays. Tonight, Coach starts new work in college ball. Landry has last season's rape violence on his mind. And everyone else engages in their usual Texas twang while talkin' 'bout Jesus and baby motherin' and datin'.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 2, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'PUSHING DAISIES' Rating 4 out of 4

- - -

Here it is at last, the new TV show with the biggest buzz among critics. I almost hate to say this (since I can be a contrarian at times), but "Pushing Daisies" deserves its high praise. It's the best new drama of the fall, finding sweet hope in morbid tragedy.

There's no way you haven't seen what this romantic adventure is all about if you read about TV or watch ABC commercials. At an early age, Ned (Lee Pace) acquires the inexplicable, supernatural ability to bring people back to life. He touches them once; they live again. But if he touches them a second time, they die forever.

"Daisies" follows Ned as a grownup, a piemaker who one day happens upon the woman who used to be his neighbor when they were kids. Clearly, they are in love. As an adult, he finds her dead and touches her back to life, but he may never touch her again. Sounds horribly romantic. Isn't.

Ned and his woman Chuck (Anna Friel) will go on the prowl for private-eye cases, along with a harder-edged partner, Emerson (Chicagoan Chi McBride). Chuck brings murder victims back to life to find out who killed them.

The premiere is lovely in scope, ambition, casting, acting, narrative, writing and direction. Two people in particular illustrate these creative and cool stories: creator-writer Bryan Fuller and director Barry Sonnenfeld, who won't direct every episode but has set the tone.

As Fuller says to me, his original idea for the feel of "Daisies" was "Amelie" meets "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." So "Pushing Daisies" is one of the prettiest, oddest moving paintings on TV.

The first episode begins with a visual of saturated-yellow daisies against a saturated-blue sky. Then a woman is found floating in a sea seeped in sumptuous blue. Chuck's aunts' house is an ornate mansion of stuffed birds frozen in time among pathways of antiques. It seems impossible not to get lost in the swell morbidity of it all.

I was concerned "Pushing Daisies" wouldn't look this lush at all times every week, just as the first season of "The Sopranos" never shined visually as much as it did in its premiere episode. But Fuller assures me it will. We'll see.

I also don't want it to get caught in another Sam-Diane/Rachel- Ross quagmire. Ned and Chuck aren't completely unrequited like that. It can be assumed they will take sexual matters into their own hands, off screen, in each other's company (so Fuller intends). They just may never truly get together-together.

"It's not going to be a sexless relationship," Fuller says. "But it definitely won't be an intercourse relationship."

Fuller sees this as a way of introducing clever and ABC-clean sensuality into the show. Fine. Right. But there's my one word of caution for voyeurs of snogging: It could become annoying or frustrating.

At any rate, it says something that "Pushing Daisies" wins me over despite my worry Ned and Chuck are the untouchables of love.

How could it not? The debut is a luxurious beast of a fairy tale that finally brings "Amelie's" French-daydream rhythm and soul to the small screen. If viewers take to "Daisies" the way critics have - - I can't imagine this won't be at least a cult hit -- a field of copycats may bloom next fall, and American TV would become a Frenchier landscape of fresh fantasies.

TALK SHOWS

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" (9 a.m., Channel 7): Actress Halle Berry; actor Benicio Del Toro.

"Late Show With David Letterman" (10:35 p.m., Channel 2): Actor Jude Law; comedian Sarah Silverman; musician John Fogerty.

"The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" (10:35 p.m., Channel 5): Actor Jason Lee; actress Kristin Chenoweth; singer Pat Monahan.

"Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" (11:35 p.m., Channel 2): Actor Chi McBride; actress Teri Polo; musician Steve Bertrand.

"Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (11:35 p.m., Channel 5): Journalist Ted Koppel; actor Jason Schwartzman.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live" (12:05 a.m., Channel 7): Actress Sandra Oh; musician Mark Ronson.

ON AIR:

FLIPPING THROUGH OTHER CHANNELS

TONIGHT

"Cavemen" (7 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): It's one of the most talked- about new shows, and critics who saw a test pilot were fairly aghast, since it seemed like 22 Geico commercials in a row. But ABC has been tinkering with "Cavemen" so much, the network didn't even have the finished debut ready to send to reviewers. So. Will it suck? Will it be suddenly awesome?

"Five Days" (7 p.m., HBO): In this miniseries, a mom, her kids and their dog go missing in London. It's a thorny character study, shown already on BBC. Four more parts run on future Tuesdays.

"Sunday Best" (7 p.m., BET): Six of the 20 contestants are from the Chicago area on this search for America's best gospel singer. Funny: BET says the winner "may" receive a record deal and money. "May"? As in "maybe"? Bebe Winans and Mary Mary do the judging.

"Carpoolers" (7:30 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): At first, this new comedy about four mostly wimpy dudes seems just stupid, but some of it is decent. Gracen (the quite talented Fred Goss) turns down sex because he thinks his hot wife (Faith Ford; she's good) makes more money than him. Ugh. Other situations are also like poorly executed, live-action cartoons of sad sacks. The Rating 2 out of 4 show could be funnier if it focused on two people: Gracen's son, a "Napoleon Dynamite"-like slacker named Marmaduke (the excellent T.J. Miller from Chicago), and Laird (the very good Jerry O'Connell), a sexed- up divorcee determined to make his buddies man up. I hope Laird succeeds, because these de-testicled guys make me want to go tie a nerd's shoelaces together.
"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (8 p.m., Bravo): The former pop- culture splash begins its last season with a pageant where queer- eyed guys from the past pose for the gay men and guest Susan Lucci.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 1, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'ALIENS IN AMERICA' Rating 3 1/2 out of 4

7:30 to 8 p.m. Mondays on WGN-Channel 9

'Aliens in America" sounds like a bad idea for a comedy. A white family in Wisconsin takes in a Pakistani exchange student by chance. At first, the mom is suspicious. And kids at school are angry, since they think Pakistan blew up "the buildings."

Can this prickly, post-9/11 concept possibly be tactful without feeling like an after-school special?

Yes, and it's very appealing. "Aliens in America" pulls off its absurd, touchy situation by handling everything with a relaxed tone and excellent film work.

Raja (Adhir Kalyan) has an uphill struggle. One day, he comes home from high school upset, because kids teased him with taunts he didn't understand.

"What is fudge Pakistan?" he complains. "All day long, I am called this and it's very confusing to me, because fudge is very delicious, yet they keep on laughing."

The dramatic key here is Raja is eager and strong-willed (though naive), so you don't have to pity him. Therefore you can smile at the creativity of that fudge-packing insult, while rooting against the bullies who inspired it.

Besides, once you get past the Pakistani thing, the real issue is that Raja and the teenage boy in the house, Justin (Dan Byrd), are outsiders -- just like most Americans. Their high school years won't be much harder than those of any kid who isn't cool at school.

More significant, "Aliens" is written, directed and acted superbly (even the bit players are great), and you find yourself smiling a lot. It begins as an absorbing show in a grownup way, yet it's endearing in the childlike vein of "The Wonder Years," thanks to Justin's voice-over narration.

Every once in a while, it's even harshly funny, like "Strangers With Candy" was. How's this for harsh? In the second episode, Justin's younger sister Claire (Lindsey Shaw) informs Justin she stays popular partly by avoiding him.

"Yesterday," Claire says, "someone found out we have the same last name, so I told them we adopted you from a retarded family."

"Wow," Justin says quietly. "The whole family had to be retarded."

That's a funny little conversation, because Shaw and Byrd speak naturally, entrenched in character and determination. And the tenor of the scene is even-keeled, rather than played as frenetic broad comedy (which is being done so poorly elsewhere on TV lately, ABC especially).

So "Aliens in America" is not a bad idea for a comedy. Like most good things, the execution is more important than the conception. Hopefully, Raja and Justin will learn that life lesson as they endure the main universal hell in "Aliens in America": high school.

On Air; Flipping through other channels

TONIGHT

"Everybody Hates Chris" (7 p.m., WGN-Channel 9): Chris Rock makes his first appearance on the comedy that loosely chronicles his childhood. He plays a guidance counselor to himself (young Chris) on the best family show on broadcast TV. Then, the CW premieres "Aliens in America" and starts new seasons of "Girlfriends" and "The Game."

"Rules of Engagement" (8:30 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): David Spade and Heather Locklear go on a date (on TV at least). They've split in real life but supposedly remain friendly. Russell (Spade) and Audrey's sister (Locklear in a guest role) make go-out plans after some comic situation or another.

"Dr. Steve-O" (10:05 p.m., USA): The doofus who became famous for stapling his testicles to his legs, or whatever, travels America in search of wimpy losers he can make more macho with his "Jackass" ways.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 30, 2007 by Doug Elfman

Dexter leans over his captured prey (wrapped in plastic and tape) and prepares to kill him with a stab to the heart.

"Why are you doing this to me?" the about-to-be-dead guy asks?

"I'm not so much doing this to you, as I'm doing it for me," Dexter says quietly, then draws blood from the man's cheek -- a red- splattered souvenir.

And so, the second season gets under way for "Dexter," one of the best shows on TV this decade. High praise, indeed. Deserved. The first season was ridiculously engrossing and entertaining. "Dexter's" second season is creative, compelling, thoughtful and even fun.

Dexter is a Miami forensics cop whose hobby is to serial murder. He uses cop skills covertly to kill only other killers, never innocents. He's a vigilante by default. Mostly, he's a sociopath who feels no emotions, but he abides by his dead dad's cop code: Only the bad die young.

As tonight's season debut begins, Dexter tries to shake off a fellow cop, Doakes, who trails Dexter around Miami because he suspects him of being vaguely evil. This briefly crimps Dexter's lifestyle. But Dexter finds a way to slice and dice.

The feds will track Dexter, too, even as he works under their noses. Cops luck upon corpses of Dexter's victims and start examining them. Dexter thought he was so sly, dumping bodies in the water. Maybe not. Will they realize Dexter's their man?

One of the triumphs of "Dexter" is how writers turn plots into dualities. In an upcoming episode, a bitter woman tells Dexter she hopes the newest serial killer gets away with his crimes, since he kills only criminals. She is essentially giving Dexter her blessing, to his face, even though she has no idea he's the killer.

It's charming that Dexter studies his victims' talents before he slashes them. Last season, he killed an evil shrink, but not until Dexter got a free session from the guy, who ended up wrapped in that to-be-dead-soon plastic.

This season, Dexter will capture a professional liar (a salesman), which gives Dexter the chance to study the man's deceptions so he can better employ lying techniques himself.

"It's like watching someone ski moguls," Dexter compliments the liar in plastic. "You just hop from one lie to the next. No shame. No embarrassment. You just don't give a s---. That's the key, right? Not to care about anyone or anything?"

The imagery is always pretty. Blood drips over a cross tattoo. A cop speaks in slow motion at Dexter while we hear Dexter's elegant, twisted thoughts.

The cast is improved even over last year, filling the roles of Dexter (the incredible Michael C. Hall, who should have just won the best drama Emmy), his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), Doakes (Erik King), Lt. Laguerta (Lauren Velez), Detective Angel (David Zayas) and Dexter's weak girlfriend, Rita (Julie Benz).

Dexter finds a "sponsor" of sorts in Lila, played by Jaime Murray. She adds needed romantic competition to sad-sap Rita. Murray gives an absorbing performance as a 12-stepper who isn't as repulsed by death as most people are; Lila is right up Dexter's alley.

"I really need to kill somebody," Dexter says.

I really want to watch.

delfman@suntimes.com

- - -

Michael C. Hall

On his workout routine

"Cardio, weights, stretching. But there are some days when I'm killing someone, and that sort of serves as my workout."

On playing murderous

Dexter with affection

"That's part of my job of playing the character -- to open my heart to him. ... We all have our shadow. His shadow is about as formidable a shadow as you can have."

On whether I'm a bad person, because I want Dexter to kill more people

"That's really something you need to ask yourself."

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 30, 2007 by Doug Elfman

Is it time to switch from HBO to Showtime? Maybe. Showtime totally gets the short end of the pop culture stick, because its original series used to be lame-ish. Yet, it's now created two potential classic TV shows in "Dexter" and "Californication," and that's two more than you'll find on CBS and ABC combined. In addition, "Weeds" is solid, with moments of excellence.

What's so great about HBO right now? "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" are great. "Real Time with Bill Maher" is cool. But everything else is "eh."

"John from Cincinnati"? That was a bust. "Da Ali G Show"? Hilarious, but there are no plans to bring it back.

So here's my official recommendation as a TV critic. Unless you're addicted to HBO's movie slate, switch to Showtime for a few months. Give "Californication," "Dexter" and "Weeds" a shot. If you're not hooked, switch back to HBO.

I will offer this caveat: Don't bother with Showtime if you don't like shows about serial killing ("Dexter"), serial humping ("Californication") or serial pot-selling ("Weeds").

Of the three series, I may love "Dexter" the most, but then again, I'm just as jazzed about David Duchovny's "Californication." It's wildly amusing. Hank (Duchovny -- awesome) jumps from one naked romp to another, while mired in booze, unvarnished truth and self- indulgence.

At times, it's shockingly funny, like when a lover punched Hank in the face during sex, and Hank, after getting his bearings, laughed heartily. Hank's ex-girlfriend recently spied a condom in his kitchen and asked, "Magnum? You have a growth spurt?"

Just as often, it's unbelievably thinky but not crammed down your throat. The other week, we heard a voiceover of a high school girl reading her creative-writing paper:

"Here we are," she thought, "at the edge of the world, the very edge of Western civilization, and all of us are so desperate to feel something, anything, that we keep falling into each other and f--- ing our way toward the end of days."

That about sums up the nihilism of the show, although it's not accurate to call "Californication" merely nihilistic. It's erotic, romantic, hedonistic, caring, feministic, narcissistic and written close to the conscious subconscious, as if it's the organized stream of consciousness of a genius.

And that's a peek at Showtime shows. They remind me somewhat of 1970s cinema, those lionized films that presented entertaining general fiction as something deeper and more real than the broader fantasy-romance-mysteries of the following decades, in both movies and TV.

If I can say one more thing, it's that everyone to whom I've personally recommended "Dexter" and "Californication" has come back with praise. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll love them. But it's something.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 28, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'MOONLIGHT' Rating 2 out of 4

- - -

So there's this TV show about a vampire with a soul. He's a private eye who saves innocents in Los Angeles. He hasn't answered a booty call in years because he doesn't want to get sexy with a woman and go all grrr on her.

If you think this show sounds like the WB's classic "Angel" -- bingo, you are correct-o. Except this time, it's called "Moonlight" and it's on creepy old CBS. Therefore, it's 78 percent less sexy and 78 percent more laggy in the vicious-fun drama department.

It's less suspenseful than watching blood dry.

At a press conference for his show "Bones" this summer, I asked former "Angel" star David Boreanaz if he planned to do a cameo on "Moonlight."

"Yeah," he joked. "I'll show up as maybe the guy who kills the vampire. ... I really have no thoughts on it."

Cold-blooded!

The mythology is a bite different. "Moonlight's" Mick the vampire sleeps in a freezer (dunno why yet), doesn't die in sunlight and can see scenes from the past and future.

But, holy Nosferatu, this seems familiar, right down to the ex- wife (Shannyn Sossamon) who turned Mick into a vamp, long ago.

The best part of the "Angel"-y experience therein is the witty banter. You can hear echoes of "Angel" in lines like, "So if you're not the killer, let's go with that, because that's comforting."

Unfortunately, there's very little wordplay. And it's mostly parceled out to the best actor here, Jason Dohring (Logan from "Veronica Mars"). Dohring gets to the heart of playing Josef the vampire. ("Joe" the vampire would be stupider, don't you think? And "Joey" the vampire would be a disaster, obviously!)

Anyway, it's pretty great when Josef hears mortals talking about vamps, and he grumbles, "Now we've got the food mouthing off about the farmer."

Yeah, that's fun. But what's not fun? At least half of the rest of the show.

"Moonlighting" -- sorry, I mean, "Moonlight" -- had a potential savior in producer-writer David Greenwalt. He could have turned the show around to give it tighter storylines and wittier dialogue, since he was a writer and producer for -- would you look at that? -- "Angel." (And "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The X-Files.")

But Greenwalt pulled out of "Moonlight" this summer, citing health and personal issues.

Before he exited, Greenwalt talked about how it was not him -- but creators Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson --- who robbed "Angel's" plot.

"My agent said in May, 'You've got to read this "Moonlight" [script],' " Greenwalt said in July. "It's fantastic.' And I read a couple of pages and discovered it was a vampire detective. And I said, 'Not only am I not going to read this, I'm going to sue them. This is my show!'"

I was a big "Angel" fan, so I can easily declare this the best idea for a new fall series that's not presently working. It's got a whole "Ghost Whisperer" limp about it. As they putter around, you never think real danger will come to the heroes -- Mick (Alex O'Loughlin), plus an online video journalist named Beth. (Do I smell romance in the air? Hmm? Hmm?)

In tonight's installment, Mick and Beth (Sophia Myles) work together on a case where people are dying with blood oozing out of two neck holes. Meanwhile, Josef, 500, gripes to Mick, 90, that it would be terrible if the world found out there really are vamps.

"You're only 90. You've never been chased by a torch-carrying mob," Josef explains.

See what a pleasant little piece of dialogue that is? It's rare, though, like a bloody steak. (Mmm, blood.)

"Moonlight" would be way cooler if Mick, Josef and Beth sat around Josef's poolside lair and traded snarks all night. Alas, what a little "Moonlight" could do. Just not now. Because it's not great so far. If I wasn't clear about that before.

ON AIR:

FLIPPING THROUGH OTHER CHANNELS

ALSO NEW

"The Shopping Detective" (10 a.m. Saturday, Fine Living): Chicago- based Lindsey Gladstone of dailycandy.com shares her retail wisdom with people who subscribe to a lot of channels.

SEASON PREMIERES

TONIGHT

"Ghost Whisperer" (7 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): The good news on Jennifer Love Hewitt's deteriorating show is Jay Mohr, who makes everything better, gets bumped up from recurring guest to cast member.

"Las Vegas" (8-10 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): Cops track who killed the father of Mary (Nikki Cox). And soon, Tom Selleck joins the show as casino owner.

"Numb3rs" (9 p.m., Channel 2)

"Stargate Atlantis" (9 p.m., Sci Fi)

SATURDAY

"48 Hours Mystery" (9 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2)

"Saturday Night Live" (10:29 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): The Year of Kanye West continues as he raps on the first new "SNL." LeBron James hosts. The cast is unchanged, despite some wavering by Maya Rudolph earlier this week.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 27, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'UGLY BETTY' Rating 1 out of 4

- - -

What in the hell happened to "Ugly Betty?" When it started last year, it wasn't the best show on TV, but it was quite good for what it was -- a zippy, heartfelt nighttime soap.

But now it's this ... this ... abomination. There are all these guns, and stupid love triangles, and conspiracies, and over-the-top acting and writing. It is shockingly hard to watch.

I rarely point to ratings as barometers of good taste, but maybe the reason a lot of people are ditching the show is because it got terrible. The first season certainly ended with too many melodramatic cliffhangers:

- Betty (new Emmy winner America Ferrera) moped because her love, Henry, went to Arizona with a woman who told him she was pregs with his baby. But is it really his?

- Betty's sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz) found out her man got shot in a random robbery. Is he alive or dead?

- And Daniel (Eric Mabius) got in a wreck with his brother- turned-sister, Alex/Alexis (Rebecca Romijn), while Alexis was driving him someplace for his drug problem.

The new season starts tonight with just as much too-much. Betty feels romantically tortured and accidentally hurts herself when she walks into a small billboard that reads, "Love Hurts." Ouch.

Mode magazine villain Wilhelmina continues her power moves against Betty's boss, Daniel, partly by trying to stay engaged (unlovingly) to Daniel's dad, Bradford (Alan Dale), the owner of Mode.
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I can't even force myself to keep thinking about the clunky lunacy and all the things that are wrong with "Betty." Almost nothing works. I used to enjoy this show on occasion, believe it or not. It had heart and brains. Now it's a glitzy, zany corpse.

There are only a few bright spots. Tonight, a scene with Hilda becomes highly engrossing when you least expect it. And the two effeminate gay characters -- Justin (Mark Indelicato) and Marc (Michael Urie) -- seem to be the only two people consistently earning their scenes with smidgens of humanity or charm.

Well, the fantastic Illeana Douglas also has a few small scenes as a worker bee. But for some crazy reason, she's not being written into every shot of the show.

There is exactly one good line tonight that's a shadow of former goodness, and it's delivered nicely, when Amanda (Becki Newton) walks into her sketchy parents' home and sneers, "This is it. The house of lies. Mother!" Then she says under her breath, "If that is her real name."

I vote for Douglas, Newton, Urie, Indelicato and Ortiz to take over the series, with new writers reinventing the thing under the new title of "Not Ugly Betty."

And that's that. "Betty" strove to become a warm nighttime soap with light comedy, and it has ended up a chilly, unfunny, glorified daytime soap. Oh, the horror.

NEW TONIGHT

"Big Shots" (9:01 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): This lame-ish Rating 1 1/ 2 out of 4 drama (played as comedy) follows a group of men who have become wimps or victims of adultery, even though some of them are overly macho and adulterers themselves. It contains the best line of dialogue of the fall: "Men -- we're the new women." But it suffers from too much gloom and glam. This is the story of rich VIPs who hit golf balls from rooftops and demand shrimp, by God, SHRIMP at their parties. None of the women are appealing, either. And as on "Dirty Sexy Money," a tranny is involved. Apparently the wealthy love trannies. It's all quite the introductory stumble, considering the cast: Michael Vartan, Dylan McDermott and, sure, Christopher Titus.

SEASON PREMIERES

"My Name is Earl" (7-8 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): Joy handles Randy while Earl sits in prison, and Earl deals with a bully after taking the heat for Joy's crime. Earl's not getting out of prison anytime soon, by the way.

"Smallville" (7 p.m., WGN-Channel 9)

"The Office" (8-9:01 p.m.): Michael calls for a 5K fun-run. That's so Michael.

"Grey's Anatomy" (8-9:01 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): The end of last season was a big bummer. Everyone broke up with his/her significant other, or didn't pass the doctor's test, or dealt with yet more uncertainty over overly drawn-out romantic insecurities. Show creator Shonda Rhimes says she wants to start fresh now. As I see "Grey's," you need not have watched it the past few seasons, since we're back at square one. Any bets on what the theme of Meredith's opening narration will be? I'm guessing it'll be about how sunshine erases yesterday's blues, or some such.

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (8 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): Season No. 8 starts with the team looking for Sara (Jorja Fox, who reportedly has been negotiating whether to stay on), kidnapped and left for dead by the "miniature killer."

"Without a Trace" (9 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2)

"ER" (9:01 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): When we left her in the spring, Neela (Parminder Nagra) was trampled at a rally against the war. Dr. Tony Gates (John Stamos) gets upset over her treatment, and Dr. Kevin Moretti (Stanley Tucci) rubs everyone the wrong way.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 26, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'PRIVATE PRACTICE' Rating 1

I'm sure you've seen a few chick flicks. So you will be familiar with the doctors-in-heat language of "Private Practice," which smells like this:

- "You have to stop calling here. I'm married now!"

- "I want his sperm now!"

- "The baby's in distress!"

"Private Practice," which debuts tonight, centers on "Grey's Anatomy" side character Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh). She was the strongest-willed woman on that show, which is why she's the only person on "Grey's" I truly enjoyed.

Now Addison leaves the Seattle confines of "Grey's" to shed her ex-husband Dr. McDreamy and to dance (sometimes naked) to a new groove in L.A.

This spinoff show is another signal America is entranced by live- action cartoons of workplaces. "Grey's Anatomy" is a cartoony romanticization of female anxiety. "Private Practice" looks like a cartoony romanticization of female empowerment.

You can expect Addison and Pete to talk coyly about a kiss they shared. Addison flirts with young William the midwife. Sam and Naomi are exes who clearly still love each other, and they work in the same office, how awkward. You get the picture.

Lest ye worry there might not be enough fantasy candy for ABC's core audience of women, show creator Shonda Rhimes has once again surrounded Addison with successful medical men portrayed by beef sticks: Taye Diggs, Chris Lowell (Piz from "Veronica Mars), Paul Adelstein (Kellerman from "Prison Break") and Tim Daly.
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The cast is good news. I've been a fan of all the main actors and actresses at one point or another. Here in particular, Amy Brenneman finds the insides of her shrink character very quickly. And Daly is on the money as a sensitive but confident doc.

But you can see the script and directional tone holding back the actors. They have a lot of promise if they can rise above their show, or if their show improves.

That's why I'm giving the premiere one star (it's a workaday, fairly annoying introduction) but I wouldn't be surprised if "Private Practice" picks up later -- if it grasps a less pandering and more organic texture.

Writers need to find the more genuine article within the rhythm, plots and characters. It needs to breathe, or it will suffocate.

And Walsh shouldn't keep dancing naked accidentally in front of Diggs. A woman dancing happily naked: liberating. A woman who gets flustered by getting caught dancing naked: disempowering. Let a woman have her peace when she wants it, and let her get a piece when she wants it. How hard is that?

- - -

Casting spell of 'buffy'

"Private Practice" producer Marti Noxon used to run the set of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," my all-time favorite show. Can she do for "Private Practice" what she did for "Buffy?"

Q. Do you still get approached by 500 "Buffy" fans a day?

A. No. You know, Shonda [Rimes, the "Private Practice" creator] is a really big "Buffy" fan, and when I first started working there, she said, "I'm so glad you have 'Buffy' paraphernalia [in the office]." I said, "Shonda - I am your 'Buffy' paraphernalia."

Q. Every time I talk to cast members at "Grey's Anatomy," they seem angry they don't know what their characters' future arcs will be. Will the same be true on "Private Practice"?

A: The reason that happens is so many choices are left to the last minute. I've worked on shows where you tell stuff too early [to actors], and it changes at the last minute, and actors feel really betrayed by that. So what they try to do at "Grey's" is, I think, an actually better policy: Wait until you really know the answer.

Q. Was "Buffy" seat-of-the-pants like that?

A. Yes and no. ... Shonda always [keeps] the end of the season to herself. And Joss [Whedon, creator of "Buffy"] was like that too. We always knew where we were going. But courses change a lot.

Q. Are "Grey's" actors just whinier about not knowing their futures?

A. [Laughing.] I can't speak to that.

Q. I thought the season end of "Grey's" was depressing. There was zero joy left.

A. The funny thing is we're getting hit on both sides. On the one hand, "Grey's" is getting hit for being too dark. On the other hand, "Private Practice" is getting hit for being too light [when it debuted softly as a "Grey's" episode in the spring]. Obviously, the goal is to hit that sweet middle spot. "Buffy" had a huge backlash in season six, when Buffy went to that really dark place and that Spike [tryst]. We took so much heat. People hated it. [But] in hindsight, people liked what has happening.

Q. Is the growth of strong women on TV reflected by strong women behind the scenes?

A. TV is a great place for women to write. In movies, it's so rare you can write for a female protagonist, outside of indie movies. ... Women have so much authority [in TV]. I work for a lot of female executives.

- - -

ALSO NEW

"Bionic Woman" (8 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): Jaime Sommers returns to TV 30 years after Lindsay Wagner played the woman who was built faster and stronger. Michelle Ryan steps into the role fairly well but is overshadowed in the ** debut by an apparently evil bionic woman played by "Battlestar Galactica's" Katee Sackhoff, who steals the show. Tonight, Jaime goes from bartender to bionic bartender. There is promise here, but it's off to just an OK start. The writing is even-keeled. The direction is capable.

"Life" (9 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): Here is a completely traditional- looking cop drama that doesn't do much fancy, but it's somehow an effective little ** show. Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) is a detective who was imprisoned wrongly, then he gets out and returns to crime-solving with a somewhat crazy, somewhat Zen approach. He has a habit of saying things aloud to himself, not realizing it. Lewis is quite good. And I like a fair amount of the writing, like when he says, "It's the universe that makes fun of us all," because "maybe it's insecure." It's a bit too conventional and could use some tinkering, but the real question is, will you take to its quirkiness?

"Dirty Sexy Money" (9:01 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): And now the most depressing part of my job, calling a TV series the worst new show of the fall season. Soapy "Dirty" is a terribly written, edited and acted melodrama about an idiot attorney named Dan (Peter Krause) who chooses to disrespect his good family life and his wife's intentions by taking over his father's horrible lawyer job, which appears to have killed the old man. So Dan works for the stupidest, richest, unsexiest and vilest family in New York. The patriarch (Donald Sutherland) is sketchy, but the kids are worse. They get arrested, get caught up in sex scandals, do drugs, decry enemies as being "poor" and have a bastard child despite being a married reverend. What makes this despicable is you're supposed sympathize with these dull nasties. Or, maybe the writers want you to love to hate them. I just hate to hate them. Zero stars.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 25, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'DIRTY SEXY MONEY' Zero stars

'Dirty Sexy Money," ABC's dull new drama starring Peter Krause ("Six Feet Under") and Donald Sutherland, contrives for your viewing displeasure one of the world's stupidest, richest and hate-worthy families called the Darlings. That could be fine if the show weren't a "Dallas"-type soap that asks us to sympathize with these clowns.

How vile is the Darling family? A journalist improbably says to one of them (a thespian), "The rumor is you can't act at all," and the Darling yells, "Well, you're poor!"

The Darlings are so depraved, their legal demands destroyed their lawyer's life. When that lawyer dies, his son Nick (Krause) goes to Dad's funeral and sees the Darlings wreck it with sneers.

"Please, God," Nick's wife says, "tell me we never have to see these people again."

"Done," Nick assures her with vigor.

So what does Nick do? A blink later, he takes over his dad's lawyerly job for the Darling family. But first, Nick turns down the offer with a moral speech.

"I really did have to share Dad with you guys, and I didn't like it. I won't do that to my wife, and I certainly won't do that to my daughter," he says.

Literally, 89 seconds later (I counted), Nick takes the job and forgets his wife and daughter. His resolve lasts one minute and 29 seconds. He doesn't talk about this career change with his betrothed. He doesn't talk it over with his stupid brain. He just bites.

On Wednesday's debut and one future episode, the show serves up a druggie, an arrestee, a politician's potential sex scandal, a tranny, an adult virgin, a death mystery, a sex tape, an overdose, a blackmail scheme and a catfight on a catwalk.

This family racks up more high-class problems in 12 hours than the Kennedys pile up in a year or 10. "Dirty Sexy Money" is so unconfident, it blends together every lame plot it can get its dirty unsexy money-grubbing hands on. How long before someone acquires amnesia?

Normally, I wait till a show ends before I figure how many stars to give it. But midway through watching "Dirty," I knew it was on the fence between zero stars and a half-star. I then wrote in my notes it would get zero stars if a scene arrived where a woman kissed Nick in a back room while his wife just happened to walk in at the exact wrong moment. Hey, wouldya look at that. Zero stars.

Here's another problem. Nick wants to know if the Darlings were involved in his father's death. But if he finds the family is implicated, he may have to compromise his attorney-client privilege, possibly spoiling any prosecutor's case. Nick should know this since, you know, he's a lawyer.

Co-creator Greg Berlanti has said he helped craft the show in the vein of "Dallas" and "Dynasty": "I probably represent the person who sort of watched more 'Dallas' than you humanly should.' "

I hated "Dallas" with the heat of a thousand suns.

Half the "Dirty Sexy" actors are terrible, terrible, terrible. And the first episode is glitzy, but production values drop fast after that.

If you suspect I'm merely being moralistic or anti-money, I'll point you to my devotion to Linda Fiorentino's "The Last Seduction," plus a bunch of movies and TV shows I love where anti-heroic villains are rich and compelling in sketchy touches of evil.

The tone of "Dirty Sexy Money" is, however: Hey, here are some boring, entitled rich people who you should think are super cool merely because they're wacky and wealthy!

No. I choose no.

If "Dirty Sexy Money" --the worst new show of the fall -- sticks around and remains this dreary, I will find solace only in that it puts Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh (playing the parents) in small, cardboard roles they salvage with mad skills. Krause and William Baldwin (as a tranny-loving Senate candidate) are fine, too.

But anything good here is negated by a corruption of creativity and trite and tiresome execution. It's like this: If you toss good food into a sewer, it is good no more. It is garbage by association. A waste.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 24, 2007 by Doug Elfman

'JOURNEYMAN' Rating 2 out of 4

NBC's new "Journeyman" is about time travel. I don't think I'm alone with this thought, but if I could travel back in time, I'd buy stocks and lottery tickets. I'd gamble on Super Bowls. I'd punch a few people in the face. And I'd probably track down women before they became famous, and give them a shot.

I'm just sayin'. I'm sure you're a much nicer person than me and you wouldn't do any of those things.

Of course, maybe the universe would force me to be altruistic somehow. That's certainly the case with "Journeyman," which debuts tonight after the season opener of "Heroes."

This newspaper reporter named Dan (Kevin McKidd) suddenly starts transporting to moments in the past, and he is confused, naturally. Dan does figure out he's being placed at hairy scenes in his native San Francisco, and he tries his darned-tootin'-est to stop someone from dying.

The basic premise is a cousin of "Quantum Leap" (some compare it the romantic novel The Time Traveler's Wife) except Dan can travel back only to years when he was alive. And he doesn't have a sidekick telling him what his mysterious mission is.

Dan faces dilemmas. He can't control when he leaps, so he'll be driving a car and, poof, he's gone, and the driverless car goes careening into a wreck.

And if Dan visits 1987 for six hours, he is absent from the present for six hours. It's nice to see a time-traveling fiction, for once, where people essentially disappear, leaving others to think: Hey, have you seen Dan? I wonder if he's off on a bender!

Time-travel fiction is almost always romanticized, since love is not bound by time yada yada, so there's romance afoot here. Dan loves his wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf), and he tries to convince her of his newfound oddity.

But when he goes to the past, he runs into his ex-love Livia (Moon Bloodgood), whom he once mourned after her plane crashed. This makes Dan feel strange and gives him that sad-bastard sensitive thing the ladies allegedly love.

What's good: McKidd (last seen as Lucius Vorenus in HBO's "Rome") commits nicely to the role, and there's a pleasant payoff to the plot. There's promise here.

What's bad: The dramatic structure is overorganized around the linear detective-ing, and the show's too Dan-centric without a "Quantum Leap"-like partner to spice things up. It's always Dan, Dan, Dan -- looking forlorn, looking confused, looking determined. It's rare when one guy can carry a whole dramatic fiction like this as, say, Terence Stamp did in Steven Soderbergh's li'l classic, "The Limey."

That's why "Back to the Future's" Marty McFly had Doc, and the most excellent, adventurous Bill had Ted. Buddies keep heroes in line. And as we all know by now, if I had been Marty without the moral voice of Doc, my bank account would be swollen with riches. And I'd have taken yoga classes with Naomi Watts.

That's just me.

A FEW WORDS FROM STAR KEVIN MCKIDD

On what he'd change if he could visit the past: "Some of those hairdos I had in the '80s [as in 'Trainspotting']: That wavy long hair is not a good look."

On HBO's "Rome": "It was never meant to last beyond a few seasons, I think, because it was a special show. If it had gone on five seasons, it would have diluted itself. ... But they are talking about a movie version to say goodbye to it. We all felt there was one more story to tell, so we're keeping our fingers crossed."

On being a Scot in an American show: "A lot of [non-American] actors say they're going to stay in the accent all the time. For me, I can't do that. It's too much like hard work. I don't feel like I need that. I feel like I can jump in and out of the accent."

ALSO NEW

"Chuck" (7 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): "Alias" meets "The Spy Who Knew Too Little" in this new **** hourlong comedy where a Best Buy-type employee becomes an accidental super-brainy spy. Cute, creative and slick, this is one of the best new shows of the fall season. Charming lead Zachary Levi could become a breakout star. There's a hot woman in lingerie. And Adam Baldwin is typically strong as the heavy.

"The Big Bang Theory" (7:30 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): This is one of the only traditional/quippy new sitcoms. The ** show finds two young physicists living together, trying to impress their dumb blond neighbor in front of a studio audience. As far as junk like this goes, it's not heinous and has moments of OK-ness. But yeah, you're better off watching "Chuck," which is much cooler.

My full reviews of these shows ran Sunday and can be seen at suntimes.com.

SEASON PREMIERES

"How I Met Your Mother" (7 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): Robin gets a new lovah, as played by Enrique Iglesias. Ted goes for a woman who looks just like Mandy Moore, since she's played by Mandy Moore.

"Dancing With the Stars" (7-8:30 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): The new "stars" include Mel "Scary Spice" Brown, Jennie Garth, Marie Osmond, Jane Seymour, Wayne Newton, Sabrina Bryan and Mark Cuban. My money is on ... Scary Spice. She can dance.

"Heroes" (8 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): The reason for the season of sci-fi at NBC begins its second year. We'll find out what happened four months after May's season finale, when it appeared the super brothers blew up in the air, saving New York from exploding, and evil Sylar seemed to die (sorta). Hiro begins in feudal Japan. I'll let you discover the rest for yourself.

"Two and a Half Men" (8 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): Can you believe this show is starting a fifth season? And it's the best-rated comedy on TV? Craziness. Jake starts junior high. I know you won't believe this, but Alan and Charlie will attempt to be helpful, yet they actually will make things worse.

"Rules of Engagement" (8:30 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): As the second season starts, Jeff and Audrey deal with snoring in their relationship.

"The Bachelor" (8:30-10 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): The 11th single bachelor who has never been married, at age 34, is a business dude from Texas. Tonight, he dumps 10 of the first 25 women looking for love in definitely the wrong place, after ABC shows us which ones make asses of themselves the most.

"CSI: Miami" (9 p.m., WBBM-Channel 2): Sixth season starts. Horatio takes off his sunglasses. Puts them on. Takes them off. And he thinks a suspect is his son.

Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 23, 2007

'THE BIG BANG THEORY' Rating 2 1/2 out of 4

'CHUCK' Rating 4 out of 4

Can a dork score a girl? This depends on which new TV show you watch during the fall season of dorks, geeks and nerds.

If you turn on NBCs "Chuck," you'll see a tall, strapping young man who becomes not only an accidental spy/brainiac, but also the dorky object of beautiful female affections.

But if you watch CBS's "The Big Bang Theory," you'll see socially awkward science geeks who play "Klingon Boggle" and fail to effectively chat up a naked blonde in their own apartment.

What's going on here?

"Dork is the new cool," says Zachary Levi, who plays Chuck.

And Hollywood wants to capitalize using different tacks.

NBC follows the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" approach with "Chuck" (as does the CW's "Reaper") by making characters sexually robust and embraceable by dorky viewers who will immediately understand certain jokes, such as: "I'm working on a five-year plan, I just need to choose a font."

And there's no studio audience to pass judgment on "Chuck."

By contrast, "Big Bang Theory" goes the "Frasier" route and portrays geeks as wimpy smartypants who make others bristle at their intellectual flatness.
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One "Big Banger" brags: "I have 212 friends on MySpace." Another responds in this obvious, already old joke: "Yes, and you've never met one of them."

"Bang" characters explain their geeky jokes aloud, so a studio audience and non-dork viewers at home can laugh at them, not with them.

In other words, everything about "Chuck" is new and warm. Everything about "Big Bang Theory" is traditional and cold.

They're both well-crafted comedies for what they are. But if you enjoy one and not the other, this might say something about who you are and the current state of your relationship with dorkiness.

As for me, I'm a "Chuck" man. For the most part, the premiere episode is entertaining in big chunks, and merely stupidly absurd in a few dumb scenes. The writing is crisp, the direction is nimble, and all the actors inhabit their roles perfectly.

"Chuck" is a computer tech in a Best Buy-like store called Buy More. One day, he watches hours of visuals sent to him by e-mail, and this turns his brain into a vat of national secrets.

Soon enough, the CIA and NSA will turn him into an accidental spy who knows too much.

Chuck is a charming guy, due to a humble but confident performance by Zachary Levi, the center of the action comedy featuring a certain amount of "Alias"-like sleekness.

Chuck is fairly representative of America's "quarter-life crisis," in which some "kids that are 24, 25 years old" are working in "big box" stores, producer McG says.

And "Chuck" may serve as wish fulfillment for video gamers, as Levi said during show promotions:

"We play these video games so that we can go on these missions in our head," he said. "Now, we get like, 'Oh, please let me shoot a gun. Please let me be in a car accident. I want to do it. Throw me out of the helicopter, please.' "

The female co-lead is a Third Wave Feminist, as McG identifies her. Sarah (Yvonne Strzechowski) not only looks fit in boy shorts and a bra, she's a whipsmart CIA agent who can dance suggestively at a club while simultaneously throwing knives accurately at men swarming toward her.

Now, compare all that to "Big Bang Theory," in which the writing is quick, the direction is adroit and the actors find their voices quickly -- but there's nothing much fresh in the setup.

Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki from "Roseanne") are physicists who meet a dumb blonde neighbor they desire named Penny (Kaley Cuoco, "Eight Simple Rules"). They stumble over their words. She smiles at them pitifully.

The tone is theatrical American farce; Parsons most resembles Niles from "Frasier." Galecki gives Leonard a bit more social grace. But neither knows how to flirt with Penny, except to entice her to dinner with science riddles and an offer of a "clean colon."

It's interesting to note that co-creator Bill Prady is a brainiac who, while promoting the show, said he never had the girl problems his characters have.

"I'm a married man, and I've been very successful with women, and I don't need to have my wishes fulfilled on television," he said.

But if people like Prady and my dad [a physicist] and many other dorks have been able to get girls, why do these "Big Bang" geeks have to be social losers in a traditional sitcom way?

One answer may be that "Big Bang Theory's" network, CBS, has an older audience. Older viewers, a presumption goes, are drawn to older TV formulas like dumb blondes and nutty professors.

ABC and NBC, on the other hand, attract younger viewers and have moved away from studio audiences and the notion that intellectuals, dorks and blondes are primarily to be made fun of.

So maybe Prady was a dork, but so was McG, who is a little more giving with his characters:

"That's my inner nerd as a guy who went to high school; I graduated 5-foot-2, orange Afro, braces -- and shoe skates. I never had one date, and you'd always dream about empowered women sort of giving you the time of day."

McG, you know, directed "Charlie's Angels." This wasn't revenge of a nerd. It was a sign of the times: Dorks have style and they get girls, so let's get on with it, shall we?